Don't hate the game

Don’t hate the game:

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Don’t hate the game.

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Figure out what game you’re playing.

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Understand it.

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See it.

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Learn from it.

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We’re all playing a different game.

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For some of us, it’s the money game.

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Others the status game.

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Some the materialism game.

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Others the experience game.

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Some the family game.

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Others the work game.

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All of us are playing a game.

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But we often don’t think about which one.

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Here’s how you do.

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What are you optimizing for?

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What is your grand goal in life?

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Why do you get up in the morning and go to work?

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Is it to earn money?

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To achieve status?

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To get your kids to respect you?

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Why do you get up?

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Once you’ve asked yourself this question, you begin to reflect on where you are.

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Most of us go through life as zombies.

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Moving from one place to the next often without thinking.

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It’s school to job to marriage to kids to retirement to death.

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That’s the game, right?

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The ones our parents and society have convinced us we’re playing.

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But, that doesn’t have to be the game.

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It doesn’t have to be your game.

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Your game can be different.

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You can choose to optimize for anything you want.

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If it’s storytelling, you can do that.

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If it’s creating art, that’s an option too.

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If it’s making an impact, go for it.

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You can optimize for anything you want.

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But, be careful what you optimize for.

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Money is a fool’s errand.

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You will never have enough if you optimize for that game.

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Status is another one.

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Someone will always be ahead of you.

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Always.

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By comparing yourself to those ahead, you’ll be miserable.

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Saw a story on Twitter recently about a family worth 50 million dollars.

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They lived in a multi-million dollar mansion.

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Owned everything they ever wanted.

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And yet, they were miserable.

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Why?

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Because they lived around people who earned double or triple them.

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They had more expensive stuff.

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The game of comparison robbed them of their happiness.

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Be careful which game you play.

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Because you may end up hating it.

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But, we’re all playing a game.

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Don’t hate the game.

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Figure out which one you’re playing and which one you want to win.

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