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Life, like a game is lived with goals
A Published Article on August 6, 2008 by Phil House

In his recent book, When The Game Is Over It All Goes Back In The Box, John Ortberg uses the image of life as a game a the main image behind the book. He challenges the reader to realize that life, like a game, is moving toward a goal. Life requires each of us to develop strategies as we live it daily. The game does not go on forever and ultimately, like a board game, the pieces of the game eventually go back in the box.

This analogy of life as a game, one that has been recorded in literature by a number of authors for many years, has crept back into my mind numerous times in recent days with the reading of this book and there appear to be a few principles that can be applied to better living our lives.

Playing the game and being good at it are not necessarily bad things, but if you are not careful you will lose track of what really matters and find yourself focusing too much on the stuff and things of life, temporary payoffs. You might even discover that you are thinking and acting as though the game will never end. But one day it will stop for you and other people will keep on playing. Thus, each of us needs to choose to live thoughtfully, beginning today. We need to decide what makes up winning and losing in our life. We need to know this so we can decide how to play the game well.

Does winning include investing daily in your spouse, children, other family members and friends? Will things ever settle down enough at work so that you have time for yourself and others? Are you too busy? Are you devoting your life to the right things? You need to make a list of your priorities and then compare them to your current daily life. If they don’t match up, then you need to begin to make some decisions, and act on them, today.

I still want to please my parents, even though they are elderly, and my children want to please me. In turn, we want to know how we are doing. This began early in our lives. We all desire to know how we are doing. Scorekeeping runs deep in our nature and upbringing and is often based on comparison that is upward, lateral or downward. All three types of comparison have advantages and disadvantages and can result in thoughts and feelings of envy, competition, or arrogance and pride. A better way of scorekeeping might be to focus more on serving others and not worry so much, or spend so much time on keeping score. Our scorekeeping and how we do it helps to establish how we define success in our lives. Always comparing ourselves to others tends to reduce our thoughts and feelings of gratitude and reduces our perceived need to share of our resources and ourselves. It changes our focus in the game.

It is good to occasionally examine who you really are and shift your attention from the outer person playing the game to the inner person. I have lost a lot of brain, muscle and other cells as I have aged, and I am frequently reminded that as I am growing older I need to focus on inward character. Last week as I carried my backpack in the Beartooth mountains, I was especially aware of this, even though I am in relatively good shape for my age. This activity with its daily pain and stiffness, reminded me that I am growing and changing, and I really need to keep working on the inner game as well.

The decisions you make to play the game of life more wisely do not need to be particularly bright or extreme, but they need to be concrete and something you act upon. As you begin in small but certain ways to make thoughtful changes, you will discover that you are playing the game in a manner more in keeping with what really matters – to you and those you care about.

Play the game well, but play it wisely.

-Phil House, Psy.D.

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