The Game Of Life

Life Is A Game

… until it isn’t.

Teachers from various fields of personal growth and smart (sounding) people from all walks of life have been comparing life to games for ages. What used to be chess or poker is now a video game.

You are steering your own avatar through different levels, trying to solve problems, always improving your own capacities, knowledge and skills. You are out there fighting different challenges, re-attempting the ones you’ve failed at before — getting rewards along the way.

In short, you are progressing through a world while developing your avatar.

I do in fact believe that this analogy can be very useful in certain contexts — especially when it comes to developing a different perspective on problems or re-calibrating your mindset that guides your day-to-day decision making.

But the analogy breaks down in four important ways:

As opposed to progress in most video games, real life growth often is unnoticeable, non-linear, fluid and limitless.

Un-noticeability

What constitutes personal growth can sometimes only be understood in retrospect. You might go through a phase of perceived stagnation, maybe triggered by the ending of a relationship or the loss of a job — only to…