It may seem as if I have been overusing the word “brilliant” lately, but some posts by authors I admire can only be described as brilliant and exceptional. And once again I am talking about Oliver Emberton, who has summed up perfectly what the game of life is about, looking at it quite literally as if it were a video game.
I couldn’t agree more with his point of view and with this strategy guide for winning the game. Here is his argument, step by step.
Real life is a game in which every player dies after roughly 29,000 days, about 80 years. That figure can go up or down, often depending on how we play.
Literally everyone is playing this game. It is not an easy game, but we are all obliged to play it and to learn the rules.
The first thing you need to know.
You may not have realised it, but real life is a strategy game. Within it there are various mini-games, such as dancing, driving, dating, sport and so on, but the key is managing your resources in order to win.
The most important thing.
Successful players tend to put their time into the right things. Later on the money game comes into play, and it is one of the hardest games of all, but your priority should always be mastering what you spend your time on.
1. Childhood
Life (the game) begins when you are assigned a random character and random circumstances: you don’t get to select your character.
The first 15 years or so of life are just learning quests imposed by others. We have no choice, and they eat up our time, but there is no way to skip these quests, so we should make the most of them and learn everything we can.
2. Young adulthood
As a young player you will have plenty of energy and time but practically no experience. The best jobs and possessions are locked to you. You still have to earn them.
This is the moment to level up your skills fast, because you will never have this much time and energy again. At this stage of the game, the strategy consists of allocating your time as well as you can. Everything you do will affect your stats and your skills.
Compare two ways of spending an evening. Programming gives you more programming skill, a better chance of a good job and sharper logic. Drinking costs you health, energy and money.
The problem is that you don’t always know which tasks to choose, and your body and mind don’t always obey your orders.
3. How to obey your own orders
Many people find that when they decide to do something, such as “I’m going to go for a run”, their body ignores them completely. This is because we all have a state that can’t be seen, made up of three bars: health, energy and willpower.
If your state is low in any of these areas, your body will disobey your own instructions. The most important of the three is willpower, because a lack of willpower can drag down the other two.
Sometimes, when we feel low on willpower and energy, the best thing may be to swap the television for exercise. We shared several tips for fighting a lack of willpower in a previous article (recommended).
An unwritten rule of the game of life is that we should never play on autopilot, because then, on the one hand, we get nothing done, and on the other, other people end up running our lives.
4. Choosing the right tasks
Keeping busy is important, but some choices are more productive than others, depending on what we spend our time on. For example, programming skill can lead to programmer, then to inventor of Facebook, then to millionaire.
Others, though, lead who knows where. The example here was, to put it politely, sitting around scratching yourself with both hands.
But the most effective thing is to combine skills, because it is very hard to be better than other players with a single skill. In fact, it is often impossible, so part of the secret lies in acquiring many skills that relate to one another and can add up to something much bigger. For example:
- Business + confidence + psychology = entrepreneur
- Cooking + dancing + psychology = a magnet for the ladies
5. Where you live
Your environment has a constant effect on your skills and on your chances of levelling up in this game. You can play from anywhere in the world, but winning is almost impossible in some places.
For example, if you are a woman and live in the wrong country, you won’t be able to unlock any achievements. And if you were born in the Horn of Africa, you probably won’t even make it past the first levels. Analyse your environment and the opportunities it offers. If things don’t look promising, you should know that your location is a multiplier or a divisor of your success. So consider moving early.
6. Finding a partner
Let’s say that part of the game is finding a second player. This is a mini-game within the game of life itself, although it is also very important, and it is a consequence of how we are playing. If you have great skills and good stats, you will be more attractive.
If, on the other hand, you are an irritable player with little sense of humour, you really aren’t very attractive.
Still, it is very normal to be rejected by other players in the early stages of the game. Here too willpower matters, and so does never giving up. But we also have to learn from our failures and work on improving ourselves. In other words, if you exercise, eat properly and are pleasant and sociable, you will increase your chances of doing lots of things with other players.
7. Money, money and money
Later in the game we have to manage a new resource called money, a part of the game that every player needs and that often brings more problems into the game, not fewer.
One of the most important rules about money is not to borrow it, unless you are borrowing for something that will bring you more money back. For example, money for education or training will indirectly bring more money back. On the other hand, taking out a loan to buy shoes or pay for a holiday may not be a good idea.
Depending on your ambitions, there are different strategies that other players have lived by.
Those who don’t chase money: a low-stress strategy in which we simply live within our means, save a little for financial storms, and that’s it. This strategy requires praying that no serious problems caused by other players come along and turn our life upside down. These players often help players with higher stats achieve their goals.
The rich: given that it is almost impossible to get rich working for someone else, you need to be very clear that wealth doesn’t come from the work we do but from the assets we own. Your own company is your biggest asset in this game.
(Read: Young and hungry for success? Follow these 3 words)
This game is unique and can’t be replayed
Always remember that in the game of life, once “Game Over” appears there are no more chances. So it is important to manage all our resources during our lifetime in a way that makes us feel happy and fulfilled, and, above all, so that as the end of the game draws near, we have no regrets.
Did I already mention that this post by Emberton is brilliant?
Read: 34 money lessons everyone should learn
Featured image: InclusiveGameLab, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
