There’s a theory out there that suggests that if you treat life like a game, then you have a chance at winning it. If you don’t play the game willingly, you’re not going to do very well.

What does this look like? Well, I’ll explain it to you in video game terms.

You’re spawned into Earth. You didn’t seem to choose the life you have, nor did you seem to consent to it. Yet, here you are.

Learning the hard way seems to be the only way any of us get by in our first years of the game (of Life). Then, we form opinions about it and figure out better ways to do things.

Ways that we like. Life hacks. Whatever makes your life easier, because Life seems to be hard.

Then you got to an age where you had to start working for money.

The currency that you’re supposed to use doesn’t come easy, either – initially, you have to get a lot of experience just like everybody else. Sometimes you’re in a position that you’re doing better than others.

One day, you ask yourself, “What’s the point of it all?” You get no answer, probably because there isn’t any.

You try religion. Maybe drugs. Possibly a few bad relationships. None of it works.

BUT, then you discover that you can treat Life like a game…and all of a sudden, your paradigm of how to work your way through life changes.

In fact, Life now has levels, missions, points (money), quests, and it’s a giant MMORPG where there are no rules except the laws of your country and the social expectations that players seem to follow.

Treating Life as a Game

Here’s my approach to the game of Life.

If you’ve ever played open-world games like Star Citizen – one of my favorites, although you can’t just go “buy” the game – then you know that you have limitations just like any other game. However, the possibilities of what you can do in that game are unparalleled.

Life itself is pretty similar. There are physical laws that we have to obey, but the possibilities are pretty endless. There’s some pretty meta games out there that imitate such life like the Sims.

I always wondered, Why don’t I just go ahead and treat Life like a game? and one day I decided that this is how I would approach it.

Well…things got interesting almost immediately for me.

Instead of viewing Life as a boring experience that I have to trudge my way through, I decided to grab the controller myself and play strategically.

Granted, Life is extremely immersive. You have only one life; if you die the game is over permanently.

The above GIF is from a show that I enjoy called Rick and Morty. In the show, there is an alien game where you play a character named “Roy”, and you play in first person as if you were him.

What if our lives were like this, and we were being played by some kind of creature…

…nah, that’s just too weird. But, it definitely begs the question: why don’t we just enjoy our lives like a game instead of feeling like we’re stuck on Earth with no purpose?

Leveling Up

The more points you get in Life, the better it seems to get.

The points I refer to here are the in-game currency…money.

So, think of money like a way to get better at the game of Life, not as a medium of day-to-day survival.

The better you get at Life, the more money you’ll make. You do this by providing things to other players that they’re willing to trade their points for.

Do this on a massive scale…well, then you make more money. How do you do this? Easy…

START A BUSINESS.

Instead of being someone who works for a business, become the business owner in-game.

It’s going to take effort, and it’s not easy at first. But, you learn as you play, and you might just get REALLY good at it as you learn and grow.

Learning To Conquer the Game of Life

There are different kinds of games out there – specifically, I’m referring to video games.

You have puzzle games, first-person shooter (FPS) games, building games (think Minecraft), networking games (think Second Life), music games (like Guitar Hero), multi-feature games with various points of view and missions (think Grand Theft Auto series), and more.

Life is unique – it’s meta because it literally CREATES ITSELF. It’s the ultimate procedural generation game in a fixed-world environment on a planet (like a server).

And, as the game progresses, we’re working toward LEAVING THIS PLANET and finding other servers. It’s a bit nutty if you think about it.

So, in essence, you’ll need to discover the Game of Life and change your perspective to view it as such day in and day out. We’ve beaten a majority of the dangers that the server game environment threw at us; wolves, bears, diseases, dangerous weather, and others have largely been controlled by the players throughout the game’s history for the rest of us.

It’s safe enough now to go out and start carving out your own little place in the game of Life.