The Impact of Playing an Infinite Game
One of the things I’ve noticed a lot recently is how people are so focused on an outcome that they forget to enjoy what’s right in front of them. It’s like we put our life on hold until we’ve achieved that thing. Can anyone relate to this? I know I’ve been there before. In fact, much of my life was riddled with this way of being. Work hard and then you’ll be happy. Be thin and then you’ll get the man. Once you get promoted then you’ll be happy. Once you hit this goal in your business then you can celebrate. Contort yourself so everyone likes you and then life will be good. What I notice is that in a culture that’s so obsessed with the outcome or winning, we’re ultimately losing ourselves. We lose our connection to ourselves, to our peers, to our friends and most importantly to joy.
In a world where we’re always chasing that next high, we become completely blind to the magic that is right in front of us. We lose sight of the extraordinary that’s in the ordinary. We lose sight of the joy that’s in the individual moments that our life is made of. We give into a finite life. A life with a beginning and an end where the only thing we’re focused on is winning.
I recently read Simon Sinek’s newest book, The Infinite Game and in the book he presents the idea that life is actually an infinite game in which the goal is to stay in the game, rather than a finite game where the goal is to win or lose. As someone who has spent much of her life trying to “win” and avoiding the pain of “losing” this concept provides so much freedom. Freedom to get messy. Freedom to try things I may have never tried before. Freedom to fail. Freedom to have the courage to do hard things.
By viewing life from an infinite perspective it allows us the freedom to have the good days and the bad days and it actually doesn’t even matter because in an infinite game behind every bad day you’re bound to follow it up at some point with a good day. By relating to life from an infinite place, it’s no longer about arriving somewhere it’s about emerging from a beautiful life that you’re creating. If life is infinite than it allows you to celebrate the small and big moments in life, it allows you to be more present in life, it allows you to be the experience of joy right now instead of when you’ve accomplished that thing.
One of my teachers once shared that, “We’re not here to win at the game of life, we’re here to emerge from the game of life”. So what would it take for you to emerge from the game of life? To rise from the ashes? To soar higher than you’ve ever soared? To laugh harder than you’ve ever laughed? To listen deeper than you’ve ever listened? To experience more joy than you’ve ever experienced?
Now to me, that is a life worth living and there is room for us all. No winners and no losers because we’re all playing an infinite game.
Big love! xx