Play In The Right Game

The world is very good at teaching us to be better at the game, isn’t it?

Build better habits, they say. Sharpen your skills. Churn out more work. Create more efficient systems for moving through the to-do list.

What it’s less good at — what I realise almost nobody pauses to ask — is whether we’re playing the right game in the first place.

I often think about this. When I look at people or speak to friends who are considered, by society’s standards, as being successful, accomplished and capable, I get a quiet sense that perhaps, the picture may not be as pretty as it looks. It is not quite burnout nor unhappiness in an obvious way, but something a bit harder to put my finger on.

A feeling of being optimised and competent at a job - but to what end? A thought that maybe, there is something more, a somewhere else they would rather be.

That latter thought is a familiar one for me. It usually surfaces when the grind gets a bit too overwhelming, I feel pulled towards many demands, and I stop to catch my breath. The noise drops briefly and I ask myself: is this where I actually want to be going?

It is easy to move past that moment quickly. The question feels dangerous, almost like opening Pandora’s Box. But I think that question — uncomfortable as it is — might be one of the most important questions a person can sit with. Not to answer immediately or act on rashly. Just to let it exist, and to take it seriously enough not to keep deferring it indefinitely.

The real skill in playing the game, it seems to me, isn’t in optimising my time or energy.

It’s knowing what I should be giving my very finite time and energy to in the first place.

Do you?

Have a restful Monday.

- Audra