For over 150 years, American friends and families have gathered around their kitchen tables to play a fun and competitive board game, that is built upon the premise of achieving the goals we aim to achieve in the real world, known as The Game of Life. After deciding which career path to follow, the game’s instructions tell us, players then proceed through life’s most important stages where they have the chance to get married, have kids, trade stocks, and invest, all with hopes of accumulating ample amounts of money when it comes time to retire.
While it should be quite easy to see how The Game of Life outlines the real-world journey that each of us embarks on during our lifetimes, less apparent to notice is how we similarly fail to recognize a number of life’s most important lessons, the ones that allow us to truly succeed when playing the game in the real world.
Despite the fact that each of us comes to believe that our propensity to ‘win’ is based upon our successes, material possessions, and financial well-being, the truth of the matter is that because of the impermanent nature of reality, it’s ultimately impossible to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. Just as our reputation, professional titles, and money vanish when we close the box of the legendary board game, our real-world social status, career accolades, and bank account will one day do the same. This means that if we truly desire to win the seemingly unwinnable game of real life, a new approach based on universal wisdom must be taken.
What is The Ultimate Aim of Life:
To discover how we can do the seemingly impossible and win the unwinnable game of real life, we first need to realize that every decision we make and action we take is done so with the ultimate goal of fulfillment in mind. Regardless of if we are seeking a new relationship, going back to school for a second degree or systematically climbing the corporate latter, the underlying drive is to become fully satisfied with ourselves and our world. As His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, a man who’s globally revered for his psychological insights, tells us:
The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”
The Impermanent Inevitably Leads to Disappointment:
Fortunately, because critical thinking and analytic reasoning are also new evolutionary faculties we enjoy, we have the ability to freely observe, analyze, challenge and change problematic ways of thinking. By examining how we go about creating the life-satisfaction we seek at the deepest level of our beings, we can come to discover that the status, relationships, wealth and possessions we assume make us happy are ultimately impermanent and inevitably leave us unfulfilled. The fancy car we’ve dreamed of owning eventually breaks down, we come to find out that the dreamy partner has their own flaws, the pay raise we joyously celebrate soon doesn’t seem like enough, and once again we’re back at square one. It is directly because of the impermanent nature of reality, and our faulty idea that true happiness can be found in impermanent things, that our hopeless grasps to find fulfillment in them always come up empty. It’s precisely because the things we desire continuously change and the pleasurable feelings they create eventually wain, that the game of life remains unwinnable when we play it the way we’re accustomed to. The celebrated Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahh tells us:
It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.”
Developing the Wisdom to Win the Game of Real Life:
Perhaps there isn’t a better example of someone who developed the wisdom to win the game of real life than that the late great Vipassana Meditation teacher S.N. Goenka. Like all too many individuals, Goenka spent the early years of his life chasing financial prosperity while thinking a lavish lifestyle would make him fulfilled. Despite the fact that the successes came early and often for Goenka, who was one of Burma’s most successful businessmen at only 31 years old, he never felt fully satisfied and pressed on towards loftier aims. Unsurprisingly, a lifestyle of overworking himself into the ground eventually caught up to him and cumulated in a bout against persistent and severe migraine headaches. It was only after failing to find relief through modern medical treatment options that Goenka sought out the ancient practice of Vipassana Meditation which is based upon the idea that individuals become attached to pleasurable bodily sensations and driven to create a state where only pleasurable feelings exist. To counteract this faulty perception which tells us we can be unceasingly fulfilled by finding and living with only positive experiences, people and things, Vipassana meditators focus on developing awareness to observe their bodily sensations while remaining equanimous towards both pleasurable and painful feelings. As one of history’s truly iconic meditation masters found out, it’s only possible to create the fulfillment that we seek by developing acceptance and indifference towards the impermanence of the world. He told us:
Real wisdom is recognizing and accepting that every experience is impermanent. With this insight you will not be overwhelmed by ups and downs. And when you are able to maintain an inner balance, you can choose to act in ways that will create happiness for you and for others. Living each moment happily with an equanimous mind, you will surely progress toward the ultimate goal of liberation from all suffering.”
Pursing Meaningful Goals Detached From Outcomes:
In addition to developing intelligence indifference towards each and every life experience, there are a number of other important truths to learn and beneficial steps to take which can further improve our ability to win the game of real life. First, it’s important to realize that although we assume our fulfillment is based upon what we acquire and obtain for ourselves, just as much happiness, if not more, is created when we act compassionately and give to others. Second, to find the levels of life satisfaction that we crave at the deepest level of our beings, it’ll be vital to prioritize our most important relationships, rather than success and work, and also spend our resources on memorable life experiences rather than material things. After realizing the immense role that these two factors play in creating happiness, we can then begin to examine, critique and alter our goals in a way that naturally leads to fulfillment. Lastly, because everything in this universe is impermanent in nature, including ourselves, it’s vital that we strive to get the most out of the limited days we have on this Earth Day. As the legendary Thai Forest monk Ajahn Chan told us:
One day some people came to the master and asked: How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness or death? The master held up a glass and said: Someone gave me this glass; It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it – increibly.”