The Game of Life - Are YOU Playing?

Have you ever noticed each day is filled with many scenes – the scene of the office, the scene of the kitchen, the scene of the church, the scene of the tennis court, the scene of the seminar, the scene of the classroom, the scene where another is in great emotional pain etc.  Every scene is an invitation and an opportunity to ‘play’ a different role affirming the oft quoted words of Shakespeare that ‘all the world’s a stage’ and we all get to play many parts…or something to that effect! 

But what is the right role to play in each particular scene?  And how do we play the role in the right way at the right moment?  These are not questions that we tend to ask ourselves.  How many roles can we play in our life?  As many as we want!  In fact we are not only going to ‘play’ our roles but we will ‘create’ our roles, which reminds us that life is essentially ‘playful’ and ‘creative’.  But what do we tend to do?  We tend to take life far too seriously.  We forget that life is simply a game, a play, in which the participants (us all) receive a priceless opportunity to be creative and playful. 

So why do we take life so seriously?  Why are we not as playful as we could be?  Why do we suppress our creativity?  Why can we not see life as a game?  Here are the seven possible reasons why we make the ‘busyness’ of our life a serious business!

1. Fixating on a ‘position’

We tend to see any so called ‘position’ in life as a fixed position.  If we are a manager we see our self as a manager only and forget that it’s just one of many roles that come with the position.  A ‘manager’ has the opportunity to be coach, trainer, teacher, counsellor, mentor, facilitator etc. depending on the need of the team and its members.  A ‘parent’ tends to see their position as ‘supreme controller’ and they can easily miss the opportunities to play companion, coach, teacher, playmate, advisor etc.  Even the role of ‘friend’ has many possibilities including confidante, companion, supporter, challenger etc.

2. Identifying with the role. 

Life becomes awful serious for many people because they identify themselves with the role.  They become ‘role conscious’. They start to believe they are the role which is like the actor on the stage believing they are the part they are playing.  Over time this tendency extends into trying to play the same role in all scenes which is to invite both disharmony and disconnection.  And when anything appears to threaten the role, as it must, they become fearful, defensive or aggressive because they take it personally.  Hence the seriousness of so many people in organisations who are almost trained to identify with their position which they then perceive as ‘permanent’.   They forget ‘I am not what I do’ and that nothing is permanent.   This is also why the life of many children is less than the happiest possible when the parent sees themselves only as ‘the parent’ around here, and therefore ‘the authority’ on everything … around here!  Perhaps this is why some parents are often not authorities on ‘having fun’!

3. The habit of self limitation says, “I can’t act”! 

If we have learned to limit ourselves in any way, and it seems the vast majority of us have, then we will likely believe we cannot be an actor who plays many roles.  We will justify and disguise our self-limitation by saying things like, “It’s unnatural to play many roles, you are not being authentic, you are deceiving others by not being your self”.  Ultimately it’s the same as “I can’t paint” or “I can’t write”.  The fatal belief that ‘I can’t’ signifies self-limitation.  Everyone can paint and everyone can write, although the quality may vary!  Everyone can act because we are all creators of actions.  Roles are simply created sets of mental and physical actions and, like anything else, can be learned.  And when learned they are not aspects of a false persona, they are simply abilities that have been developed to deal creatively, and therefore effectively, with the scenes of life and our immediate relationships in those scenes.

4. An education to be productive and not creative. 

It doesn’t help when our education systems generally prepare us to ‘produce and consume’ much more than ‘create and innovate.’  Many of us never fully recover from this aspect of our childhood and student ‘conditioning’ and therefore never fully realise our creative capacity.  ‘Possibility thinking’ is often never fully developed.  We don’t learn how to create the appropriate thoughts, attitudes and actions for the many possible roles we can potentially play.   Our creativity is suppressed as we are streamed into a society that requires people to fill a pre-assigned and pre-defined position and not play many roles.

 5. Games have winners and losers. 

When ‘game’ is mentioned as a possible metaphor for life some of us will automatically run away because game means competition and that means winners and losers.  The fear of losing paralyses our creativity and we shy away from full participation in life.  But life is not a game in the competitive sense but a game in the true sense – an activity filled with interactive fun and creative opportunity.  No one wins and no one loses.  To believe that they do is essentially an illusion.  It’s a powerful illusion that keeps many of us asleep and when we fall asleep to any illusion we suffer from diminished self-awareness.  Life as a competition is often one of the hardest misperceptions to shake off.

6. Someone else is responsible. 

When we still believe that life is not a creative process that comes from inside out, but something that ‘happens to us’ from outside in, we have still not realised our responsibility for our own life.  Only when complete self-responsibility is realised will the awareness of life as a creative process be fully restored to our consciousness.  Many of us take life too seriously simply because we perceive ourselves as victims. And if not our self then we may have learned to ‘identify with’ others as victims.  This perception of ones self is guaranteed to ensure our face remains long and our heart remains heavy.

7. “I don’t play games!”

If we watch our self in our more serious moments we may notice that we have developed a judgemental tendency towards others.  When we interpret others motives and behaviours as political games, games of manipulation and spin, games of attempting to keep others down, games that are designed to exploit and extract our money, games that are then dressed up as normal and part of life, we develop a cynical perspective and become disillusioned with life itself.  We lose faith that life is essentially benevolent.  We see it as a threat and perhaps a curse, and not as the joyful adventure it could be.  We are always wary and watching for how we may be taken advantage of by the ‘games’ of others.  In so doing we don’t even begin to think how we may live more creatively outside the box of this particular mindset.  The very idea of creating and playing many roles is then irrelevant, even distasteful.   And so our creative capacity is suppressed, or at best stunted.  Only a radical overhaul of our beliefs and perceptions will fix this.  All cynicism has to go if our creativity and playfulness are to return.  Only then can joy dance again within our heart.

Yes of course there many who are suffering, many who have barely enough to eat, many with little or no shelter.  It would seem that simply being playful and creative is not going to help them.  But then why are they in those circumstances?  Perhaps it’s because sometime, somewhere in the past, someone started to take life, for whatever reason (usually fear), far too seriously.  We may decide to make it one of our roles to help such people, in which case we will need to be very unserious in order to be creative resourceful) and playful (light) if we are to give them both help and hope.

(PS  - please don’t take all these questions too seriously, play with them, and see what arises in your mind and in your heart?)