5 Reasons Not to Turn Your Life into Fun Games
And one reason to do it.
The world, as we know it, came to an end. And not because crises and pandemics surround us. These rather support the fears of the cultures of survival, seriosity, and protectiveness, most of us grew up with.
No, the end of the world comes with how our children are educated today, how we are motivated at the workplace, how “suddenly” empathy, awareness, kindness, honesty, and helpfulness are valued more than ambition and competition.
And goodness forbid, gamefulness and playfulness! Did you know that there are a scientific field and even an industry of gamification? There is even a “serious” research lab at MIT calling themselves Lifelong Kindergarten group. Really!
But aren’t games silly? Aren’t we supposed to be serious about our goals in life?
Full disclosure: No, I don’t believe so. In fact, I think that this seriousness is nothing else than drama, with which we cover our fear to both succeed and fail and which we tap from when we procrastinate what we want to achieve.
There is fundamental wisdom in gamefulness and playfulness, which is visible through centuries and even millennia.
That wisdom helped many people to turn their lives into exciting games, either consciously or subconsciously. And if you look at the world around you non-judgmentally, you will see kindness, humor, curiosity, and passion going along with genuine success nowadays. And those are innate in games and play!
And still, you might have reasons not to turn your life or a specific activity, which you take particularly seriously, into games.
You might:
- Want to escape everyday challenges,
- Want to give up your current job, company, or relationship(s),
- Seek a quick-fix, one-time happiness “pill” to solve all your problems,
- Think that hard work and being serious is essential and that having fun is a flaw, or
- Despise games and believe there is nothing worth learning from them.
Speaking of despising games and their primary goal of bringing fun and making us happy, do you perhaps think all this gamification “stuff” is nonsense and that life is not a matter of enjoyment? That life is a torment, through which we must fight until the end? That life is unfair?
Then turning life into fun games is not for you.
However, if you ever, ever enjoyed a game or play in your life — and I bet you did — then turning life into exciting games is worth it.
You deserve it!
This story includes an excerpt from Self-Gamification Happiness Formula: How to Turn Your Life into Fun Games.
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