LIFE
Success Goes To A Select Few Who Are Willing To Play the Long Game
What differentiates those who play the long game from those who don’t
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The easy way out is seductive. Who doesn’t want to win the lottery, pack it all up and fly off somewhere warm where they can just sip champagne on the beach every day?
Consumers live and die for the easy way. The short game. Fast food. Diet pills. One-touch technology.
The short game serves us:
- ATMs allow us to access cash at midnight
- Plastic surgeons allow us to skip the squats and buy the perfect body
- Amazon allows us to send the perfect gift overnight
- UberEats allows us to not have to meal prep during a busy week
The short game gets us from desire to desire-fulfilled in 3.5 seconds. It serves us because it satisfies a current craving. It fulfills a short term need.
The short game is currently the default way of existence. It is by design. Careful, strategic programming to make us want more, do more, buy more.
Some of us are playing the short game on autopilot. And when that happens, we are no longer playing the game, but being played by the short game.
The seduction, the contagion, keep us asking for more. This microwave is fast, but the other one is faster. This data package is good, but give me the one that’s better. This smartphone is new — but I really want the one that’s newer.
It’s the game of faster, newer, bigger, better.
It’s a game where the internal is the servant, and the external is the master.
The external is the master because it feeds consumption. It feeds workaholism. It feeds spending.
The external is the master because it keeps us in a cage. Trapped in this cage we give away our time. We give away our money. We trade in long term dreams for short term pleasures.
And for as long as the external is the master, giants win.
Goliath brings home the trophy while David takes the “L.”
