TPL #14: How to Play Life as a Single Player Game

I recently listened to a recording of Naval Ravikant talking about life as a single-player game.

If you haven't heard of Naval, he's basically a modern sage.

He's a silicon valley entrepreneur and investor, and his tweets are so good that somebody wrote a book compiling the best of them.

His short clip describing the "single-player game" approach to life is full of practical wisdom.

I love the idea of life as a single-player game, and I want to share how I plan on taking the single-player game approach to life primarily based on insights from Naval.

Naval's Advice For the Single-Player Game

Naval suggests this is a practical approach to life because it's true.

Life is inherently a single-player game — we live with our individual interpretations of the world and our unique mindsets.

We enter and leave the world alone, and our actions will be forgotten in a few generations. There is no such thing as an objective meaning to life.

This isn't to say that life is meaningless, but rather that you get to create your meaning.

Understanding this shouldn't be depressing; it's incredibly freeing.

You get to decide on the meaning of your life and your game's conditions.

Naval has several suggestions for how to interpret your single-player game:

1. You should aim to align your game as closely with reality as possible to reduce the chances of mistakes.

2. You should interpret the game positively because unless you're in a philosophical debate, we all agree that positive experiences are better than negative ones.

3. You should choose a meaning that will "self-actualize you against your natural talents." Choose a game of things you enjoy, get you in flow, and allow you to be of service and create value.

4. You should play a game that favors the long-term over short-term wins.

5. Interpret your game in a way that best helps you win. For example, instead of playing the victim role, you're better off saying: "I choose to rise out of that; I choose to reinterpret that."

How can you go about framing your life as a single-player game?

You start by adopting some standard conditions for games.

The Victory Condition

You need to know why you're playing a game for it to be interesting.

You need to know how to win.

This is your game — you get to design the board, the challenge, and the victory condition.

In the single-player game of life, you win when you get what you want out of this wild experience of being a human.

The first step to playing the game is figuring out what you truly want.

This part is deceivingly tricky — it's hard to parse out your desires from the generic desires of society or from the desires you see in your peers.

There are also desires by proxy — you may believe you want something, but in reality, it stands for something more profound.

Money is a good example.

Everyone would like more money, but no one wants to get rich to be rich.

They want something that becoming rich provides them.

It might be status.

Respect.

Comfort.

Security.

Freedom.

One of Naval's most famous tweets is:

He breaks this down into two points: being able to "hack reality" to get what you want and whether you were "smart enough to figure out what to want in the first place."

You need to figure out what is worth wanting and realize that not wanting something is as good as getting it.

Spend some time on this—journal about what you want.

More importantly, journal about what you don't want out of life (the negative is always more profound).

Go several levels deep with your why.

Create a vision for the most meaningful experience you can create in your time here on Earth.

This is your victory condition.

When you create your vision, you know how you win.

The Rules

A game without rules is a boring game.

Humans instinctively know that complete freedom backfires on us — we crave rules and structure. Think about all the rules that exist in religions.

Islam requires daily morning prayer.

Jewish people who observe the Shabbat can't interact with electricity on Saturday.

As former Navy Seal Jocko Willink says: "Discipline equals freedom."

It's a weird quirk of humans that we feel our best when we're disciplined and doing hard things, but it's true.

I can't tell you what rules to include in your game, but you need some rules.

• I have rules for how I eat and sleep.

• I have a rule that I need to create for at least 1 hour every day.

• I have a rule that I need to exercise every day.

I have a few more daily musts, and I'll add more rules as I get further along in my game.

The only rule for your rules is that they should align with achieving your victory condition (unless you want to play an incoherent game, which is entirely within your right as game master).

The Levels and Bosses

I was a weird millennial kid in that I never got too into video games.

But I did play them enough to know that there's a Boss at the end of every level.

A Boss is a final entity that stands between you and reaching the next level.

You will move through different levels as you progress toward your victory condition. Your levels represent a specific stage of personal growth and accomplishment.

And guarding against each level will be a formidable challenge that will force you to step out of your comfort zone.

These challenges are the Bosses.

The next level could be a career move or starting your own business. It could be cultivating habits you know will serve you and abandoning those that hold you back.

As a journaling exercise, meditate on these questions:

• What level are you currently on?

• What is the next level?

• What is the boss you'll have to defeat to move to the next level?

The boss could be quitting your job so you can start your business.

Or it's finally creating content online.

It could be getting out of a toxic relationship or moving to a new city.

Whatever it is, it won't be easy.

Bosses never are.

In the single-player interpretation, life is a blank canvas. You get to define the victory, set the rules, and establish the different levels and bosses you'll face.

When you choose to play the game, you choose to live meaningfully. There may not be an objective meaning to life, but there is meaning in how you play the game.

Don't focus on the external conditions that keep you back. Take ownership of your life.

You're the game master.

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