It’s the game we all play from sunrise to sundown, every single day. The current playground we’re on sets the following:
The plan is to play in another playground that sets the following:
And see if this playing field increases the probability of achieving the desired payoff.
Want to play in this playground? Then read on.
To make it more fun so those on the other playground switches to ours. Here’s how:
SUCCESS vs VALUE
Our emotions dictate what we value therefore forming our values w/c in turn becomes one’s road map to success. Most likely, success would mean a fancy car and a huge house that probably come with a butler named Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth. What these successful players do not take into account is that a group that’s eating pie|pizza is like a zero-sum game, i.e. the bigger your share is, the smaller there is for the others. The pie, like our resources are finite. A player’s share becomes smaller and smaller as others take bigger and bigger slices or when more and more players partake in its consumption.
This illustrates the gap we have now between players, wealth-wise as well as power-wise. This is the design flaw the architects of the current playground did not foresee. We can already see and experience around us the effects of this design. Its like a bridge that has visible buckling of gusset plates, cracks that span rivets or increasing gaps between expansion joints. All are incontrovertible signs of an impending collapse if left as is. This is the inevitable result of playing a zero-sum game.
What we need to aspire for is not to be successful but to be valuable. A valuable player is always taken cared of by the team, i.e. will always be reserved a slice of the pie. He doesn’t need to fight for it nor compromise his values for it. He is assured that the team has his back and vice versa. And he is valuable because his ambition is not for himself but for the team. A greater good that requires a sterner determination and stronger passion to give one’s all.
AUTHORITY and CONTROL vs EQUALITY and CHOICE
The nature of man is to survive and not to sacrifice. We relish fame and fortune and desire power and immortality. Fame, so one could gain influence. Power, so one could gain control in case influence is not enough. Immortality, so one’s name will be echoed through eternity. And Fortune, so one could buy all the former three. This is what is meant to survive and unfortunately its cost is shouldered by those who do not.
Our playground’s bed will be equality and we will nurture it with choice. To choose is to transcend, to be accountable is to progress. It’s where one’s voice weighs the same as everyone else’s and where control lies with the many and not with the few. Where power is not surrendered to an individual so all can have a say in choosing which path should be taken. Where we divide the house in order to unify a course of action. It’s a field where we relinquish our desire for control and where we abandon our attachment to fortune. Trust should not be placed on a piece of paper(money) being of value but instead be placed on each one of us being of value to one another and to the team. And lastly but more importantly, our field is where immortality is saught not for the entity but instead for the values it holds. This is our duty and our legacy.
ALWAYS TOGETHER, NEVER ALONE
We move forward ‘side by side’, we move up ‘hand and shoulder’. This is how we should play, i.e. one player moves up another level by standing on another’s shoulder and offers his hand to the former to lift him in order to level up. The design of our playground is for cultivating our collaborative instincts through competition and play which is only fun when we let go of our concerns, fears and expectations. And therefore is best done in an environment of trust and concern, i.e. in a group that always have your back and devoid of any ill or selfish intent. There is no ‘i’ in emergence.
A PLEA FOR SANITY
A strategy is just a specification of how to accomplish a goal, implying a hopefully favorable outcome after analysis and iterative refinement. So it is not assured that when applied, will produce the desired payoff. This is just an appeal for us to alter the playing field. A call to be bold, be brave, be different. For us to discover, to challenge and somehow give it meaning. Let us start playing in this field rather than continue on where we are now. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
So let’s collaborate, compete and play as one. Let’s ascertain that our core values gets handed down from one generation to the next. Let’s make this happen not only for ourselves but for everyone else. Let’s choose and tread this path together, side by side, hand and shoulder. The fun is in taking this journey together, the payoff is the meaning we get when we arrive.