If life is a game, the battles are the conflicts between different potential versions of yourself: intentions and urges. Your fears and addictions are the bosses. You level-up into more freedom, a bigger life.
Whether it’s choosing to react with anger or compassion, to go on or give up, these conflicts are always happening. Should you choose, you can upgrade from a bystander to become a player in this game. It’s simple. All you have to do is try to win. Notice the conflict, the possibilities, and accept the invitation. You are not programmed by the world. There is a way to act differently, even react differently, and it is up to you to find it. This means that you are the owner of everything you do. Every win or loss is yours.
A player is always responsible for the result, not the game. A player is not lacking some essential quality, they simply haven’t figured it out yet. A player never, ever gives up. If they lose this time, they say, “Again! Next time, I’ll find a way to win.”
To become a good player is to develop the abilities to notice and handle increasingly subtle and stressful conflicts. You level-up to harder challenges: from going to the gym, to having a tough business conversation. You level-up to deeper challenges too: from outbursts of anger, to your bad attitude around a challenging family member.
Any conflict between intentions actually presents a two-part challenge: 1. Predicting the consequences of acting on each intention, and which intention is best. 2. Choosing and actually acting on the best intention.
People focus a lot more on #1. It’s easier to talk about and show off. #2 is an inner skill. But ask yourself: the parts of your life that aren’t progressing, is that because you don’t know which way to go, or because you aren’t taking that first step?
Often we find that our knowledge (#1) sticks and grows over time, but our self-mastery (#2) seem to fluctuate instead of growing. Do you see your ability to overcome internal conflict as a skill? We tend to rely on our environment to shape us, rather than mastering action as a skill we can take anywhere.
There are all kinds of challenges to be trained on in your daily life: some bad reactions are so fast you don’t catch them, some bad habits are so ingrained it’s torture to resist them, some fears are so subtle you’ve never even seen them pulling your strings.
There are all kinds of methods, and no single script. While there are tips and exercises, developing the skill of winning mental conflict is done through experimentation. The tactics that work are your fancy weapons & armor, and there’s no limit on what you can take with you, only what you remember to use.
Only by developing the skill to actually act on your best intentions can you ever experience the consequences of following them. If you don’t, you’ll become a clever fool, who’s heard a thousand stories but never seen anything for himself, still stuck in the beginner area.
