Is life like football?
No. When you play football, you start and end the game with the same players. There are published rules. One team wins, and another loses; the scoreboard leaves no doubt which is which.
James Carse, a professor of religion at NYU, called football a “finite game.” A finite game has known players, agreed-upon rules, a way to keep score, and clear winners and losers. Your objective is to win.
Life isn’t like that. Life doesn’t have agreed-upon rules. New players can join at any time. People can leave the game, too. And because there is no clear way of keeping score, there are no winners and losers.
Life is what Carse called an “infinite game.” An infinite game has known and unknown players, and the rules can change. Your objective is to keep playing.
Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted
There’s a phrase I like that’s often attributed to Albert Einstein. “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Net worth can be counted. So can the number of properties you own. They’re important but not what people will remember most about you. Riches and achievements fall under the heading of what David Brooks called “resume virtues.” Living a life worth imitating means acquiring what Brooks named “the eulogy virtues.”
Living a Life Worth Imitating Is an Infinite Game
There’s no scorecard for living a life worth imitating. There’s no finish line, either. The people and situations around you will change again and again.
While pursuing a life worth imitating, you will play many finite games. Each of those will end, and you will be able to measure your outcome. How you conduct yourself will affect how you’re perceived, but there is no measuring scale for that.
How you live a life worth imitating depends on your values. You must decide what values you will model. You must choose how you want others to live and act because of our influence and example.
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Now it’s your turn. How do you play the infinite game of living a life worth imitating?
This post was adapted from my book, Building Legacy Wealth.
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Terry Moore, CCIM, is the author of Building Legacy Wealth: How to Build Wealth and Live a Life Worth Imitating. Read his “Welcome to My Blog.”