Winners Win

It is not enough to dismiss something that’s seen as valuable by other people. It‘s much easier to shy away from a challenge if you convince yourself that winning the challenge is meaningless. We all want to win, but when we think we can’t, we protect our ego from being bruised. When the ego is inflated it is tender and sensitive to the judgement of others. It’s very easy to be delusional as a narcissist. When you’re narcissistic you probably have a tendency to believe others are thinking about you when they really aren’t. Narcissistic people overestimate the quality and quantity of how much others think of them. But in the same vein, that same person probably is somewhat paranoid that others are judgmental of their failures. It is often the goal of the narcissistic to prove imaginary goals to others in order to combat this constant paranoia. It is a powerful driving force to not want to be viewed as a loser by others.

In a perfect world everyone would just dismiss the expectations and judgement of others and play life in single player mode. But I believe the ego does serve a valuable function. However, I think it deludes us into chasing arbitrary success, when our rational mind should guide us toward abundance creation and positive sums for society at large.

Though narcissistic people may be detached from reality, judgement does exist, and we were evolved to respect hierarchy. If you want to gain respect you must prove yourself capable of climbing the ladder. Because if you’ve never won the game but then you claim that the game is stupid, people will see you as a coward with no credibility. I am not advocating for pursuing arbitrary games just for the sake of impressing people, I am trying to outline a mechanism to gain influence. Influence should be something you seek if you truly believe in your abilities. You’re not going to gain influence by virtue signaling to others. This is a very low status play and society will assign you influence accordingly.

There are plenty of rat races out there that are very easy to get caught up in. People fool themselves into tying their ego too closely to their positioning in these hierarchies. I do think people should play the game, as long as their purpose is clear. If your purpose is to win just for the sake of winning, you will be stuck in the rat race forever. However, if your purpose is to win the game, so that you can eventually rest in contention of having escaped the game, you will be fulfilled by your success instead of dehydrated by it. Being intentional about your actions is the most important thing.

“Win the game so you can be free of it”