Active Thinking Topic 91 - Life is a Game of Snakes & Ladders 10, 13 September 2024 Recommended viewing: Terri Trespicio (15 Sept 2015) "Stop searching for your passion" TEDx @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MBaFL7sCb8 1. What do you want to do when you grow up? 2. Is life a game or a journey? Can it be both? 3. The Youtube algorithm just put a video in my face. ... A terrifyingly competent young Chinese lady from Singapore was explaining the engine behind her highly successful life: 'profit, passion, purpose'. Clearly this worked for her. The word order she chose also struck me as very driven by her culture. What do you think? What three words would you use, in what order? Are there some cultures and individuals where the PPP formula might not fit? 4. For most people most of the time "profit" is usually spelled out in dollars [refer question 3] (.. ahem, most people consider me a failure :) ). Are there some other metrics for judging profit in this equation of life? How do they rank? 5. Are success and failure (whatever they are) mostly to do with what you put into the game yourself, or is luck the secret sauce? 6. Well the Biblical Eve had a bit of bad luck when a snake turned up. From your life experience, what are some of the 'snakes' which can lead individuals, companies and countries astray? 7. The standard life package is marriage + career + mortgage (to keep you focused). Social status attaches to this formula. Is this a good mix? Who might it work for best, and who might find it, well, not ideal? 8. Once you are locked into a career (or marriage) almost certainly you will have to make choices you would rather not make. e.g. how far will you go down a rabbit hole with a bad or corrupt manager? How many people do you think are permanently warped by choices like this? 9. If you are stacking widgets on an assembly line it might be hard to feel passionate about the job. This is life for most workers. They learn a routine and that's it. Do you need to put passion into another part of your life, or is passion just a destructive extra? 10. At the end of the day, do you really need a purpose in life (what might it be?)? Is 'having a purpose in life' different from having a reason to get out of bed? Are philosophical thinkers more happy or more miserable than the people who just 'get it done' (regardless of what 'it' is)? Extra Viewing & Reading Terri Trespicio (15 Sept 2015) "Stop searching for your passion" TEDx @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MBaFL7sCb8 Adam Leipzig (2 Feb 2013) "How to know your life purpose in 5 minutes." TEDx @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVsXO9brK7M Graham Shelton (16 Oct 2021) "Life is like a game of snakes and ladders. We long for the ladders but it's the snakes that create life's greatest opportunities. Graham Shelton failed to get into a good school, failed to achieve First Class Honours at university, failed to obtain a tenured academic post and fell out with his first business partner." TEDx @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IJ-zx0VqZ8 Thor May (2016) "Count your lucky stars". @ http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/DiscussionTopics/Luck-mu.htm [Quote: "What part does luck play in the success of individuals, enterprises and countries? Think of examples. From politics to careers to finding the love of your life, there has never been more advice available, yet at the end of the game, some people seem to have been lucky and others not. Why is this so? Can you really do much about it?" ] Thor May (2020) " Reflections on Turning 75" @ http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/ReflectionsOnTurning75.htm [Quote: "I want a big, red reset button. The world I met ain’t like what I was told about.. (Yes, you are different. You charmingly met an alternate world and will disagree with everything to follow).] Thor May (2014) "So we had a few failures. Was that the end of university?" @ http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/Access&FailureAtUniversity.htm [Quote: "The source of this short document is intensely personal. It is the story of early university misadventure by one individual, myself. At first glance it might seem of little interest to anyone but the protagonist. I am publishing it because in fact pieces of this story fit the lives of so many students who simply disappear from the statistics and into oblivion".] Thor May (2014) Fakes, liars, cheats, deceivers, animals in the forest". @ http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/FakesLiarst.htm [Quote: "It’s all around us. From face lifts to luxury cars on hire purchase, from inflated CVs to exaggerated job titles, from company publicity material to the spin that governments put on their failures and deceptions. At what point does fakery become fraud? Would the world be a duller place without it?" ] ----------------- Life is a Game of Snakes & Ladders (c) Thor May 2024
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