Life Is A Video Game (Here Are The Cheat Codes).

As you’ve undoubtedly discovered, the game of Life is often quite difficult.

You will face unexpected challenges and long periods of frustration.

You will often struggle with self-doubt, feel overwhelmed by helplessness and loss, and sometimes not know which move to make next.

Life is hard, as the saying goes.

But this short guide is designed to help you complete your missions and complete the game at the highest possible level.

Before we start…. As cliché as it sounds, it is important to have a “why” and a reason to keep going and pass all the levels in life.

Otherwise you’ll end up going a bunch of different directions and not have any real progress.

HOW TO WIN AT LIFE

The goal of Life is simple: it is to Level Up as much as possible.

Each Level in life presents a particular challenge that you must overcome.

Once you overcome that challenge, you get to move on to the next Level.

The goal is to complete as many levels as possible.

Don’t get caught up complaining about the challenges or the difficulties of the levels (that’s the whole point of life).

Although it’s challenging, you can pretty much boil life down to a science:

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy, there are five levels in life:

• Level 1 – Find food; find a bed to sleep in at night

• Level 2 – Know you’re not going to die

• Level 3 – Find your people

• Level 4 – Do something that’s important and valuable to both yourself and others

• Level 5 – Create a legacy

Level 1 just means you’re not homeless and/or starving. This is a prerequisite for just about everything else. But… If you’re stuck on Level 1, you likely aren’t even reading this right now.

Level 2 gets a bit more complicated, because a lot of people do have a nice bed to sleep in every night, but they can’t sleep because of gunshots outside or bombs exploding over their city.

Level 2 requires that you find a secure and stable home to base yourself out of.

Getting past Level 2 requires finding a way to successfully remove yourself from these dangerous situations.

Level 3 means relationships, finding the right people to surround yourself with. The right people to love and the right people who love you.

This sounds way easier and more fun than it is.

Mainly because, as you’ve likely found out by now, most people suck.

(except me of course).

Level 4 means building up some skill or knowledge or ability that adds value to the world around you and also gives you self worth in the process.

Level 5 just means making sure your life matters when you’re dead.

This is the hardest one because no matter how important you are, people will likely forget about you after six months of your funeral.

Most of us get a nice head start due to our parents.

If you’re lucky, your parents will have successfully guided you through Levels 1-3 and even give you a nice boost in achieving Level 4.

If your parents took care of you but they were kind of all over the place, then you’ll have Levels 1 and 2 down pat but be totally on your own for Level 3.

THE DESIGN OF LIFE

Life is a big and complex game. It’s the largest open-world game known to date.

We all begin with different starting stats and we’re placed into a wide range of environments that can either give us advantages or disadvantages.

But because most people have trouble conceptualizing Life, they therefore assume that they have no control over Life. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Life’s game design is actually surprisingly simple.

It is guided by a few basic principles that are designed to give the player an experience of a large amount of randomness.

1. Life is designed to continually throw difficult and unexpected problems at you.

Life is a never-ending stream of problems that must be confronted, surmounted, and/or solved.

If at any point, Life runs out of problems to give us, then we will subconsciously invent problems for ourselves.

That’s just how the game works…

Problems are what keep us occupied and give our life meaning.

You don’t appreciate anything that you’re given easily.

The only way you appreciate something is because of what you had to do to achieve it.

Solving problems are also necessary to conquer Levels 4 and 5 (give value and leave a legacy).

You should also be very grateful that life gives us problems to work with, this is what allows people to be at different levels of the game.

Would the game even be fun if we were all on the same level?

No! And most people in life shy away from problems so tackling them head on becomes your easiest way to pass everybody!

This steady stream of unexpected problems gives the player a sense that they lacks control over their own Life, when in fact, the purpose of Life is not to control what happens to you, but rather control and choose higher level reactions to what happens to you.

Side note: (Here’s a little tip) Everything that happens in life is neutral, it is only good or bad based on how you perceive it to be.

2. Players may respond to problems with either Solutions or Distractions. 

All players must meet problems with a reaction (even choosing not to react to a problem, is itself, a reaction).

All reactions can be divided up in two ways: Solutions and Distractions.

Your ability to choose solutions instead of distractions is ultimately what defines your success as a player in the game of life.

3. The more each Solution or Distraction is used, the easier and more automatic it will be in the future. 

The more often you use a Solution or Distraction, the easier it will be to use again, to the point where it will eventually become unconscious and automatic.

Once a Solution or Distraction is unconscious and automatic, it becomes a habit.

The easiest way to start forming the best habits starts with how you think and perceive the world.

If you constantly think about how to make money then life will start unfolding new opportunities for you and you will be ready to take advantage of them.

Same goes for if you’re constantly thinking about the next time you will get drunk, high, or that party next weekend…

Habits are necessary because they prevent you from falling back to previous Levels you’ve already conquered.

Like I said earlier…It’s important to find the real reason behind why you want to advance to the next levels in life.

A player, once they’ve found a Solution to a Level, must employ that Solution enough times to make it a Habit, thus mastering that level and allowing them to move on to the next Level.

Understand?

4. Solutions move us towards the next Level, Distractions keep us on the same Level.

Since gaining Levels in Life requires solving problems, distracting ourselves from our problems guarantees that we will become stuck on the same Level.

Here are the most common distractions:

• Scrolling social media

• Wrong friends.

• Smoking weed.

• Excessive drinking.

• Excessive sex.

• Procrastinating.

There are more as well. You likely already know your bad habits and don’t need me to tell you.

If our Distractions become Habits, then we will become perpetually stuck at a level and not even be conscious of it.

5. The formula for winning at the game of Life is actually really simple:

1. Correctly identify your Solutions and Distractions

2. Eliminate the Distractions

3. Stay consistent for a long enough period of time

4. Profit

   You don’t get fat by overeating one time.

   Just like you don’t get rich by working hard for a month.

   Extraordinary results do not come from big wins

   -they come from incremental steps compounding over times

   Do the right thing long enough for it to compound.

   — Toussaint Gilbert (@iamtoussaintt)
   5:47 AM • Nov 6, 2023

   
   

Remember, you spawned into the game as yourself.

The cool thing is… You can turn yourself into WHOEVER you want to be.

That’s the magic of the game of life.

Hope you enjoyed this one.

-Toussaint