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Better at life by understanding infinite games

Episode #21

Becoming the person you want to be is an infinite game. -      Finite and infinite games are an interesting subject -      I was listening to simon sinek and he talked about the difference between the two. -      Finite games have set numbers of players, specific rules and an end point. -      Infinite games have rules that may change, the number of players may change and the purpose of an infinite game is to keep the game going. -      One night while traveling home from a single adult activity when my pornography use was weighing on me heavily, I looked out at the dark road and the distance ahead and felt a deep longing to be better. -      As the highway hummed along under me and the solitude of the car pulled my thoughts deeper into my actions I prayed as earnestly as I knew how that if I could just not have this one problem, I would be a pretty amazing person. -      What I didn’t see from that point in my life that I see so clearly now, is that becoming the person I want to be is not an arrival at some particular set of attributes -      It involves so much more than that. -      To become great at life we have to stop thinking about what we are doing in terms of arriving at an end -      We have to think of long term, continued, and sustainable growth and learning. -      So how does an infinite game work and how can you become a great player becoming the best version of your self that you can be.  -      Five things have to happen to play in the infinite game according to simon. -      1. You have to have a just cause. -      2. You have to have trust in teams -      3. You have to have a worthy adversary -      4. You have to have existential flexibility -      5. You have to have the courage to lead   1 – just cause – you have to have a cause that is so just, right, or important that you would willingly sacrifice for it. -      As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints there is a lot of moral guidance about the cause we work for. -      Eternal life is a just cause that we look to willingly sacrifice for. -      An eternal family is another. -      The just cause for most of us is our desire to be in concert with our Heavenly Father.  -      We believe that is the most important thing we can do, because we believe that it will bring joy into our lives. -      There are lots of great just causes. The work you do could be considered a just cause. -      The United states was founded on a just cause – it is about an ideal, so amazing, so important that we may never achieve the ideal in this life, but we will give our all to it while we can. -      This is what give’s us purpose. The striving toward an ideal. Sacrificing for a greater state of goodness. -       Simon talks about it this way, he says, “imagine a world that is different than the one we have now, that you believe if everything that you did in your organization went perfectly, that you would contribute to the building of that world.” -      Moroni or Ether not sure if Moroni is just quoting Ether here or inserting his commentary on what Ether wrote but this is... Support this podcast