“Pretend it’s a game. Take your time. Play like your life depends upon it.”

If I imagine my own life experience is but a game (like a video game), there are two modes I can choose to play the game in.

Single-player competitive, or multiplayer cooperative.

In competitive mode, I see myself as a separate being from everyone else. Survival of the fittest. To the victor go the spoils.

I found that game mode incredibly fun, for a while, but it was also exhausting.

Everyone was out to win for themselves.

In single-player competitive mode, I could trust no one but myself, and all of life was transactional.

Everybody was out to get something for themselves.

When I flipped the mode over to cooperative mode, suddenly, we were all in this game together, as if we were one unit and just trying to get through the game together.

The game became way easier!

I found this mode much more peaceful and enjoyable.

I no longer saw other “players” as separate beings, but as teammates, connected together as one unit, who all want to succeed together.

In cooperative mode, I can chat with other players and find things out about the game I didn’t know before when I was playing.

“Oh! That’s how that works? I was just hitting it with a rock, ah, there’s a treasure inside! I didn’t know that!”