- Have you ever gotten
completely lost in a video game, and wondered, "Why can't
I have this sort of focus and dedication in my actual life?" That's because, in life, you don't understand the
game you are playing. (characters blooping) In this video, I'm gonna lay
out in painfully simple terms, exactly what the game of life
entails, how it is played, and why you have failed to
advance as far as you would like, and of course, I will
give you the cheat codes so that you can warp further ahead. Let's get into it. (bright upbeat music) Now, video games are something
known as finite games. You have a strict set of conditions that, once met, the game is over. You beat the dragon and save
the princess, and you win. You beat up the bad guy and
save the world, and you win. You fucking destroy
whatever that thing is. (monster roars) I guess you win. But life is what's
called an infinite game, and the goal of an infinite
game is to keep playing as long as possible. This has a series of
counterintuitive consequences that mean you have to
approach the game differently. You don't necessarily always
wanna beat the bad guy and save the princess, because that would mean you
no longer have some goal by which to improve yourself. That is, it's no longer clear and obvious how to continue the game. - I'm fine, okay. We're fine, aren't we? - Ah, we're good here, mate. - This is what's called
an existential crisis, and don't worry, we'll come back to it. (bold subtle music) Most video games are designed so that there are a series of levels, and each time you advance
from one level to the next, you gain a special skill
or ability or knowledge that will help you improve
and conquer the next levels. So, in video games, victories will make your
characters stronger, and defeat will cause
you to remain the same. (keyboard smashing) But in the game of life,
it is your failures that make your character stronger, and successes that cause
you to stay the same. Therefore, paradoxically,
the point of the game of life is not necessarily the
win at everything you do, but rather, to continuously
build your character through failures and setbacks in as many useful ways as possible. But don't worry, as long as you are active and engaged with the world, this is not difficult. As an infinite game, life has
an infinite number of ways to kick you in the balls and
make you feel like a failure. The question is how you choose
to handle those failures once they come. Because handling failures in life is completely different
than video games as well. In a video game, if you fuck up a mission, you get to retry that mission 1,000 times until you get it right, but in life, if you
fuck up a relationship, the only way to get it right is to get it right in
the next relationship. (bright upbeat music) Video games give you the quests and you get to design the character, but in real life, you
are given the character and you have to design the quests. Again, video games have clear conditions which you have to meet to win. Most games lay these conditions
out in excruciating detail, going as far as walking you
through every tiny thing you need to do to be a winner. The fun then is in designing or adapting or choosing your character to accomplish these quests. Do you wanna be a lawless barbarian, or do you wanna be a noble sorcerer? Do you wanna just break a bunch of shit? In the game of life,
there are infinite quests, yet you are limited in your
abilities and knowledge. Therefore, the goal is to
find and choose the best quest to suit your character, to allow you to play the game as long and meaningfully as possible. And this brings us to
our first cheat code. (bright subtle music) In video games, you
generally wanna rack up as many side quests as possible
to level up your character and get sick loot, but
in the game of life, side quests are a fun distraction at best, and waste years of your life at worst. In this day and age, it is incredibly easy to get sidetracked onto a
bunch of useless side quests and vanity tasks that
have no actual impact on the quality of your life. A huge hack to winning
the game of life then is to simply be more focused and obsessed about your main
quest than other people. So, the fewer side quests the better. In video games, side quests
tend to be kinda lame and little more than glorified errands. But in real life, the side
quests are generally sexy, exciting, and seductive. Now, this is gonna be
incredibly difficult to forego, but the more you can give
up the dumb side quest, the more you'll stay on
track with your main quest, leading to a happier and
more fulfilling life. It's not easy, it's not fun, but that's the whole thing
about being the hero, is you have to give up stuff. (bright bold music) In video games, you know
who your character is from the first moment you start the game. You know how well you can run, jump, pick up things or shoot a gun. In some cases, you even get
to pick who your character is and all the traits that they have. You can be like a badass
night elf with gigantic. Well, anyway, the game of life is weird because for the first few decades, you don't actually know
who your character is. You don't know what you're good at, you don't know what your talents are, you don't know what you're
gonna enjoy pursuing or how you're gonna respond to adversity. Therefore, the first goal of
every new character in life is to simply gain self-knowledge. Figure out who the fuck you are, and what you seem to be inclined to do. This means lots of experimenting. Go out and try some simple quest lines and see how far you can get. Join the Debate Club. Oh wait, you hate speaking
in front of people, have social anxiety. All right, maybe do like the
Math Olympiad or something. Oh wait, you're terrible at math. Okay, well, maybe try solving
a Rubik's Cube blindfolded. You suck at that too. Okay, well like, maybe become this kid. (bright harmonica music) Boom, now you're a hero! I learned at a young age that
I was terrible at sports, but I also learned that
I was highly creative. Now, I got pushed into a lot of lockers and had my sexuality
questioned by mouth-breathers with the IQ of a T-Rex, but today, that adversity
has merely helped me. I'm able to create things,
put 'em out into the world, and not give a fuck if
morons don't like them. The process of getting to
know your character over time will continue throughout your life, but the bulk of that realization should happen while you're still young. (bright upbeat music) If you're struggling to
understand your own character and what quests will actually
make your life meaningful, then therapy can be one of
the most useful cheat codes to get ahead on this process, and that also brings us to
the sponsor of today's video. BetterHelp. BetterHelp is like the video
game version of therapy. You can log in at any time and access your therapist remotely, over text, or even through a Zoom call. Your therapist is kind
of like Cortana and Halo, or Chadley from Final Fantasy VII. Always up in your business, pointing out when you're
bullshitting yourself or fucking up your quest lines. The best thing though
is that with BetterHelp, you can always switch therapists. You can do so at any time and
there's no questions asked. I would've given anything to get rid of that nosy prick Chadley, but alas, Cloud was too cheap
to pay for a real therapist. - I'm just here for the paycheck. - Use the link in the description below to get 10% off your first month, or go to betterhelp.com/markmanson, and get started learning
about your character today. (bright upbeat music) Choosing the right quest
is arguably the biggest and most difficult component
of winning the game of life. Strong quests reveal
character and build skills. A quest to live abroad
for a year is great, because it will teach you
many things about yourself, and you can develop communication skills, relationship skills, self-confidence, independence, all that good shit. Bad quests though obscure your
character and waste skills. An example of a bad quest is like drinking all 268 beers
on tap at the lager house near your old university. It blinds you to your own character and wastes precious
time, energy, and mana. Another bad quest is only
trying to own a fancy car. Not only does this quest
not build many skills, but it's likely motivated by hiding who you are from
the world not revealing it. And actually, this is kind
of the biggest mistake that people make when choosing a quest. They mistake someone else's
quest line for their own. You owning a Lamborghini is
likely not your own quest line. It's the quest line of the
marketers working at Lamborghini, or some douchey YouTuber who wants you to envy their quest line. Many times in life,
people will try to impose their quest lines on you in hopes that you will
complete it for them. This could be your parents wanting you to go to a
certain type of school, or a partner who wants you to
fix their emotional problems, or a company who's just marketing
their useless shit to you. Do not be seduced by
other people's questlines. It's easy to give in and try
to chase other people's dreams because it relieves you
of the responsibility of choosing your own. (bright subtle music) Now, boundaries sound
like a wishy-washy term that your Aunt Margaret says before giving you a tarot card reading, but boundaries are actually
an incredibly practical and important relationship tool that I would argue everybody
should know and learn. Now, the core of boundaries is simple. You cannot complete other
people's quests for them, and no one else can
complete your quest for you, and if people try to complete yours or if they ask you to complete theirs, it's your responsibility
to tell 'em to fuck off. - No! You should learn the meaning of the word. - If you don't tell 'em no, not only will you waste your
precious time and energy, but you will prevent them from
advancing in their own quest, thus wasting theirs as well. (bright upbeat music) Now, here's a harsh truth. Once selected, your ability
to advance in your quest will come down to three things. Your character traits,
your ability to focus, and your ability to stomach
failure and setback. Your character traits are a given. It's your job to discover
them and then leverage them. We've talked about that. Your focus is based on your ability to turn down useless but
exciting side quests, and enforce boundaries. The progress is really
gonna be proportional to your ability to stomach failure. Unlike video games, in the game of life, setbacks and failures are what
make your character stronger. Put another way, grinding
levels in a video game means winning tons of easy battles over and over to gain experience, but grinding levels in real life means losing hard battles
to gain experience. That's why. (bright upbeat music) Most people hate failure because they feel judged or
embarrassed in front of others. If you feel this way, it's probably because
you do not understand your character enough,
or you're living too much on other people's quest
lines, not your own. As a result, most people
develop an aversion of failure. They would rather spend their
lives whittling time away on small, meaningless quests that prop up the delusions
of their character, rather than risk failure
at a big, meaningful quest. But if you can learn to enjoy failure, if you can learn to enjoy the
feeling of trying something, having it not work, and then
learning what to do instead, you will become unstoppable. You will progress further
and faster than anyone else, and you will truly accomplish great feats like a true level 99 hero. - This is where the power lies! - All right, get ready! (bright upbeat music) - There's a final boss
in a classic video game named Mike Tyson, who once said, "Not everyone
who hurts you is an enemy, and not everyone who
helps you is a friend." It's important to realize
that while on your quest, there will be many people who naturally align with your
quest and many who do not. This is inevitable. The challenge in the game of life is less about avoiding enemies than simply recognizing
who and what they are. Enemies are people who
would try to divert you from completing your quest. Some enemies do this because their quest and yours contradict one another, but most enemies do it simply because they envy the
progress that you've made, or that you could potentially make. They falsely believe that
you progressing in your quest somehow diminishes the progress
that they've made in theirs. This is the envy trap. When we see others advancing
far in their quest lines, it sometimes makes us feel
inadequate in our own, but this actually makes no sense. We are different characters. We usually have no idea the sacrifices that other people have
made in their quest. It's important to simply
stay focused on your own. You don't know what people
gave up for their successes, therefore, it's impossible
to truly envy what they have. Put it another way, you cannot envy the benefits of someone's life without also envying the costs. And finally, there will be people who will naturally align
their quest with yours. These are special people, and you should take great care of them when you come across them. Not only because they will
aid you on your quest, but because all of the cliches are true. Victory is really only worth
experiencing when it's shared. (bright upbeat music) It's counterintuitive,
but helping other people with their quest will make it
easier to advance in yours. This is because you will build alliances and goodwill towards your goals. People will share information, knowledge, and skills with you. They will help protect you from diversions and lame side quests, and they will have your
best interests in heart. And other times, they'll just love you. Basically, the more you try
to help other people win, the more they'll try to help you win. This is the opposite of the envy trap. Let's call it the charity cheat code. Nothing gets you further ahead than giving away progress to others. This is a weird loophole
in the game of life. The grand illusion that
we all seem to fall for, time and time again. That we mistakenly believe
that we must be the hero and the world should be our sidekick, when actually, the opposite is true. There is no hero, and we're
all each other's sidekicks. Thanks for being my sidekick. I could actually use some fucking help. No, no, no, no. Fuck! God, I fucking dodged! I fucking dodged! That's bullshit! (bold electronic music)