Category: Philosophy

A Head Full of Bouncy Balls

Reading a book is a lot like tossing a bouncy ball inside a racketball court. Except this court acts more like a vacuum. And once in motion, a ball will remain in motion, changing course only upon impact.

Introducing new ideas is like adding more bouncy balls to the cage. Each new book increases the count of hurtling projectiles by one. And so on.

Eventually, with all those balls a-bouncing, collision becomes inevitable. Two different ideas collide, each exerting an impact upon the other. And this event fundamentally alters the original course of both projectiles.

When Ideas Collide

When you only have a few balls bouncing, collisions happen less frequently. If you don’t increase the number of bouncy balls, the ideas you introduce first will remain constant longer.

It’s only once you begin to introduce new ideas rapidly that the rate of collision begins to accelerate. When this happens – for better or worse – your original ideas become vulnerable to impact. It is no longer a matter of if your original ideas will face a collision, but when.

When ideas collide, it’s the idea that packs a greater force that carries more influence. By virtue of traveling at a greater velocity or bearing greater mass, some ideas delivers a more violent blows upon others. In some cases, those blows cause the deterioration of lesser ideas altogether. In other cases, the impact simply causes a slight alteration in course – for both ideas.

Collision As The Goal

I’ve heard it said before there are ‘no new ideas under the sun – only new combinations of old ideas.’ I believe this to be true.

And if it is true, the best way to increase the likelihood of two old ideas colliding to create a new, interesting combination is through consistent addition to the total number of different ideas bouncing around.

One sure way to increase the probability of unique collisions is to increase the total number of balls in play. But what if you not only want to ensure it eventually happens – you also want to reduce the amount of time it takes to happen? In that case, you could also introduce more balls more frequently.

With more balls colliding more frequently, the rate at which new, unique combinations of old ideas happen will increase. Not all collisions will be unique. And not all unique collisions will be useful. But that’s not really the point, is it?

You can’t often predict which unique combination of old ideas will fundamentally alter the course of the game. And you especially can’t appreciate new, unique combinations if you don’t also observe the impact of new ideas as they act upon others.

But if you’re deliberate about the balls you add and observant enough (and maybe a little lucky), you might just witness the collision of two ideas the world has been waiting for.

Or you could just sit back and enjoy the site of a bunch of bouncy balls flying through the sky, violently smashing into one another. (As far as consolation prizes go, that also sounds pretty cool. But what do I know, I’m just a guy talking about bouncy balls on the internet.)

Wrestling with God: My Lifelong Battle with Doubt

I haven’t been confident about what I believe for a long time.

Is God real? Does he love me? Has he spoken to me? Do I have a divine purpose?

It’s a problem I’ve wrestled with for years. The world pressures us to hold strong opinions about everything under the sun. And admitting I don’t know sucks.

But truth be told, when it comes to faith I just flat out do not know.

Longing for God

I want to believe. Honest. There are days when I long for God. To know there’s something bigger out there in the universe. Something divine. Something eternal.

But I’ve never been able to reconcile that longing.

Is it just residue from my church upbringing? Is it my own ambition – reaching for the unreachable? My pride – leading me to believe that I’m worthy of speaking with God? Is it legitimately the Holy Spirit at work in my life?

I see a peace of mind faith could bring. But blind faith just because it makes me feel better? That’s always felt like a cop out.

If I’m going to believe anything – I want to feel the conviction of its truth in my bones. And that’s where I’ve always struggled.

Evidence vs. Experience

Forget the science. I’ve read books. I’ve looked under all the rocks. There are convincing arguments on both sides.

But every argument misses something huge – the kind of validation that can only come through personal experience.

I can’t say with confidence I’ve ever experienced God.

No matter how bad I want to believe it. A skeptic inside challenges every possible encounter.

I know I’m not the first person to ever doubt my faith. Or fully renounce it for a spell. Even the lead singer of one of my teenage favorite bands recently came out with a startling announcement about his faith.

Maybe doubt is something anyone with faith struggles with from time to time. And maybe that’s part of the point, too. Hell, if it were easy, would it be worth it?

Still. Doubts aside, I’m after the truth. And I have to live on this earth either way.

Pascal’s Wager

A long time ago, my boy Blaise Pascal wrestled with the same dilemma. And he came up with a clever coping mechanism.

Pascal made a wager with the universe. I’ll paraphrase for you.

He argued that it makes sense to live like God exists – whether it’s true or not.

If we die to find out we were wrong, well, we sacrificed some material pleasures. Maybe a few good times. And overall, maybe saved ourselves from a lot of immorality.

But if we die to find out we were correct, well, then there’s an infinite gain to be had.

I like this wager. Really. It makes sense to me. Except I take one big issues with it. This wager leaves me wanting more. Here’s why:

I don’t want to live a life based on avoiding consequences. I want a life of abundance – a life in pursuit of purpose and truth. And I don’t want to give up parts of my life I enjoy just to avoid burning in hell some day.

Positive vs. Negative Reinforcement

From a young age most of us are taught good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior is punished.

Real “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” type stuff.

Faith and religion aside – we’re supposed to do good and avoid bad. To follow rules. Keep in line. And do what we’re told. Or else.

But it’s precisely the “or else” that pisses me off. Especially when it comes to faith (as it’s often packaged).

I don’t like fear-based arguments for faith. To me its no different from the life insurance agent who throws your mortality in your face then whispers, “You’d want your family to be taken care of if you died, right?”

It’s predatory. It feels directionally incorrect. And truth be told, if that’s real faith, I’m not interested.

Because here’s why – I know I’m flawed. I will mess up. A lot. And if the expectation for messing up is damnation, then what’s the point? I’m already screwed.

Exploiting fear makes me resent the idea of faith even more. If faith is worth practicing at all then it’s got to be more than fire insurance, yanno? It’s got to be something that offers hope for more – something that offers a promise of rewards far greater than I could ever imagine.

A Game of Endurance

A few notable influences come to mind as I think more about my pursuit of faith.

The first is C.S. Lewis. The way he describes his discovery of faith has stuck with me through the years. His book Surprised By Joy offers what I believe to be an incredible insight. The discovery of a joy so strong, so good, so worthy – that he longed for it.

The second is Kahlil Gibran. In The Prophet he drops a hot take on joy and sorrow. Here it is:

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked…The deeper your sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you contain.”

I remember reading that for the first time and thinking to myself, “Yes! He gets it!” It describes the understanding I’ve developed from my own experience – that joy is a game of endurance. Not suffering for suffering’s sake. But enduring for the sake of unlocking even greater things than we know.

As Paul wrote, “Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.“

I’m also reminded of Job – which has forever been one of the most meaningful yet challenging passages of scripture for me.

I’ve always wrestled with the why behind Job’s story. Why would God deliberately allow one of his faithful servants to be set up to fail?

Maybe it was a sign of trust. Maybe it was God’s own display of faith. Or maybe God knew that only through enduring could Job fathom even greater joy than he previously knew. Whatever the case, I’ve always thought if faith is real then I want a faith like Job’s: “Shall we accept good from God and not adversity?”

(For another excellent read on the same notion of endurance, check out Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.)

The Chief End of Man

Other influences that come to mind – Christian Hedonism, as popularized by John Piper’s book Desiring God. (I’m thankful someone put this book in my hands at age 17 when I walked out of the church and never looked back.)

The idea of Christian Hedonism captures another fascinating point of view when I think about faith – Piper offers one single word change to a common accepted view about faith. And it’s a radical difference.

Traditional View: The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Christian Hedonism: The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

What a stark contrast, right? The traditional view conjures up an image of something entirely undesirable (at least to me)– a bunch of people sitting in church pews listening to sermons and singing hymns for all eternity. In other words, I always interpreted it as a call for self-limitation. That our highest and best exercise of faith is by restraining our impulses – by following rules and sacrificing everything as the cost of admission.

And I’ve always wrestled with that. Because if God is real…and we were made in His image…all entirely unique… then that’s not by accident, right? Maybe our highest and best exercise of faith is by discovering our uniqueness and leaning into it.

My good friend Isaac Morehouse paints it nicely in this post (which was also featured in a chapter of our book, Don’t Do Stuff You Hate):

“Christian’s purpose in life is to take delight in existence, and take delight in God delighting in them for being delighted. God created humans so that he could take pleasure in them, and seeing man take pleasure in life is what most pleased God.

I always associated the idea with a line from the movie Chariots of Fire, where the deeply religious Eric Liddell is chastised by his sister for missing church because he was running. He said, “When I run I feel His pleasure.” Not merely that Liddell was having a pleasurable experience himself, but that he felt the pleasure of God as he ran.”

Hedonism As Life Purpose, Isaac Morehouse

Unfathomable Abundance

There are so many other thoughts I have not catalogued here. But I had to get these words down. I’ve been wrestling with this issue for over a decade – and it’s intensified with age.

I want to know to truth. To understand my purpose. Or at least reach a conclusion I can carry with confidence.

Which brings me full circle. I’ve been reflecting more and more on how to build a life worth living. It’s a topic that constantly pesters me. And the issue of faith has been a constant undertone in my own narrative.

Yes. I’ve been wrestling with all this. It’s an extremely personal issue. But recently I was struck by something new – a thought that has never before occurred to me.

I was standing in my kitchen. Normal day. When a thought came to mind:

“God is not trying to cheat you out of anything.”

It’s so simple it made me laugh. Honestly.

I think my notion of faith has always been at odds with religion. To me, faith has always been about breaking free. An act of liberation. Where religion is about constraint. Following rules. Dutiful sacrifice.

And maybe my views of religion have marred my views on faith. Who knows?

This is a continuous journey. And tough one. But that makes it worth it – regardless what I discover.

To be continued…

Decisions By Proxy

I got a new pair of roller blades for my 8th birthday.

Immediately, I begged dad to take me to the park. The street no longer presented a challenge.

Marching directly to the playground, I climbed up the steps to the tallest slide, slipped on my blades and stared toward the bottom.

“Should I do it?” I asked my dad.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Mitch,” he replied.

That’s all the encouragement I needed. I jumped to my feet and lurched forward.

The moment ended as quickly as it began. I ate it – hard. But at least I tried.

The experiment earned me several scrapes and an important lesson: bad outcomes hurt less when they result from your own decisions.

My dad and I laugh about that incident to this day. Still, I can’t help feeling a little pride. Yes – I made a reckless decision. But I made the decision.

Outsourcing Your Decision-Making

Contrast my example above with another story.

Several years ago, I worked in an office next to a warehouse. We shared street parking. Signs clearly marked the tow away zones. But we rarely saw them enforced.

On one occasion, a few new employees asked others if they ran a risk parking in the tow away zones. Some tenured employee told them they’d never seen a car towed – so the new folks parked there.

That afternoon the city towed their cars. The new employees acted outraged. What an injustice!

One requested reimbursement from the company for the incident. This confused me at first, but the longer I thought about it, the more it sank in.

This individual wasn’t mad just because of the car towing – he was also mad because he’d relied on someone else’s judgment to inform his decision. He saw the tow-away signs. But he made a calculated risk based on the information from what seemed like a credible source.

In short – he allowed someone else to make his decision for him. On that day, his proxy turned out wrong.

The individual felt justified in his outrage because he had a scapegoat upon whom he could blame-shift. Had he never asked anyone and chosen to park in the tow away zone, he would’ve bore full culpability.

Instead, by outsourcing his decision, he relived himself of responsibility for his poor decision.

Stuck Holding the Bag

We all rely on proxies to inform our decisions from time to time.

Consider product reviews as a small case and point. Or referrals from friends about the best dentist or auto-shop.

Still, we ultimately bear the cost if we act on the information and the choice turns out poorly.

What about the bigger decisions?

Like who to marry, whether or not to go to college, which company to work for, or which city to live in.

We all know people who’ve made decisions like this by proxy. Sometimes it works out. But when things go poorly, the person who provided information is rarely stuck holding the bag.

No – we have to live with the choices we make, even if we relied on information from someone else.

Skin in the Game

For big life decisions, I try to avoid advice from people without skin in the game. Sure, I’ll ask for movie referrals. But for the big stuff, I do my best to own my decisions.

If the choices blow up in my face, I have no on else to blame but myself.

Still, occasionally it’s useful to seek out third-party opinions – if even just to shock-test your ideas.

I’ve found over time that people who have no skin in the game as to the outcome tend to give advice based solely off their own experience. They don’t account for the arbitrage of their experience adjusted to yours.

People who have an actual investment in your outcomes, on the contrary, bear some of the risk if shit goes awry. I think something about that risk makes them simultaneously more affected, and more level-headed. They have to live with the weight of their opinion.

No – this does not mean you should fully outsource your decisions to them. But it does increase the odds that their advice is better suited for an outcome that’s good for you (not just them).

Proxies Don’t Pay

Whether you heed others’ advice or not rests on your own shoulders. When you request advice, you still get to choose what to do with it.

You’re never obligated to make decisions you don’t agree with. Don’t forget, you own the final say.

But, if and when you make a poor decision, if you relied on someone else’s faculties, remember: it’s you who has to bear the full cost.

Though they may “feel” guilty – you have to live the decision, not them.

So don’t be flippant. Proxies provide additional points of view. But they don’t have the power to make the call – you do.

Own your decisions. Even when you make bad ones. Don’t cede responsibility to anyone else.

Don’t Wear Your Beer Shirt to Church

I’ve long since abandoned the atheist phase of my early 20s. But I haven’t gone to church regularly in nearly a decade.

After spending an ungodly portion of my youth engaged in church activities, I walked out.

They were wrong.

I had a serious disagreement with church leadership as a teen. Their argument felt more contrived than actual verbal confirmation from God: we prayed over this and it’s what God wants.

I felt like I was being looked down upon because I was young. So when my pleas fell on deaf ears, I decided to boycott.

I was wrong.

I struggled reconciling this incident for years, searching long and hard for answers. Then I realized my spiritual journey has nothing to do with the way other people behave. It’s entirely personal, and my misgivings with people need not interfere with my own pursuit for truth.

Something’s missing.

Yet I can’t help but carry some burden of the weight I’ve felt in almost every church setting I’ve tried to reengage. It hasn’t felt like something personal. Nor has it felt up to the snuff on the message it markets.

Maybe it’s the unruly pagan in me speaking, but church and organized religion have always felt more like institutions of people-judgment than of people-development.

I don’t mean people who go to church are bad. On the contrary, many of the best people I know – including my dad – practice what they preach as adamantly as anyone. But my own experience has left me wanting more than what I’ve found any church to offer.

I try to recreate the experiences I enjoy.

I find many of the concepts embedded in church culture appealing. The fellowship, pursuit of truth, worship, prayer, devotion, discipleship, not to mention a good potluck..

But my experiences with these activities as part of a church have always felt tainted. Almost as if they were guided more by ulterior motives than to drive personal growth. Like a need to validate certain interpretations of scripture or someone’s ego.

I’ve found my own pursuit of all these things to be much richer when done in a decentralized setting, not under the watchful governance of liturgy.

Come just as you are.

A lot of ideas I have don’t make for polite Sunday-lunch conversation. Still, many of them are both informed and inspired by scripture, theology, and Christian philosophy. One such idea I’ve taken from a classic hymn – that we should come just as we are.

Every major intellectual or spiritual leap I’ve taken has been predicated on this notion. The freedom to approach ideas just as I am has led me through more personal discovery than all learning involving an intermediary combined.

This approach to learning, truth, and spiritual growth makes me feel like I have some say over it. That if I’m not satisfied with the growth I’ve achieved, I can dedicate more energy to it. Or if I’ve fallen out of step, then it’s my responsibility to recover – not some institution’s responsibility to shepherd me.

I own my spiritual growth.

I don’t think it’s some religious figure’s or organization’s place to cast stones on the route I take in my spiritual journey. If church or religion should have any part in my spiritual endeavor, then it should be as secondary influences, not as some spiritual auditor I’m trying to impress to earn a credential for heaven.

Taking ownership of my spiritual development has freed me to seek truth on my own terms, at my own pace – even if that’s meant making a lot of mistakes.

No, I don’t hate church. But my congregation wears the same clothes 7 days a week.

Don’t Confuse Motion for Progress

It can be easy to confuse motion with progress. But the two are not the same.

Progress requires direction.

Motion, on the other hand, does not. Absent a direction, motion is nothing more than aimless movement.

Movement for movement’s sake, does not mean you’re making progress. You can see this distinction clearly in the perpetually busy, but broke person. They’re always short on time and cash, but never getting closer to their end goal. They’re not making progress. They’re aimlessly moving.

Contrast this with a person of high progress. They move judiciously. People of progress don’t spin their tires. They don’t fill their calendars with bullshit coffee appointments, and they don’t waste money on things they don’t need.

People of progress deliberately chart courses toward their goal. Then execute the path. They view and behave much like someone charting course for a cross-country road trip. With a destination in mind, they carefully determine the best routes, the best rest stops, the right driving playlist, and assess the time it will take.

Motion negates this type of planning. Motion is not about moving toward a goal. It’s about moving. This does not make it worthless. Motion certainly has a value – consider the art of dancing. There may not be a goal beyond getting lost in the dance. In this sense, moving becomes the goal. In this rite, motion showcases its value best.

At face value, motion should not be confused with progress. Motion is about moving. But progress is about moving somewhere.

 

 

 

Embrace Yourself

Get this – there is no other schmuck on the face of the planet identical to you.

Profound, right? Across some 7.5 billion people – I am the only me and you are the only you. That’s fucking wild.

Yet, for some reason, we (myself included) make a ton of effort to fit in. To migrate in and out of our ecosystems unseen. To go without disrupting or disturbing.

But why?

Maybe as a species, we’ve found it easier to fit in than to stand out. Perhaps many of us do not possess intimate self-knowledge. Or maybe when we step out we feel ostracized.

There seem to be deep psychological underpinnings of the tribal mindset within us all – where we see ourselves as an individual functioning unit within a larger body.

Perhaps many of us walk around with a proverbial Dr. Jekyll in our pocket – a dark side – the unknown self of our personal Johari window. 

Regardless of why – the more fascinating question is what would we find if we all embraced our purest selves?

An Identity Crisis

I find the idea of ubuntu challenging – that I am who I am because of who we all are – as if the fabric of human identity is a maze with no beginning or end point.

It seems likely and obvious that we should all be somewhat a by-product of the people we surround ourselves with; the environments we inhabit; and the endeavors we pursue.

But what lives underneath all the extremities? What lives a few layers deeper – near our core?

Divorced from our surroundings, what form would we take on? Who would we be absent the influence of other people – or rather, absent the influences of influences that detract from the purest version of ourselves?

Surrounded

If there is merit in the idea our surroundings impact our identities and personalities, then it would follow we should deliberately guard ourselves from unwanted influences.

Yet – in order to grow, we must break down barriers of ignorance. We must effectively expand beyond our current states of understanding.

So perhaps eradicating “unwanted influences” is not the proper aim. Perhaps instead we should seek to avoid inhibiting influences.

Influence Audit

I wonder, what would you find if you audited the influences in your life? Would you discover the people, activities, and environments in your life are desirable or undesirable?

Why?

If desirable, what makes them so? What influence does the agreeableness of another agent have over desirability?

Are you surrounding yourself with people and ideas primarily because they agree with your worldview or because they challenge you?

Do the people in your life push you to become a more pure version of yourself or do they coax you to conform more?

You must set your own standards – but as for me, I choose to surround myself with people who sharpen me, who push me to embrace myself more, who challenge me to enhance my game.

I don’t see comfort as the goal of life. Nor conformity. There’s a reason we’re each unique. Embrace it.

 

 

Anything That’s Peaceful

I think it’s entirely bullshit I should have to interact with anyone against my will.

It takes a conscious effort to limit my exposure to people and institutions that steal my freedom. But it’s worth it to me to avoid people who tax my time, my energy, or my emotional bandwidth. Why? Because being around people impairs my quality of life.

Like Dementors, they suck away the best parts of my capacity to create. So I avoid these kinds of people at all costs.

Similarly, when I have a terrible experience at a business, I either provide feedback or I choose not to patronize it.

Anytime an interaction becomes too costly – when it regresses from the threshold of mutual benefit – I can declare my freedom by exercising a choice to avoid these kinds of transactions.

This kind of peaceful interactions allows people to self-select a better standard of living. It provides a basis for humans to participate with one another harmoniously.

Just imagine a world governed by a standard of mutual-benefit. Now contrast that to our world.

We live in a dubious time – a time where freedom of association takes a back seat to political agendas.

Under the guise of law enforcement, governmental invasion spans a significant share of our lives. And to what recourse?

Consider the baker – forced to bake a cake for a customer he doesn’t want to serve, else the government condemns his property. Would you want to do work for someone hostile to you?

Or the corner store – forced to accept cash as a form of payment, or face hefty fines from government cronies. Would you want to work the register at night in a seedy part of town?

You cannot breed peace through force. You cannot breed morality through mandate.

You cannot make people better through bureaucracy. And why would you want to?

 

How What We Lack Can Serve Us

I remember the cold winter mornings, my dad driving me in the pitch black to the gym at 5 am.

The sound of Fleetwood Mac blaring on the speaker, and the soft squeaks of my shoes hitting the hardwood floor as I ran.

Something about those mornings stick with me still today.

The solace of an empty gym. The clarity to focus before anyone else is awake. The freedom to experiment new shots, new moves, and new drills by virtue of being alone…

I was never tall. So I committed to becoming the strongest. I wasn’t the fastest. So I committed to working the hardest. I knew it was the price of admission if I was ever to see any playing time.

I never became much on the basketball court – other than maybe setting some records for personal or technical fouls. But the many lessons I learned continue to age with time.

There is something interesting about the human condition that inspires me. Particularly in our tendencies to strive for things we don’t have or that seem impossible.

That innate desire to fulfills the parts we lack seems to be one of the best precursors for conditioning us into who we need to be on our path toward who we’re trying to become.

If I was 6′ 6″ and light on my feet, I may never have developed the discipline to commit fully to a vision for myself. The part of me I felt a need to compensate for may have been just the right recipe to push me to work for it.

In many ways, it’s always what I’ve lacked that has served me most.

What UPS & FedEx Can Teach Us About Evaluating Opportunities

Shipping stores live and die by three questions.

How big?

How fast?

How far?

These three questions judge every package through the door. The answers determine the degree of difficulty of a package’s destiny and assign a cost accordingly.

I think these questions provide an equally interesting litmus test for us.

What if we put each opportunity we encounter through the same scrutiny?

How big?

How fast?

How far?

How big is this particular opportunity? What’s the absolute maximum expected upside? What’s the worst downside?

How fast can I achieve return from this opportunity? How long will it take to make this reality?

How far must I go to unlock this opportunity? To what lengths will this opportunity take me? How far away from being ready for it am I, today?

An Agile Model

I love the simplicity of this mental model. It’s not some robust, lengthy analysis. It’s a quick easy gut-check.

For huge opportunities, do more due diligence if necessary. Small opportunities shouldn’t require much more than this. This model provides a quick, yet sturdy enough checklist to get to “No” more efficiently.

Medium-Sized Opportunities

Maybe the most valuable application of this regards the middle-of-the-road-size opportunities.

Medium-sized opportunities can be costly, but not exactly for obvious reasons. For me, the cost usually comes in the form of wasted resources evaluating what to do.

Medium-sized opportunities eat away precious time and mental energy. I say avoid them at all costs.

As Derek Sivers once said, “If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, say “no”.

Give it a shot this week.

How big?

How fast?

How far?

Criticize By Creating.

It’s easy to criticize from the stands.

What’s more difficult is stepping into the game.

When you take yourself from spectator to player, you open yourself to vulnerability. To criticism. To the opinion of every casual passerby.

Playing the game allows you to approach problems differently. It grants you a newer, more intimate perspective on the game play.

You don’t have access to the 360 degree view of the guy in the nosebleed section yelling directions at you.

When you’re in the game, you must approach things head on. You must adapt quickly. You must perform and respond according to the limitations of your line of vision and periphery.

You don’t have time to evaluate what happened in other areas of the game. You don’t have time to banter about plays that happened in an earlier quarter.

You must be present in the game as it’s played.

I think this metaphor opens up an interesting thought experiment for life, for business, and for relationships, too.

For the things I’m participating in, what’s my default orientation?

Am I offering up opinions as a spectator? Or am I present, giving the game a competitor’s dedication?

I’ve noticed an interesting observation from my own experience.

It may seem counterintuitive, but spectating exhausts me far more than participating fully in the game of life. Having skin in the game makes it more invigorating.

Both take energy. Actively participating produces positive energy. Criticizing as a spectator yields negative energy.

If you want to live a better life, I say play the game. Don’t shout from the stands how to do it better.

Enter the game. Criticize by creating.