What We All Want and The Simple Game We Play to Get It

What We All Want and The Simple Game We Play to Get It
By
Bill Cottringer

“Life is very simple; men insist upon making it complicated.” ~Confucius.

It has taken me 4 decades of self-improvement giving and receiving, but I think I finally understand the penetrating meaning of the above quote. There are a few basic things we all want and there is only one very basic game of cause and effect that we all engage in to try and get these things, or should I say secure all the other secondary things that we think will bring these basic things that cumulatively represent the grand prize. Unfortunately we not only disagree on the cause but also the effect of this basic life formula and that is the root cause of all the problems we have in relationships, where the symptoms of our faulty game-playing strategies show up most.

What is it we all want? Most of us don’t really know the exact details of our cravings. We sense it to be the presence of general states of thinking, feeling and being such as we know about through glimmering experiences of things like happiness, peace of mind, success, recognition, power, wealth, wholeness, health and wisdom. The “grand prize” is some general sense of contentment about the “abundance” we have of these desirable things.

But if you see past what you are looking at, you finally see there are really three primary objects of our efforts, or effects of the causes we attempt to create—affirmation of our absolute freedom to figure things out on our own, a pervasive and intrinsically rewarding perception of beauty, and the satisfying reciprocity of love. Everything else is just a different version or form of these three realities. But they are the three great truths that nothing can be added to or subtracted from to make them any better or more enjoyable in their power to be that way. The just are and we want them as they are. And more is always better with these three things.

Now what is this basic game of life we play that has set rules but the freedom of choices to change the effects we cause? Call it “Tit for Tat.” Life gives you a positive or negative “tit” and you react with a like positive or negative “tat” response. Another person says or does a kind or unkind “tit” and your react with a like kind or unkind “tat.” If kept at this level, things are very predictable as if you think, feel or behave in this way, then that is what you will get in return. If you are kind, unselfish, cooperative and positive, then other people will give you back those things in return and if not you give not. This is the “theory” behind the good half of the “Golden Rule” everyone knows about.

The trouble begins when we realize our ability to think about all these causes and effects, or tit for tat exchanges that we make, and take things to the next level. We start anticipating what effect we will get in return for a this or that cause and even experiment with not returning an effect for a cause that we anticipate the other person to be anticipating. We never succeed at being able to change the rules of this little game, but we continue trying anyhow. And that tendency is the basis for all gambling towns and facilities in the world. Any payoff, no matter how infrequent or slight, leads to the infinite illusion of hope for the desired outcome.

The only two sets of tit for tat games are: (a) competition, with the aim of you winning the game and the other person losing, and (b) cooperation, with the possibility and hope of everyone winning. There is only one way to get win-win tit for tat outcomes and that is to trump the external game itself by managing the same game going on internally, better. If life gives you lemons, you have the absolute freedom to choose whether to compete or cooperate with life—giving back the lemons or making lemonade. And because of the basic fact that likes attract likes and dislikes attract dislikes, win-win outcomes can only be the effect of cooperative causes, even in response to competitive ones. In the end, the positives of freedom, beauty and love always trump everything else and so life is very simple, but we insist upon making it complicated.

I know this all sounds easier than said than done—freely accept someone else’s controlling behavior to you, love unlovable reactions to you, and see beauty in things like violence—but if you can see the futility of trying to make the impossible choice between either competition or cooperation, this truth will become self-evident. When we begin the road to managing our own internal approach to playing the tit for tat game to get more abundance, it then it becomes the exact effect we are causing.

We start choosing to cause positive cooperation as an effect of negative competition to get our own self and the relationship we are in, re-routed and going in the right direction. And we can only cause the desirable effects in this tit for tat game by internalizing the game on ourselves—being consistently cooperative (the way we want to be anyway and the only way to get win-win outcomes) to eventually wear out all our own natural competitive reactions, because in the human world the Golden Rule is used more in competition as we interpret it than in cooperation, the way it was originally designed.

How have you been playing this Tit for Tat game? Competitively or cooperatively? How is that working for you? Do you have an abundance of freedom, beauty and love, or scarcity? Do you play to win and the other person lose, or do you look for ways that everyone can win? What must you do to have more of these things you want? Clue: get back to being the dog that wags his own tail instead of being wagged by your own tail. This is easier done than said.

William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA and also a business and personal success coach, sport psychologist, photographer and writer living in the mountains of North Bend. He is author of several business and self-development books, including, You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, The Bow-Wow Secrets, Do What Matters Most, “P” Point Management, and Reality Repair coming shortly. He can be contacted with comments or questions at 425 454-5011 or bcottringer@pssp.net