Life is Single-Player: How To Escape ‘The Matrix’

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Yurui’s Summary

• Life is a ‘single-player’ game. We are born alone and will die alone. All our experiences are internal; the world exists within our five senses.

• If you can manage your spare time and do the things that you truly enjoy, then you are free of the Matrix. Spend time doing what you have to do, but also live freely, take risks, and do what you love. Work to live, don’t live to work.

• Mindless action vs proactive reaction; be mindful with how you spend your time. I love journaling, meditating, and working out at the gym to clear my mind and be intentional with my work.

• No one cares about you! As life is single player, we are all on our own unique journeys through life. See Envy is the Enemy of Happiness

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It was my birthday ten days ago. I journaled, went to the gym at night, and had a nice, quiet dinner with my family.

Straight from my journal: “I’ve realised that today isn’t a particularly special day. It’s like any other day, except for what other people say to you and how they treat you, as well as how you feel about yourself.“

This article by Naval Ravikant, titled “Envy is the Enemy of Happiness” does an amazing job at describing how we live in a single-player game. I’ve cut an extract of this page here, for you to take a look at.

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Socially, we’re told, “Go work out. Go look good.” That’s a multiplayer competitive game. Other people can see if I’m doing a good job or not. We’re told, “Go make money. Go buy a big house.” Again, external multiplayer competitive game. Training yourself to be happy is completely internal. There is no external progress, no external validation. You’re competing against yourself—it is a single-player game.

We’re like bees or ants. We are such social creatures, we’re externally programmed and driven. We don’t know how to play and win these single-player games anymore. We compete purely in multiplayer games.

The reality is life is a single-player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone. All of your interpretations are alone.

All your memories are alone. You’re gone in three generations, and nobody cares. Before you showed up, nobody cared. It’s all single player.

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When I first read this, I was pretty apprehensive. But what Naval says is true! We can’t waste time envying other people’s lives and accomplishments; we are objectively incomparable to them, as we are all unique in our own different ways. If Person A is 10x better than me at tennis, that’s okay! I might be unique because I’ve done a project on applying Machine Learning techniques to tennis. Comparison is truly futile, as you can’t really compare apples and oranges. Altruism is still important, though; read about my thoughts on it here.

Similarly, all our emotions and perceptions of the world all lay within us as human beings. The world may very well be gone after I die. As far as I know, the world didn’t exist before 2006! How would I know that the country Sweden exists? I’ve never been there! Historian and author Yuval Noah Harari describes this as inter-subjectivity, a concept which was crucial to the unification of humankind. It is defined as a shared perception of reality between two or more individuals. Constructs like countries (patriotism), corporate organisations (capitalism), and religion (theology) are all intangible; they only exist within our imagination and our perceived subjective reality!

What do I think about ‘the Matrix’, and what does this all mean?

I think the worst thing that you can do is to work super hard for the things that you don't really want to actually do; this is how I interpret the Matrix. There’s so much going around the internet about ‘escaping the rat race’, but in reality, only a certain type of person is meant to start their own business. Most of us are going to be working 9-5 weeks, and that’s okay!

If you can manage your spare time and do the things that you truly enjoy, then you are free of the Matrix. Imagine working a 9-5 to keep yourself financially stable, but come home to work on a side hustle or personal project that you love doing. Same with high school – studying until it is enough, and then working on things you truly enjoy. I really encourage spending the correct amount of time in doing what you have to do to keep your head above water, but in your remaining time, live freely, take risks, and do what you love.

Our time and focus is our most valuable asset. Be mindful of how you spend it. Oftentimes throughout the day, I just stop, and ask myself if my future self would be proud of me doing this. Even in random, trivial stuff like eating fast food, or even eating a cookie (this happened today!), asking that question really makes all the difference. Mindless action vs proactive reaction isn’t talked about enough, which is why I advocate so much for mindfulness through the means that work best for you; for me, it’s journaling, meditating, and working out at the gym.

No one cares about you! As life is single player, we are all on our own unique journeys through life. See Envy is the Enemy of Happiness

Yurui