Life is Not a Zero Sum Game
By Ray Bertani
Some of you may have seen the movie "A Beautiful Mind" it was a biographical account of the life of John Nash, a Nobel Prize winning mathematician. In the movie he spoke of "game theory" and the development of strategies for game playing. Game theory deals with two specific types of games, zero sum games and non zero sum games. A zero sum game is a game where in order for someone to make any sort of gain someone else must suffer a corresponding loss. A good example of a zero sum game is poker. If two people sit down to play poker with a $100 each, in order for someone to walk away with a $150, the other person is going to have to walk away with $50. For every dollar someone wins, the other person is going to have to lose a corresponding dollar. This can be extended to everyday types of games and negotiations. Buying a car and the negotiations around coming to a price of the car and your trade-in can be viewed as a zero sum game. For every dollar you negotiate down, is a dollar less the car lot and the salesmen get to keep.
Some people seem to extend this view to life. Almost as if there is this invisible holding tank and once something is taken out it isn't available to anyone else. Having this view tends to make people resent the good fortune of others as if there is only so much good fortune to go around and someone just took some of it, making it less likely that you will get any. How many of you have heard of an old friend who has come into a large sum of money, either by chance or by hard work and dedication to their mission? Now be honest, even though on the outside you were happy for their success, on the inside were you a little resentful...just a little? Did something like, why can't I have ever have that kind of luck or "how come everyone else seems to get the brakes" come into your thoughts? Don't be ashamed, you're not the only one that answered yes. Somewhere inside there is this notion that life is a "zero sum game". That someone else's success somehow magnifies our failures or makes it less likely that we will achieve our own success. The fact is there couldn't be anything farther from the truth.
A Metaphor For Life.
When I was young my father and sister and I went to Italy for a month. During our stay we visited a church dedicated to St. Francis of Paola, in the town of Paola in Calabria, Italy. On the acres of grounds that this church encompasses were displays and accounts of the miracles performed by St. Francis. There was a bomb on display that fell on the church grounds during the Second World War that didn't detonate. In this one area there were crutches strewn about from all the disabled and affirmed people that were healed instantly by the touch of St. Francis. But the one thing that I remember most and the one thing that holds the most meaning for me and in my mind as a metaphor for life is the drinking well located on the church grounds. There is a well everyone who visits the church drinks from, all the millions of people that have visited the church over the years have drank from this well. There is no external source of water bringing water into the well and the well does not get replenished, yet the water level never changes, no matter how many people drink from the well, the water is abundant.
This, to me, is a perfect metaphor for life...just like the drinking well, life is abundant. No matter what gets taken from the well, there is always more to take. The well will never run dry. Be happy for everyone's success and good fortune for their success is evidence and proof positive that your dreams can come true and that your dreams are waiting for you to claim them. To do so, you must understand and believe that life is not a zero sum game.
Ray Bertani is the Managing Director and Founder of "Cura Solutions" a Human Resources, Leadership and Personal Development firm dedicated to helping great people achieve their potential. Ray's purpose in life is to achieve his dreams by helping others achieve theirs. To learn more about how Ray and Cura Solutions can help you live your best life, visit them at www.curasolutions.ca click the personal development icon.
Ray can be reached at ray@curasolutions.ca or by phone at 604-802-4490 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 604-802-4490 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
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