on-play
One of the principles which I carried in work is that, my work should look like work to others but play to me.
What does this mean?
- It has a right level of lack of seriousness
You are not slacking when you are playing. Winning is important. Scoring runs is important. It is serious when you are there. But at the same time it lacks the seriousness to the right level.
You don’t need to change your life altogether by what happens in the game. You know that it is just a part of life where you are putting all energy and you don’t necessarily need to carry anything back home. You know that you can make jokes, be silly about it and still be very serious about the game. Because, it is not life and death.
It is game. It is play. It don’t need to be serious than required. Play mode has the beautiful ability to put you in the right seriousness level for the right amount of time.
- You are engaged
You love playing because you are in the game while you are playing. You have that excitement rushing through you. You mind and body and being is fully there because your brain in engaged and immersed in the experience of the game.
You are not just worried about the results. If it was just about results, there would be no live streaming nor overflowing galleries for any game. It is about how you reach that result - the story that unfolds moment to moment. You are in a journey which is enough predictable (you know that rules cannot change suddenly in the middle of a game) and enough unpredictable.
There are moments you need to run, walk, or stand like in a football game - you pick the intensity as it is required. But you don’t choose or pick this consciously, you are so into the game that it flows.
If you have ever seen a kid with the lego blocks, you will get this. The world around has disappeared for the kid. I want my work to be that.
- Despite the outcome you go for it again
I am not there to win or loose. I am there for the game.
Yes, of course, failing again and again - and may be failing all the games I played - may put me in misery and sadness and I may decide one such day, never to play the game again. Yes, but if that is happening I are not good enough in the game and neither am I enjoying the game. I may need to switch the game I am playing. If the outputs can shatter me to the level that I can’t make a come back, high chance that I am playing the wrong game.
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This is my north star at work place. I need at least 70% of my job to feel like play to me.
The rest 30% is manageable - the random things any company may have like some meetings which go nowhere, some reporting you need to do so that others can be relieved that you have some work to do, or some repetitive task which is difficult for lazy homo sapiens like me. It is a compromise I am ready to make for the rest 70%.
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This idea, whenever I sit and think on, also comes from a place of privilege. I wouldn’t have been able to sit and tell that I will only do the work which look like play to me if I haven’t had all the privileges of education, degrees, or having a good job at hand. But yeah, I will strive in any situation to play more than work. Because I am better when I play than when I work.