Life is not a Zero Sum game.
I heard that on a recent podcast I was listening to, and it got me thinking about how we so frequently act like it is.
A zero-sum game is a game where there is a finite amount of points (or tokens or chips). A closed game of poker is a perfect example. Each player starts with $100 in chips. They cannot buy more chips as the game progresses (which is why the game is closed). Instead, they are limited to the amount of money allocated on the board.
During the first hand, each player bets $10. Player A has the best hand, so he wins that round. Each of the other players lose.
Unlike in, say, hockey, where each team can score as many points as they like, there is a limited amount of resources. If one person wins, the other player(s) must lose equal to the amount that was won. In the poker example, each of the other players might lose $5 each, while the winner takes $20 into his pile.
There is nothing new being added to the game, so the overall total is always the same, just the way the money/chips/resources are allocated is different. One player gains $20, the other loses $20. The change in resources is zero.
Don’t get me wrong: there is nothing wrong with these types of games.
The trouble comes when people apply this type of thinking to business or to the way they live. Because life? Isn’t a game, zero sum or other (sorry, Monty Python). If someone wins, it doesn’t mean that another has to lose.
Look at the most basic function of what happens in a capitalist society. When I go to the grocery store, for instance, I pick up a quart of milk, a loaf of bread and a stick of butter. I pay for my groceries. One could argue that I am now poorer and the grocer richer, but that is not the case, as I now have food to eat. There has been a trade, and each person is happy.
Jacob Goldstein, former host of the show Planet Money, says one of the most exciting things he learned while doing the show was exactly this: “At the heart of economics is this idea that everyone can get richer, and the pie can get bigger. The world is not a zero sum game. At some level, this is a counterintuitive idea. At some level we feel that if one person is getting more, they must be taking it away from someone else. For me, the great big exciting insight I’ve learned is that’s not so. In the last 100 years, almost everyone on the planet has gotten richer.”
How can this be? Says Goldstein: “as we figure out better ways to do things, we gain efficiencies. You can grow more food more efficiently. Make more things. And as we figure these things out, everybody can benefit.”
Key word there? Can. Because the trouble comes when someone tries to take someone else’s share. When they try and tilt the scales in their favour.
A lot of times, this comes from what’s known as a scarcity mentality.
This is the idea that there are limited resources. This frequently leads to the idea that you need to horde things; that you need to collect more and more and more things.
If you had a (grand)parent who grew up during the great depression, you might have noticed that they had a drawer full of bread clips and rubber bands collected from broccoli. This is the scarcity/hording mentality at its most basic. It’s most harmless.
But scale that up a few billion times and you have people hording wealth. You have billionaires buying yachts while fighting increases to minimum wages.
I get it. We all want to be successful, but for some people, the only way to do so is if others lose. That’s scarcity thinking. But history shows that it is possible for all to succeed.
But it’s not just about money. It’s the way we carry ourselves, the way we behave day to do. Some people feel they deserve better than the people around them: More money, a better job title, a bigger house, or a faster car. It isn’t just about keeping up with the Joneses, it’s about beating them. Which can lead you to becoming grumpy and envious if that doesn’t happen, believing that their success diminishes yours.
It doesn’t. And instead of basing your definition of happiness on someone else’s successes or—more to the point—failures, you could—and I’m just spitballing here—but you could base them on your own needs. When you do that, you may discover that five bedroom house? Just means more work for you to maintain it, and a condo is the perfect place for you.
You may realize that a faster car just leads to more speeding tickets, a better job title leads to more responsibilities which leads to more headaches. And if someone else has more stuff? Great. Wish them well and move on with your life.
Do you need to take credit for the good stuff and assign blame for when things go wrong? Again, this is a sign that you are thinking wrong. If someone else does something good and wonderful at work? Celebrate them! Sing their praises loud and proud. Your status in the eyes of others won’t be diminished when you life others up. Indeed, you may find the opposite is true.
And accepting responsibility when things go wrong? Also, strangely enough, tends to elevate your stature in the eyes of others. And if it doesn’t? What does it matter? Own your mistakes. Treat is as a learning opportunity and grow.
It’s okay to want to be better and to want to make a better life for you and your family. The issue is when you try and do it at the expense of others. Go, work hard. Invent something. Create new wealth instead of stealing it.
Ultimately, if comes down to your attitude. Which is great, because those are learnable. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. And when you learn to celebrate other’s victories instead of putting them down and when you learn to share instead of horde, you will have made great steps towards being a better person. In the immortal words of one Mr. M. Python: Always look on the bright side of life.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
