Is “The Short Game” Carpe Diem gone wrong?
Don’t worry about tomorrow! YOLO! Carpe Diem! Seize the day.
It’s all good. Right? No, really. It’s good, isn’t it? Just to live for the day? Not to worry about tomorrow? You only live once! Who knows what tomorrow might bring. That’s a good strategy, right?
For you new to The Cream, you will quickly figure out that I’m in it for The Long Game. If this is mathematically possible (we’ll soon find out), I’m both seizing the day and playing the long game. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I’m in Bangkok, Thailand and was talking with a Dutch guy who lives and has a business here. He’s been here for 20+ years and has no plans on leaving. He loves the “lack of regulations” and freedom for individuals and business. But we also talked about the trash in the rivers and, well, everywhere, and his theory was that people don’t have the luxury of thinking about or planning for tomorrow, they live now and live for the day.
In other words, they’re not too concerned that tossing plastic bags (and everything else) into the rivers is bad for the future. Of course, it’s bad on so many levels, but it also floats away and is no longer their problem. But what about the people upstream who think the same way? They also live for the day and toss their garbage in the river and now it is your problem. It’s no longer their problem, but it’s yours. Similarly, with the trash that you throw in, it’s no longer your problem, but it’s someone else’s.
That pretty much sums up how I see The Short Game.
Do your short-term actions affect the short game (or the long game) of someone else? Can you play the short game alone? Let’s put it this way if you’re the type who doesn’t care about the guy down the river and his short or long game: do you think that your short game affects your long game? If so, do you care enough about your own self to care? To do something about it?
Sure, the trash issue. I inherited from my father a deep disgust with litterbugs. I imagine elaborate ways to torture them. Slowly. 😉 Let’s say that you want to help your long game by not littering today. Awesome. Unless you live in a backwater neighborhood in Bangkok and you’re reading this, chances are you are conscientious with your garbage and think about how it affects you, others, and the planet. Thanks. Each piece you don’t drop–even better, each piece you pick up that wasn’t yours–makes the world a better place. I know, I know, kumbaya, but hey, I don’t like trash.
Let’s go beyond a simple and easy thing like garbage and move onto, well, take your pick: finances, passion, career, happiness. Ooh, sorry, did I touch a nerve? You were good with me talking short and long game about garbage but when I drive it home and get into your money and your dreams and who you really are, how does that feel?
How much of your life are you living in the short game and how much in the long game?
How much do you care? That’s actually a rhetorical question: you care deeply. But remember how the garbage game was simple and easy? We might have just tiptoed into the more treacherous waters of simple but not easy or plunged head first into both not simple and not easy.
Are you ready?
I know, it’s scary. I get it. I really do. I spent many of the last years playing the short game with much of my life and only now that I’m in the long game do I realize how mindset altering it is.
What’s your short game? What’s your long game?
