...in order to have a game, where you are not or what you are not has got to be more important than where you are or what you are.
The real question is, where is the aliveness in the game? Where’s the happiness? And the love? And the health and the full self-expression? The purpose of living is living. Your total purpose of living is living. That’s the real purpose of life, but that’s not the goal in the game. The goal in the game is always to win. And that’s one of the things that helps you know where it is.
Goals In The Game
It is merely represented by the goal you set – your destination and time of reaching it. Some people think the goal is it: that if I get over here and I’m not over there anymore that I’ve reached it, because being over here was my goal. Actually, the goal is simply what you set up to represent it. That isn’tit, that’s just a representation, it’s the way you get to play the game. The representation is anything you agree on to represent it.
Suppose you agreed that what you wanted to be was a fireman. Then it is represented by being a fireman. Now suppose you are halfway to this goal and you say, "You know something, I don’t think I want to be a fireman. I think I’ll be a policeman." And then you say, "No, I don’t think I’ll be a policeman, I think I’ll be a chemist." At each moment, at each step, you have the opportunity to experience living. You have the opportunity to realize the purpose (not the goal) of the game which is livingness.
To master life you simply need to know what you want. There’s nothing you should want. Whatever you want is fine. There’s no intrinsically valuable importance. You don’t have to find it. It’s whatever you say it is. Wake up in the morning and make up a goal. It doesn’t make any difference. Most of you are stuck with what you say you wanted. It’s all right not to want what you wanted. You can want something new now.
