Quote by C.G. Jung
Yesterday I listened to an interesting talk about status game and how it is guiding our life, decisions and society. Basically everything we do in our life inside the society and culture is guided by the status game. We come to a certain group and the better we follow the group rules, the better we score in the status game. The better we are the higher we climb on the ladder. The root of this behavior is tribalism that has been a part of our evolution for thousand of years.
Is there a way out? I don’t really think so. Maybe if you become a monk and living the rest of your life in a monastry or move to the forest to live without media, outside of society.
The truth is that this game is driving change, innovation and progress since we started to build societies and cooperate with each other. Its a never ending cycle and we do need it like we need dopamine.
My way out is beeing present and mindfull about the motives the unconcious things that plays with my mind. I try to analyze my motives and behaviors, the way I react and responde. Trying to better understand what is really driving me at this moment, what is underneath my behavior.
Will Store writes in his book “The status game” that there are three types of games that we play:
- dominance games – driven by fear and force – this is where tyrany comes from
- virtue games – showing the best morality and ethics to gain the status – best example is religion
- success games – getting the skills or knowledge to get ahead of the group
What we can do is to avoid the dominance and virtue games and focus on the success games. There is least possibilty of wrongdoing in the success games and this is where you and society gains the most from.
One last thing: Its good to remind ourselves that status its just a game and the more we undestand this the more we are able to guide our lifes.