I love an analogy I heard from Naval Ravikant, a tech investor and modern-day philosopher. In a podcast interview, he said that life is essentially a single-player game, not a multiplayer game. These terms equate to interior life vs. exterior life. Let’s elaborate:
- The single-player game: just you, your thoughts, and your emotions.
- The multiplayer game: the material world around us and what other people in the “game” can see, including your physical appearance and possessions, how much money you make, etc.
The latter includes many things we display to obtain social approval (the exterior life). But the single-player game takes away all the physical stuff. It focuses on intangible things other people have difficulty perceiving in us – our emotions and what’s happening inside our minds (the interior life).
For example, on social media, people can put on the appearance of a happy life but have a cluttered and burdened mind. It begs the question: after we have our basic needs met (food, water, shelter), what brings true satisfaction?
I say the interior life, of course. Material stuff doesn’t bring true happiness, and neither does any attempt to gain the approval of others. But if we shift our focus, happiness can be long-lasting regardless of physical stuff or status. Meditation is just one example of how we can foster our interior life.