A builder builds, and a builder can build many things: a product or service, a team, a company, an essay, a song, a friendship, a home, a family, a culture, a skillset. The builder’s mindset is a perspective, a set of premises, habits, and techniques, to enable and valorize a life built around the building of such things.
Looking at the builder’s mindset that way reminded me of James Carse’s fabulous “Finite and Infinite Games”[1]:
By measuring our lives in terms of “building it”, we create a framing that allows us to play our life as the infinite game it really is. And in the course of playing, we have the freedom to engage - or not - in all the many finite plays we are confronted with.
Ideally, we engage in all of this with the infinite players mindset.
Looking at it this way also posits that building - in the essence of the builders mindset proposed by you, is inherently playful. That’s a perspective I really like.
[1]: Carse, James P. Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility. Ballantine Books, 1986.
Superb article! Could you offer advice to someone struggling with decision anxiety over deciding between several valuable paths, rather than giving up on a less valuable path in exchange for one of higher value?
Yes- one resource I had half a mind to link to in the article (but didn’t find a good spot for) is this fantastic talk by philosopher Ruth Chang, called “How to make hard choices”: https://youtu.be/8GQZuzIdeQQ?si=93dZH4AGG1BpbQSa . Beyond that, I would also just emphasize that any decision tends to be better than no decision at all, and that a lot more decisions are “2-way doors” than we tend to appreciate.
Gena, great article! As relevant to someone building a life in chapter 3, some might describe post retirement, as someone in chapter 1, more at the beginning.
Looking at the builder’s mindset that way reminded me of James Carse’s fabulous “Finite and Infinite Games”[1]:
By measuring our lives in terms of “building it”, we create a framing that allows us to play our life as the infinite game it really is. And in the course of playing, we have the freedom to engage - or not - in all the many finite plays we are confronted with.
Ideally, we engage in all of this with the infinite players mindset.
Looking at it this way also posits that building - in the essence of the builders mindset proposed by you, is inherently playful. That’s a perspective I really like.
[1]: Carse, James P. Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility. Ballantine Books, 1986.
Superb article! Could you offer advice to someone struggling with decision anxiety over deciding between several valuable paths, rather than giving up on a less valuable path in exchange for one of higher value?
Yes- one resource I had half a mind to link to in the article (but didn’t find a good spot for) is this fantastic talk by philosopher Ruth Chang, called “How to make hard choices”: https://youtu.be/8GQZuzIdeQQ?si=93dZH4AGG1BpbQSa . Beyond that, I would also just emphasize that any decision tends to be better than no decision at all, and that a lot more decisions are “2-way doors” than we tend to appreciate.
Gena, great article! As relevant to someone building a life in chapter 3, some might describe post retirement, as someone in chapter 1, more at the beginning.
Love the reframing on building life as a whole.
How can one identify when we are building for a local maximum (e.g. a career or job), to the detriment of life as a whole?
Seems as though the main problem people experience is “losing the forest for the trees”, correct?