When Life is Hard, Learn to Play the Long Game

Photo by Dakota Lim on Unsplash

“The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self.”
~ A. J. Jacobs

When I complimented my husband the other day on his commitment to his workouts, he replied, “I’m playing the long game.” Given the context, I knew what he meant, but I became curious about the origin of the expression, so I decided to look it up.  

As is the case with many old idioms, the etymology of this one is not quite clear. The English Game, a table game similar to backgammon that was played in medieval England, was also called The Long Game. This may have been the first use of the term. This blog post about British expressions that have become popular in the US discusses the increasing use of the phrase in modern times. Early references seem to have centered on sports metaphors — for example, building up a football team over multiple seasons. (Ah, now I get why the expression is relatively unfamiliar to me. It’s a sports thing! Anything having to do with games is lost on me.)

Like other sports metaphors, over time the idea of “playing the long game” has been applied to many different aspects of life, both personal and professional. We play the long game when we’re building up trust in our relationships. Organizations use it when building up capital for future expenditures.

As children, we are wired for short-term pleasure, comfort, and satisfaction. Our needs are often intense and immediate: crying for our next meal helps us survive. Long-term thinking is learned over time as our perspectives broaden and we are able to see the benefits of, for example, saving our money for a cool toy rather than spending it on candy. Parents teach children this lesson by helping them to visualize the reward that’s to come—the toy—as a result of the decision to forego the candy.  

That perspective requires the development of two traits: patience and imagination. Both are in short supply in children and teenagers. As my daughter says to her firstborn about his younger sister’s impatience, “She’s still learning.”

Both patience and imagination come with maturity, although admittedly plenty of adults still struggle with delaying gratification.

“Playing the long game means paying a small price today to make tomorrow’s tomorrow simpler,” says the author of this business article on the topic.

Don’t you love that?

As adults, playing the long game can help us get through many tough or challenging times in life, especially when tomorrow’s tomorrow seems far away, by connecting us to our purpose.

For spouses and partners, it means hanging in there when we hit bumps in the road in our relationships.

For parents, it means being patient with our little ones (and our teenagers) when they mess up.

For employers, it means taking the time to train and develop our staff.

For students, it means persevering through seemingly endless days of study.

For the self-employed, it means mustering through lengthy projects when it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Looking back, we can usually see what the long game has gotten us. A stronger relationship. Success in our endeavors. A product we can be proud of.

Developing the ability to “see” our desired outcome in our mind’s eye along the way can help support us. When we feel like giving up, we can lean on that skill to get us through.  

Thanks for the reminder, Hub.

Affectionately,

Elaine