What Can Game of Thrones Teach Us About Life

Game of Thrones is arguably one of the best TV shows of all time. A fantasy world replete by cunning power games, charismatic leaders, opportunistic friendships, forbidden romance and a constant ambiguity of “good and evil”, won over the hearts of millions of people all over the globe. Becoming a mainstream trend and graphically displaying acts of cruelty doesn’t leave Game of Thrones without haters as well.

Love it or hate it, there are many great ideas lurking just beneath the surface of the plot. With the 7th season behind us and the last season almost 2 years away, I found myself contemplating various ideas that I could extract and apply to further increase the quality of my life. This article is a series of meditations on 5 great ideas I learned from the show, the philosophy behind them and its implications in today’s world. Keep your mind open. Let the games begin.

After his shocking assassination at the end of season 5 and his spectacular resurrection in season 6, Jon Snow perplexed my mind with his simple description of “afterlife”. As Lady Melisandre (the Red Woman) asked him what he saw on the other side, Jon’s exact words were: “Nothing. There was nothing at all.”

Taking in the totality of this statement, the immense weight it bears, you might experience an emotional rollercoaster ran by uncertainty and denial. It flies directly in the face of God, heaven, hell, final judgment, reincarnation and other so-called explanations of the afterlife.

It leads to a frightening, yet interesting question: What if there is nothing at the end? Consider it for a moment. What if there really is nothing in the end… You just die. No heaven, no hell, no God. What if all you are is just a speck of paint in the gigantic and magnificent masterpiece called Evolution? Without a purpose. Meaningless.

When I first thought about it like that, I was scared — that’s okay. Since the day, we drew our first breath, we are conditioned to think, believe or at least hope there is something “beyond” — that our death is not the end. As much liberating as it should be, it places enormous amounts of pressure on us as well.

Realizing there may as well be no fanfares escorting your ass to heaven in the end, is not scary — that’s the actual liberation. It relieves you of all the pressure religion and society are putting on you to “behave well” — to behave as they want you to. You aren’t free to be who you are. You aren’t free to do what you really want. Not as long as you’re bound with “their” expectations. Only once you realize that life and death by itself are meaningless, you get the opportunity to do your own thing and create your own meaning.

While marching beyond the Wall, the illuminating conversation between Beric Dondarrion and Jon Snow shed light on a very important dilemma as well as its solution. Beric telling Jon that all he fights for is life and that death is the ultimate enemy still gives me goosebumps. The statement beautifully describes a position we, living creatures, find ourselves in. The day you are born, you start dying. As paradoxical as it sounds, the process of dying is called life. At the end of the day, everything we do has a sole purpose of prolonging this process. The enemy we are fighting against is our own inevitable decay.

“But we all die”, responds Jon articulating the thoughts we’re all experiencing at that moment. “Yes, the enemy always wins, but we still need to fight it.”, replies Dondarrion wisely. In other words: The fight is what makes life worthwhile. And in a cheesy motivational quote: It’s not the destination, it’s the journey that matters.

Even when the goal is impossible to reach, the process of striving for it will transform you into a better version of yourself. Don’t mourn the impossibility of your desired destination. Love the Path leading you to it and celebrate every step of the way.

Just because you’ll die alone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create a life full of meaningful relationships. Just because you’ll die doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take care of your health to make the most out of your stay on Earth. Just because you can’t reach perfection doesn’t mean you should abandon its pursuit altogether.

The enemy always wins. We all bite the dust at the end. You can choose to look towards the end in fear, paralyzed, just waiting for it to happen. Or you can embrace its inevitable nature and transform it into fuel for your relentless your pursuit of making this process called Life as meaningful and as awesome as you possibly can.

He trusts Little Finger, bluntly confronts Cersei about her incestuous children, confides his plan to summon Stannis to Baelish and to top it all off he wants to use the City Watch to bring the King and his mother into custody. Yes, Eddard Stark is an idealist, confident in everyone’s ability to do the right thing — no matter the consequences. The only problem: Westeros is not the ideal world Ned wanted to convince himself it is — which explains why he lost his head. Literally.

Governed by power games, greed, and egoic pride, Westeros forces you to make some difficult decisions. Sometimes you have to temporarily sacrifice your standards, break your promises and smile in the face of your enemy just to stay alive. After all, you can’t do much good, if you are dead. To thrive in such environment, one must possess a fine amount of craftiness and pragmatism bluntly described by Robert Greene in his 48 Laws of Power.

While the book is perfect for navigating through the culture of Westeros, it’s suitable for the 21st century in our world as well. While the time we live in may not be as cruel, it still isn’t unconditionally fair. We often act on self-interest, fail to do the “right” thing and struggle with being completely honest about our intentions. Burying your head in the sand or trying to brainwash yourself you’re living in an ideal world can bring you nothing but frustration (and depression). Expecting everyone will have your best interest at heart, do the right thing and play “fair” is naïve and disappointing. While being the “only” idealistic person may sound poetic, it tastes equally bitter as well.

Acknowledging that the world is not perfect is the first step one must take to avoid utter disappointment. Despite all our good qualities, we still sometimes give in to our more “animalistic” desires, mainly being power-hungry, obsessed with material possessions and craving sex. It’s just how it is.

The second step is to keep that in mind while making your decisions. Pragmatism is required to successfully navigate the world today. The best place to start in my opinion is reading and applying some of the 48 Laws of Power in Robert Greene’s amazing book.

In a world ruled by greed, lust for power and gold, one must become a master in crafting cunning strategies and playing power games. By pulling off clever maneuvers, Petyr Baelish, a.k.a. Little Finger, managed to outlive much bigger, stronger men in a world where he wasn’t meant to be a major player.

“Chaos is a ladder” — a well-known quote of his holds the key to the 4th great lesson from Game of Thrones.

What happens in times of chaos? People lose their heads, they turn off their rational minds, overcome by emotions they make irrational and instinctive choices that often turn out wrong. This poses an immense opportunity for people who can keep their cool, rationally assess the situation at hand and execute a series of well-thought-out moves to capitalize on this opportunity — people like Little Finger.

Most people fail at this step because all they have is a plan. While a focused and detailed plan can provide us with a warm and cozy feeling of certainty, the plan’s narrow-minded, naïve and unadaptable nature represents ita grave threat to the success of our endeavours.

What is a plan anyway? It’s a sequence of steps required to achieve a certain end goal, where each of the steps relies on the success of the previous steps. It’s a chain of events that must happen. When one block fails, the whole chain goes haywire. In order to succeed everything must go according to the plan — sadly, nothing ever does.

Hence, you don’t need a plan. You need a strategy. The difference between a plan and a strategy is that the latter takes into account (nearly) all the possible outcomes and consequential responses to each of the steps. It’s adaptable, which is crucial in today’s fast paced, unpredictable world.

The best (and simplest) way to create a strategy is to play the game of “If this, then that…”. Set a goal, think about your next move you want to take, then ask yourself what action will you take if this first step succeeds or fails. Repeat this process for all future steps and scenarios. Voila, you have a strategy. Whatever happens, you are ready.

On a personal note, I realized that long-term strategizing is as naïve and overly-optimistic as planning. While a strategy has the ability to predict future possibilities and responses, it cannot predict every one of them years in advance — run away from those who try to sell you it can. There are too many variables.

Here’s what I found useful for me: I set a long-term goal (at least 1 year in advance), contemplate on what the best first steps of this journey of mine could be and I create a 1–3-month strategy based on that. When I lay it out on purpose, I dive in the execution of the strategy head first, immersing myself in the process and finding fulfillment in it. After the period passes, I evaluate my progress and based on the lessons learned I create a strategy for the next 1–3 months. It keeps me motivated, while still being effective in predicting the most common situation I may face on the way.

Remember, sometimes the smartest idea on paper perform the worst in practice. Sometimes the simple, almost dumb ideas work like magic. Yes, be stubborn about your goals, but don’t get attached to only certain ways of achieving it. Execute, learn, adapt and know there is more than just one way to the top.

This is one of my favorite moments in the show. The words “My watch has ended” represent an important ability one must master — knowing when to walk away. Yes, when you commit to something, a relationship, a business venture or a training regimen, you should give it your all. It will work out great for you… most of the times. However, on many occasions, you’ll scrap your knees and fail, despite your heroic efforts. You will give it your all, but it won’t be enough. In those situations, one should be able to walk away and start something new. And yet we don’t. We torture ourselves by fighting for lost causes. We think of ourselves as heroes and martyrs, yet we are nothing but a bunch of fools without the balls to cut our losses.

In our defense, it’s extremely difficult to walk away or abandon a situation to which we previously committed to. We want to act in congruency with our previous decisions, even when that doesn’t serve us well anymore. It’s what the psychologists call the Commitment Consistency bias, made famous by Robert Cialdini in his “persuasion bible” Influence. The gist of this cognitive fallacy goes as follows: Once we make a choice or take a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. (Fazio, Blascovich, & Driscoll, 1992). It’s the underlying cause of why people stay in damaging relationships, catastrophic business ventures, and ineffective training programs.

Again, the first step is awareness — keeping in mind that the Commitment Consistency bias is influencing our behavior and our decisions. Once you name it and know it’s there, it becomes real — this allows you to beat it. The second step is assessing the situation — the work you put in, the results you got out and if the return on investment is worthwhile. When the situation is beyond saving, the third step is to have the balls to quit it and start something new.

There are a lot of other amazing experiences and adventures waiting for you out there. Muster up the courage and go face them. Maybe you find yourself in bed with your own Dragon Queen.

In the spirit of this last idea, I am concluding this article. These are the ideas and philosophies from Game of Thrones I feel most passionate about. I have nothing more to give. I gave you everything I could. It’s time to move on. This is the time to walk away.

My article has ended.

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