Picture this: You’re crushing it at Monopoly, properties stacked high, hotels gleaming on Park Lane, when someone gently taps your shoulder and says, “Hey, we’re actually playing Chess.”
That’s essentially what’s happening to millions of us right now, minus the board games and plastic hotels.
You’re Playing the Wrong Game
Game theory tells us there are two types of games: finite and infinite. Finite games are like sprint races or quarterly targets: there’s a clear endpoint and a winner. Infinite games are more like maintaining a friendship or staying alive and healthy—you play to keep playing.
Many of us treat health like a series of sprints when it’s really a lifelong journey. We celebrate short-term victories while overlooking the long-term consequences. We optimise for the next 30 days instead of the next 30 years.
If your goal is to make it to 90 and beyond—independent, mobile, free of chronic illness, and mentally sharp—the rules of the game need to change. You’re not just playing for career milestones anymore; you’re playing for decades of vibrant life. The prize is worth it, but the strategy that got you here won’t get you there.
When the Rules Change (But You Don’t)
Our bodies operate on biological time, not deadline time. Yet we keep trying to negotiate with biology like it’s a business deal.
Take sleep: it becomes an inconvenient barrier to productivity, something to minimise and optimise. But after 40, sleep isn’t negotiable—it’s fundamental to preventing cognitive decline. The game has changed, but many of us are still playing by the old rules.
Your 20s were about staying awake at work after a really heavy night; your 40s and beyond are about preserving muscle and brain power. Muscle isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s your metabolic powerhouse and a key determinant of long-term health. That quick-fix diet might help you drop weight fast, but at what cost to your muscle mass—the very tissue that will keep you independent in your 70s and beyond?
The latest trend of carnivore diets might temporarily flatten your stomach and reduce bloating. Quick win, right? But you’re trading tomorrow’s health for today’s quick wins. The long game is about nurturing your gut microbiome—not just for comfortable digestion now, but to potentially prevent neurodegenerative conditions decades down the line. Recent research links significant shifts in mid-life microbiome populations to Parkinson’s disease risk.
The New Scoreboard
Mitochondria—our energy producing biological factories—are supremely unimpressed by our productivity hacks. They’re playing their own game—one with rules written in biology, not quarterly reports.
The metrics that matter now?
- Blood glucose
- Insulin sensitivity
- Cholesterol ratios and particle size
- Lean mass
- Visceral fat
- Bone density
- Inflammatory markers
- VO2Max
- Grip strength
These are some of the real indicators of how well you’re playing the game and predict your future independence and vitality. The more you know, the better you can adjust your strategy.
Consider what game you’re really playing when you:
- Choose rapid-result diets over sustainable muscle preservation.
- Sacrifice sleep for extra work hours.
- Chase quick fixes instead of addressing root causes.
- Choose to put your energy into everything except your own future wellbeing.
- Let your social circle sabotage your health goals with “just one more drink”.
- Ignore the biological metrics that actually matter.
- Cross your fingers and hope for the best instead of developing a specific strategy for ageing.
- Tell yourself that feeling weaker and less energetic is just part of getting older, rather than a sign to take action.
The most sophisticated players in any game understand this:
Sometimes the winning move is to realise you’re playing the wrong game altogether.
Your health isn’t something you can win or lose in a month—it’s the cumulative result of thousands of small choices made over decades.
Success isn’t just about professional accolades or financial gain anymore—it’s about waking up with energy, staying active, and feeling sharp and capable well into your 80s and 90s. Chase the prize that truly matters.
As Seneca wrote two millennia ago, “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.” The choices we make today shape our health for decades to come.
As you plan your next health move, ask yourself:
Are you still playing the game from your 20s and 30s, or have you embraced the game that sets you up for the long haul?
Because if you’re not playing the game that gets you to 90 feeling strong, independent, and cognitively sharp, then maybe it’s time to rewrite the rules.