[darkerside]

What did you anchor these modest goals upon? Chances are they were based on your perception of how people around you are doing. If you lived in the Paleolithic, perhaps winning would have been having a decent cave, and enough game to feed your family. In another world, perhaps you'd require only one or two modest robot butlers, not a fleet like many others have. Dumb analogies, I know. The point is that, most people's goals are derived from what seems achievable based on perceptions of how everybody else is doing at "the game" we call capitalism. As soon as you start doing that, there are winners and losers by definition.

[Jtsummers]

The winners and losers in your description seems more a ranking, rather than causal. In most games, a winner causes there to be a loser. What about GP's stated goals and achievements would cause someone else to lose at the game of life?

I have friends who would consider me a "loser" by rankings (no house, no wife, no kids; I rent, have a fiancee, and, well, no kids). But their achievements have not caused me to be in this state. It's just facts of how life has played out, and differing priorities.

[darkerside]

You can be winning at your own self defined game. And you probably should be.

Not all games are zero sum. I'm not saying that you need to win in order for others to lose. The cause and effect are almost the inverse of that. What I'm saying is, your definition of success and winning is defined by either achieving what others have, or avoiding situations you know are possible because other people are in them.

You know you're winning because your not in a third world country, homeless, starving, immediately dying, etc. You wouldn't know those were states to avoid unless others were in them.

[chillacy]

This is what I was hinting of when I mentioned subcultures: https://www.gwern.net/The-Melancholy-of-Subculture-Society

The summary is that everyone needs to be a winner, and we can be as long as we all play a different game.