The Game of Life and How to Play It
1925
The Game of Life and How to Play It
1925
The book that taught generations to stop fighting life and start playing it. Written in 1925, Florence Scovel Shinn arrived at a radical proposition: the universe is not an adversarial force to be endured, but a game with knowable rules. Through short, sharp chapters she lays out a spiritual economics, thoughts are investments, words are seeds, and what you give returns multiplied. Her framework is surprisingly practical. Rather than empty affirmation, she offers case studies from her psychotherapy practice (the woman who attracted marriage by declaring it, the man whose fear of poverty literally froze his finances). Shinn distinguishes between the subconscious (the garden where beliefs take root) and the superconscious (the divine receiver connecting to universal supply). What makes this century-old text still hum is its audacious simplicity: change your inner dialogue, change your circumstances. It is for the reader who has wrestled with life and lost, and is ready to learn a new game.
Editions
X-Ray
“You can control any situation if you first control yourself.””
— Florence Scovel Shinn
“Most people consider life a battle, but it is not a battle, it is a game.””
— Florence Scovel Shinn
“Man must prepare for the thing he has asked for, when there isn't the slightest sign of it in sight.””
— Florence Scovel Shinn
“Man can only receive what he sees himself receiving.””
— Florence Scovel Shinn
“The subconscious mind has no sense of humor and people often joke themselves into unhappy experiences.””
— Florence Scovel Shinn
“The robbers of time are the past and the future. Man should bless the past, and forget it, if it keeps him in bondage, and bless the future, knowing it has in store for him endless joys, but live fully in the now.””
— Florence Scovel Shinn
“There is an old saying that man only dares use his words for three purposes, to "heal, bless or prosper." What man says of others will be said of him, and what he wishes for another, he is wishing for himself.””
— Florence Scovel Shinn
“Bills should be paid cheerfully, all money should be sent forth fearlessly and with a blessing.””
— Florence Scovel Shinn
“Make an affirmation immediately upon waking. For example: "Thy will be done this day! Today is a day of completion, I give thanks for this perfect day, miracle shall follow miracle and wonders shall never cease." Make this a habit, and one will see wonders and miracles come into his life.””
— Florence Scovel Shinn
