My good friend Chris Guillebeau released his latest manifesto Tuesday, and I rescheduled my blog calendar for the week to tell you about it.

One thought in particular got me at my core.

The image above accompanied a story about a mobile game that consumed him for a week.

The discontent I felt after playing the game wasn’t only that it failed to deliver pleasure over time; I also came to see it as a threat. It sucked away my time and made me an addict. If I didn’t play the game in the morning, I felt as bad as if I had skipped my cup of coffee. Yet despite my devotion, the game treated me poorly, always taking my time and never giving anything besides more responsibilities.

Ouch.

How many games am I playing?

Literally and figuratively.

After making a note to re-evaluate some of my activities, I kept reading.

Riding along in the back of a taxi to another airport, I realized the possibility: what if the laws of a simple game could be applied in real life? What if we could create the same kind of motivation that drew me to open that game over and over—but instead of applying it to building imaginary banks, we learned to harness it for something useful?

That’s profound.

We can use the knowledge of our own preferences to lead ourselves to create something meaningful.

And the rest of the manifesto guides us on exactly how to do that. I can’t imagine anything more powerful.

You can download it here, for free, no forms or email opt in.