We’ve had a lot of ‘ways of living hacks’ lately. We’ve had Marie Kondo suggesting that if an item doesn’t ‘bring us joy’, we should discard it – which could explain why X Factor has finally been axed.
The Scandi life hack of hygge suggests a life of small comforts and pleasures to counteract the mountain of tasks we simply don’t want to do.
And we have the British hack – just have a cup of tea and it’ll all blow over. But there is also the latest hack, which illustrates that we could have a simpler life is inspired by roulette, and suggests that we live our lives as though we are spinning the metaphorical wheel.
The concept of this lifestyle relies on taking measured risks. As the roulette player takes small risks every time they spin the wheel – or even bigger risks if they go all in – you would take risks that might feel uncomfortable, but could lead to better things.
So, you might ask your boss to value you more with a pay increase or to go home early one day. You might dare ask your partner to try eating at a different restaurant or you might suggest to a friend that you aren’t actually interested in talking about what happened at their Crossfit class for too long.
These risks are based on the idea of roulette being a known quantity – there are a finite amount of moves to make and, whether you choose a singular number, odds or evens, blacks or reds, you will have an idea of what your chances are. In life, we have similar odds.
Asking your boss for a raise will result in two outcomes: yes or no, black or red. The idea would be to take risks based on limited information as to how the risk will pan out, but with an idea of the options. Like with roulette, you know the possible outcomes, just not what they will end up being.
This lifestyle could even change depending on the type of roulette wheel you imagine your life might be. As the structure of the roulette wheel has one major difference depending on the rules you are playing by. For example, American roulette has the standard zero slot, as well as the double-zero slot. While the European roulette wheel only has one zero, thereby slashing the house odds from 5.3% on American roulette, to 2.7% for European roulette. So, if you want to live by the American rules of the game, you could try taking more risks.
Every lifestyle hack that comes our way is designed to make us look at our lives a little differently. Are we doing too many things that don’t bring us joy? Do we take a moment to appreciate the little things as per hygge? Are we living too sedately and not taking risks that are low, but have a potential for a high reward? Ultimately, lifestyle hacks are designed so that we look at our actual lives and consider that, maybe, we were doing alright beforehand.
