Mind Games

When first hearing the phrase 'mind game' some may think about the things people say or do that is purposely meant to trick or fool the psychological thinking of another, in other words, they play tricks with your mind. However, what about the games we play in our own head? The ones that are not meant to trick or fool you but actually try to help you make better decision in the future, which is essenitally the same to a  game theory or decision theory mentality. 

I personally find myself playing mind games as well with situations I encounter. Like when I was recently away at a soccer camp with a new coach and new staff members. I had no idea what they would be like or how they thought, and the only thing I had to go off of was what I saw and heard from them each and every day, which was definately a challenge. I was constantly trying to figure what they meant by this and that, and how they thought I was playing based off of their body language, comments and feedback. I found myself always thinking what I should do to be better based off what I thought they wanted. And of course that changed from day to day when something new would come up, it became sort of like a game to figure out what actions would help me the most.

Hunger Games

 We can see an example of this in The Magic Circle's book quest of the novel The Hunger Games. I recently finished reading the novel and I realised that there is game theory throughout the whole book. The main character Katniss Everdeen battles with many decision about who to trust, how she should act and many more. There are countless examples of where she tries to understand and interpret actions of other so should can do and say the right things to better herself. For example, how she analyses the conversations and actions of fellow district member Peeta Mellark, and mentor Haymitch to find out their intentions so she can make her decisions from them. The decisions she makes are not also permanent and are actually changing numerous times as her interpretations are changing as well. You get a chance to see how she plays these games in her head and her thought process throughout her experience of the hunger games.

Even though your intentions are to make decision that will benefit you, playing to many decision games in your head can get confusing and tiresome. But I think it's something that is hard to avoid when you want so some so bad, like Katniss does with surviving the hunger games or wanted to impress coaches. But it's interesting to see what games your mind plays when faced with decisions.