When playing a game we don’t know the rules to, we emulate others – its the most intuitive way to learn.
Outsourcing our judgement, we watch what others aim for, following their lead.
The first thing we notice are the visual signs of success. Which, in the career game, appear as large salaries and owning many things.

So by all appearances – material wealth signifies a ‘good’ career.
Thus the pursuit of wealth may guide your career decisions; staying late in the office, sacrificing work-life balance, spending less time with your family.
This routine may continue until one day, sitting down at your desk you think “where is my life going?” and “is this even what I want?”

Many realise they never truly asked themselves this – running on autopilot and going in a direction they thought they ought to.
We realise that our career is separate from our lives, and simply a means to our personal goals, not the goal itself.

Ultimately, before playing any game we must know what we want. For if you don’t, someone else will tell you.
Knowing what you want and where you are going – you define good and bad based on your progression towards or away from that goal.
Meaning whatever game we end up playing, including our careers, we will always know ‘good’ from ‘bad’.