The Individual Contest

What is it like to live in a reality contest with real prizes, and real consequences? What is it like to do this, every single day?

The answer to this question you have formulated is indeed one of the main existential clues as to your "being" here. If you can follow the example, that the composite of true reality you see before is made wholly of every single perception, every single bundle of experiences and actions that construct a soul, then the outcomes of what is to come is already apparent; realizing what was the soul's predetermined reasoning for being here allows you to realize your "truth".

Every person is answerable to this task.

Hopefully, the seeds of thought can be nurtured by these words, and eventually blossom into a tree of insight, solitude, and empathy. As a human being, you will eventually have to face the truth. Fact is, you know you've been competing this entire time as compared to what you perceive as the other perceptions around you; did you really think you had these nagging intuitions for nothing? Might as well get ready to have a bare consciousness on display for everybody to see; we might find the thoughts and paradises you have created quite interesting.

In the end, it really isn't that serious. Creation doesnt give itself "createdness" just to take it back from itself. In the end, that "one" you are apart of has already decided and made the moves to carry on in a content and blissful experience as the whole sees fit. Even when all seems lost, rememeber, you are apart of something much bigger than yourself.
Sometimes, it's just your time to "play the game".
Sometimes is actually all the time.

EL