Finding Meaning in Life's Suffering
Life Lessons and Life Hacks from The Last of Us

The Last of Us: the game and the show

The Last of Us is a work of fiction. The video game, made by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation 3, came out on 14 June 2013, and BAFTA credited its story to Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson played Joel and Ellie in the game and in its sequel, The Last of Us Part II, which followed in 2020. HBO’s television series, co-created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, began on 15 January 2023, with Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie.

The story is the same in both. After a fungal infection has wrecked the world, Joel, a hardened survivor who has lost his daughter Sarah, has to take Ellie, who is immune, across a ruined United States to a group called the Fireflies.

Every line of dialogue on this page is credited to the character who says it and to the game or the show. The lessons are our reading of a story, not advice.

Life Lessons and Life Hacks from “The Last of Us”

Each lesson below says what happens in the story, what we take from it, and one way to use it.

Lesson 1: Always be prepared for the worst

In the story. Joel’s job is to get Ellie across the country “all while dodging clickers, bandits and all sorts of danger”, as Variety put it when the series’ release date was announced.

One way to use it. A written plan for an emergency at home is the ordinary version. The US government’s Ready.gov, for example, suggests working out how you will “contact one another and reconnect if separated” and agreeing on “a family meeting place that’s familiar and easy to find”.

Lesson 2: Trust your instincts

In the story. The story’s biggest decision comes at the Fireflies’ hospital, where, in The Ringer’s words, “everything unfolds (and unravels) quickly”.

Our reading. Instinct is worth more in some places than others. The psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein concluded in 2009 that judging an intuition means looking at “the predictability of the environment in which the judgment is made” and at the person’s “opportunity to learn the regularities of that environment”. They add that “subjective experience is not a reliable indicator of judgment accuracy”: feeling sure is not the same as being right.

One way to use it. Before acting on a gut feeling, ask whether you have done this often, with quick feedback on whether you got it right.

Lesson 3: Never give up

In the story. In the game’s final scene, just before Ellie asks him to swear that what he told her about the Fireflies is true, Joel tells her that he struggled a long time with surviving, and that she, no matter what, keeps finding something to fight for. Transcriptions of the exact wording differ, so it is paraphrased here.

Our reading. The point is less about toughness than about having something to fight for.

One way to use it. Small goals you can finish are one way to keep moving when big ones stall. There is more on keeping going in Motivation vs Discipline.

Lesson 4: Find meaning in suffering

In the story. When Joel suggests turning back and going to his brother Tommy’s instead, Ellie refuses:

“After all we’ve been through. I mean, everything that I’ve done. It can’t be for nothing.” — Ellie, The Last of Us (2013 game), as transcribed on IMDb

Our reading. This is the story’s central claim, and the one to hold loosely. Suffering does not come with meaning attached; people tend to build it afterwards, if they look for it.

One way to use it. Writing down what happened, and what you made of it, is one way to do that looking.

Lesson 5: Learn to let go

In the story. For much of the journey Joel will not talk about Sarah: in the series’ sixth episode he shuts Ellie down as soon as she mentions her. In the final episode, The Ringer’s recap notes, Joel and Ellie “discuss his daughter freely”, and “it’s clear that Joel is no longer repressing his past”.

One way to use it. Epictetus opens his Enchiridion by separating the things “within our power” from those “beyond our power”; there is more on that in Stoicism.

Lesson 6: Value your relationships

In the story. By the end, in The Ringer’s words, “Ellie is Joel’s surrogate daughter”.

One way to use it. Setting aside regular time for the people who matter, and being fully present for it, is the plain version.

Lesson 7: Embrace change

In the story. Nothing in Joel and Ellie’s journey stays the same for long; they cross the country, from one place and set of dangers to the next.

One way to use it. A short list of things you have wanted to try, started with the smallest, makes change something you choose rather than something that only happens to you.

Lesson 8: Face your fears

In the story. The game is full of things to be afraid of: the infected, and human enemies that include, in Tech Digest’s description, “military forces on the lookout for the runaways” and “scavengers”.

One way to use it. Taking on a fear a step at a time, starting small, is the everyday version. If a fear is affecting your life, the UK’s NHS suggests seeing a GP; it lists talking therapies “such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)” among the treatments for phobias. There is more on fear, from a different angle, in Conquer Your Fears.

Lesson 9: Be resourceful

In the story. The game makes resourcefulness the way you play. A 2013 review in Tech Digest says Joel and Ellie “will constantly be scavenging, always on the verge of running out of ammunition”, and that “scavenging parts littered around levels will let Joel craft new projectiles”.

One way to use it. When a problem is stuck, list several ways round it before choosing one.

Lesson 10: Cherish the simple things

In the story. Near the end, Joel and Ellie come across a group of giraffes grazing, which The Ringer calls “one of the game’s most timeless and uplifting scenes”.

One way to use it. Noticing, each day, a few things you are glad of is a small habit with the same idea behind it.

Finding Meaning in Life’s Suffering

Our reading. The ending complicates every lesson above. At the Fireflies’ hospital, Joel learns that the surgery meant to lead to a cure “will kill her in the process”, in The Ringer’s summary. He kills the Fireflies to save her, then tells Ellie what The Ringer calls an “improbable tale of many immune survivors” and of doctors who had given up on a cure. When she asks him to “swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true”, he does. The story does not say whether he was right, and it leaves that judgement to the player and the viewer.

“Endure and survive.”

It is not Joel’s motto; in the game he only repeats it back to Ellie as a question. It is the catchphrase of Savage Starlight, the comic series Ellie reads in the game (“It’s what the hero says after a big battle”), and in the HBO series Sam teaches Ellie the sign-language actions for it.

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Sources

• PlayStation.Blog: “The Last of Us is Coming in June” (February 2013); “‘Heads-up’ PlayStation Store update, 12th June 2013”; “The Last of Us Part II is now available” (June 2020).
• Variety, “‘The Last of Us’ Dominates BAFTA Games Awards” (13 March 2014); Variety, “HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ Sets Early 2023 Release Date” (2 November 2022).
• IMDb, “The Last of Us (Video Game 2013) – Quotes” (user-transcribed).
• Ben Lindbergh, “The ‘Last of Us’ Finale Is Just as Ambiguous and Agonizing as the Game’s Indelible Ending”, The Ringer (13 March 2023).
• Edmond Tran, “The Last of Us – Episode 5 recap – ‘Endure and Survive’”, GamesHub (2023).
• Tech Digest, “Review: The Last Of Us (PS3)” (June 2013).
• Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein, “Conditions for intuitive expertise: a failure to disagree”, American Psychologist 64(6), 2009 (PubMed abstract).
• Ready.gov (US Department of Homeland Security), “Make a Plan”.
• Epictetus, Enchiridion, trans. T. W. Higginson (Project Gutenberg #45109).
• NHS, “Phobias”.

Checked September 2026. Release dates, credits and plot points are from the sources above. The game’s dialogue is quoted from a user transcription, and one line whose transcriptions disagree is paraphrased.