Like picking up an instrument and start practicing more advanced music than the pop song of the day. That's really a long-term game.
Programming can be another such activity. I mostly stopped reading programming books some years ago, but I find that deliberating over the meta-game of programming, i.e. not how do I specifically solve this problem, but more how do I structure my solution, how do I simplify it, how do I reduce the problem itself to its core, how do I write the actual text, variable names etc., in such a manner that it is self-evident what is happening. That is truly a long game too. There's even a skill to the deliberation itself - too much deliberation is counterproductive.
I read somewhere that the philosophy in the antiquity defined being good not as based on absolute moral values of say unselfishness, like giving food to starving children, but on simply being really good at what you do. Perhaps that's from a realization of what actually makes people happy? Like the old carpenter expertly fixing a troublesome door while softly whistling to himself, a human being in inner peace.