Gaming has taught me a lot of life lessons than I would like to admit. Honestly, there is nothing wrong with it, but it does paint me as an overthinker who is trying to find something deep and meaningful in something that is meant for entertainment or for passing time.
Again, I am overthinking my ability to overthinking. Anyway, why I look for lessons in things that aren’t exactly designed to teach you something is that I believe fiction has the ability to make a greater impact.
Because you aren’t looking for a change or for a lesson, your mind is more open and you are more susceptible to learning new things. When someone tells us what we need to change or why, or what we need to learn in order to become a better person, we are mentally ready to shut them out. Our defenses are always up and that makes learning new things difficult.
I recently came across this quote –
“Gamers always believe that an epic win is possible and that it’s always worth trying and trying now.” -Jane Mcgonigal
How true is this? No matter how difficult the game, no matter how tedious the challenges, we always root for an epic win. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, it doesn’t matter how many tries it takes, what matters is the win.
This is the philosophy that we need to bring in life. I have written two articles previously that revolve around the same ideology. One being, Video Gaming 101: Fail, Learn, Succeed.
I talked about how it was important to have an open mindset even if we fail because we can and we should learn from our failures. Failures are what provides us with the knowledge to find new ways to overcome the obstacles.
Never look at an obstacle and see it as an impediment. Instead, look at it as an education – if you lose, you will learn more about why you lost, which will then help you make a better effort next time to get the obstacle removed. And in doing so, the obstacle becomes an educative tool that shows you how to get over it. In this case, you learn about the tactics that don’t work so you can now eliminate those and think about other ways. In doing so, you are training your mind to keep looking for solutions and not give up. This helps our stance during difficult times in our lives as well.
This gave rise to another one of my musings articles about leveling up in games and life. I always stress the fact that whatever we are going through right now is going to play an important role in how we shape out as a person. Our struggles and obstacles, our actions and reactions, everything basically drive us to the path that we are eventually going to follow.
Cut down the excuses and make sure you get up and do it. NOW. Because there would always be the ‘later’ time. Keep on checking yourself. Keep on motivating yourself. Mistakes are opportunities. Look at them, learn from them, grow from them and move on. Do better, be better.