Video Games and Your Life’s Adventure

“Something unfolds inside the courageous sojourner that makes him the equal of his challenges as he strives forward in faith, with the determination to face his fate honestly and completely.” — Jordan Peterson, We Who Wrestle With God

Challenges present themselves to you every day with varying degrees or levels of difficulty. As these challenges present themselves to you, you may not be the person who can face that particular challenge today; it may be too difficult to face or bare — but that does not mean that along your life’s quest that you couldn’t turn yourself into the person who could face and conquer the toughest of challenges tomorrow. 

Video games are the perfect analogy. 

Good luck, for instance, facing the final boss if you’ve just started the game, and you are at level 1 with all your stats, character traits, and armour. Video games are designed so that you face challenges proportional to your current skill level, with a fair chance of success, but not without the possibility of failure. Throughout the game you gain experience by learning new skills and moves, making allies and overcoming foes, and equipping yourself with the tools and resources that will allow you to take on the next challenge. 

By the time you’ve reached the final boss, if you look back, you see that you are a completely different character from when you first started. You’ve turned yourself into the character who could tackle this challenge with a fair chance of success, but again, not without the possibility of failure. What you’ve done along the way is attempt to prepare yourself for the moment you now find yourself in — for the challenge you now face. 

Now, a question worth asking yourself upon encountering failure is as follows: “Did I do my best to prepare myself for this moment?” 

There will certainly be the temptation to speed through certain parts of the game. Perhaps you didn’t take the time that was necessary to develop that particular skill, or you thought you could handle jumping from Level 3 to Level 17 without going through the incremental steps of improvement between levels 4 to 16. Could this have been why you failed — because you neglected certain parts of your development or rushed through other parts?

Going further, there will be times you’ll face setbacks. You might have to reset to a lower level and will have lost valuable time, or you might have lost your resources or a crucial piece of armour, and are weaker as a result. The question is: “What now?” 

Will that mean you quit the game? Sometimes. Sometimes you might quit entirely, and scream out in anger that it isn’t worth it, that it was a waste of time, that nothing came of it of all your efforts. Other times you might have to give yourself time to get yourself back into the right frame of mind to go about facing those challenges once again. 

In the face of failure, you might consider asking yourself the following: “Although I may have experienced setbacks and losses in resources or armour, do I not still possess the skills I developed along the way to obtaining those resources and armour? Does that not mean I could gain them once more? And having gained experience from my past failures, does that not also mean I would go back into the same situation as a wiser person, with much a greater chance of success?”

There certainly is no possibility for success if you don’t get yourself back in the game. At the very least, you give yourself another fighting chance of success if you’re willing to pick the controller back up and try again. Success in any endeavour will never come without its attendant trials and adversities. Those who’ve experienced the greatest success in life are those who say to themselves “No matter how hard it gets, no matter how many times or how grandly I fail, I will pick myself back up and try, try again.”

A final parting thought is this: The most extensive role-playing games could take up to 100 hours to complete. Compare that to the time your entire life is played out over. Developing skills and character traits, meeting the right allies, and gaining the proper resources and equipment all take far, far more time in your day-to-day life. Your life isn’t played out over hours, it’s played out over decades. That’s something I’m sure we’re all privy to forget from time to time.