Updated on: June 26th, 2022
I played a lot of games. Video games, board games, played them, loved them. Games, until now, have been my go-to entertainment and stress reliever source. Lately, I’ve been thinking and reflecting on how I played games affect me and what I have learned. I realized that many game rules apply (and do not apply) to help us navigate life. One of the time-consuming parts of a game is the character creation part. Character creation is where we choose who we want to play, their background story, and their skills. Maybe that’s the appeal of the character creation part, the ability to decide how we are born and experiment with it, which brings me to my first lesson.
Where and what we spawn to is “Gacha” -ed.
Sadly, unlike RPGs (Role-Playing Games), we don’t get to do the “character creation” part. We don’t get to choose how we look, our gender, our background, and our initial talents (emphasis on the initial). Some people get lucky by being “spawned” in the right environment with the right abilities. Some are unlucky and have to grind harder to be where they want. We don’t get to choose the hand we’re dealt with, only how we played it.
Life doesn’t have a linear storyline; it’s a sandbox game.
Life is more similar to Minecraft than to RPGs like Skyrim. There is no necessity or expectation. We can do whatever we want. If we want to work every day, we can. If we want to sleep all day, we can. We can do whatever we want. So, try to let go of the expectations that life should be like “this” or “that.” That we have to be “there” rather than “here.” Life, just like a sandbox game, is what we make it to be.
There are many random events and probability-based outcomes.
We can plan our best strategy to get the specific characters or weapons we’ve wanted for so long, yet it always evades us. The resources and time we’ve spent seem to be for nothing. We need to accept that life, just like in a Gacha game, is full of random events, and we can strategize the best of plans but still don’t get our expected outcome. Plant the seed without expectations of the fruit.
We can choose to play PvP or Co-Op.
Life is a multiplayer game. However, unlike the typical game, we can choose the game mode we play: PvP (Player versus Player) or Co-Op (Cooperative). When others need help, we can choose to help or take advantage of it to advance our agenda. When we need help, we can ask for help or attack others. Let us think of how we’ve been playing so far and whether we want the game to be in PvP or Co-Op mode.
Unlike games, however, there is no respawning.
There is no retry. There are no cheat codes. We only get one shot at life. We cannot redo an event to get a better ending. If we made a mistake, then we made a mistake. The servers are going down by 72 years from when we started playing (on average). Accept what happened. Do what we want and need to do. The clock is ticking.
Content doesn’t expire, and we choose whether we play it or not.
Whether we’re 17, 25, or 40, the amount of time it takes (usually) to get a bachelor’s degree is four years. To be an expert on something is five years. We could have never learned English at 20 and could be fluent by 22. We could have never experienced what it’s like to be in a relationship before, and we could start trying tomorrow. The content is there and will never expire. Everyone prioritizes what content they want to experience differently, so don’t be disheartened because we have not yet tried and finished some content.
To carry others, we have to be “farmed up” ourselves.
To help others clear dungeons and defeat bosses, we must ensure we are ready and geared up. If we’re going to help our friends sort out their problems, we need to get our stuff in order first. Start with ourselves and become independent, capable, and confident first before trying to help others.
We need a good guild to clear endgame content.
To tackle the most significant problems and defeat the strongest of bosses, we need to have a good party of individuals with the same goals and different roles. We can’t beat the final boss with all damage dealers and no healers. Acknowledge that the people we interact with and spend time with affect us more than we think. We are the company we keep.
Any build can work; don’t compare.
Since everyone has a unique background and initial talents, there is no objectively correct walkthrough and builds that provide the best outcome compared to other builds. We can even match it. Like in a game, we can be a spellcaster-gladiator or an assassin-necromancer. We can also be a musician-doctor, athlete-engineer, mother-lawyer, etc. Any build is viable. The more we get caught up in what others are doing, the more we’ll be confused about what our builds should be. Start playing our own game.
Understand and exploit the meta.
Like online games, life has a meta that constantly changes. We are in a different meta than we were 100 years ago. Depending on the meta, there are various advantages and disadvantages to some roles or characters. It’s easy to see that information technology is the meta right now—twitch streamers, NFTs, crypto, autonomous vehicles, etc. The meta changes over time, things get patched out, and some bubble bursts. Understand the meta and ride the waves.
Conclusion: How to win?
Since life is like a sandbox game, we choose our definition of winning. We can only understand and pave our way toward achieving that win. Life is not a zero-sum game. So, let’s understand ourselves and help each other win at this one game before the server gets shut down.