Life as a Game

I like computer games. In the past, I played Starcraft to the point of exhaustion, playing it more than 10 hours at a time for days. The problem with games is that they don't add much to your life. Besides, games are not all fun. Every game I played had a lot of boring repetitive tasks, which resembles real life in that respect.

A good game starts simple and builds up over time whereas in real life I am usually confronted with a large mess. That is what makes games fun and real life a chore. A main reason of procrastination is that I don't know where to start, so I keep postponing it. When I spend some extra time to analyze the problem and divide it into smaller pieces, it becomes manageable, even fun. Writing down what I think helps a lot. And when I solve a problem in real life, I gain skills that I carry with me my whole life, besides having the satisfaction of doing something useful and being able to control my environment.

I still play games (currently Clash of Clans) but I only spend about half an hour a day. I have more fun doing real things (teaching my 4 year old, learning how to make Mousse, developing web apps). I encourage you to view life as a growth opportunity, as a game where every skill you gain unlocks new ones. The key is mentally breaking large chunks of work down into less threatening smaller ones. These small chunks can be dealt with as if they were levels of a larger game.

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