While on the topic of videogames, it is also incredibly useful to think of your life as a videogame. It’s a nice exercise with which you can evaluate your life and set the directions you want to skill your “human character” in.
The most accurate description of the game “life” would be an RPG. You play a character with a unique starting position regarding genetics and environment. Both of these decide which skills and progression paths will be easier to obtain and which you will be lacking. You will be making many choices that alter the entire direction of your game, some less relevant, some more, and some turn out to be important a long time after they were made. You character develops skills throughout its life and refines them until death and the inevitable restart.
It is possible for you to re-skill you character even in the late game and find the playstyle that fits you right; From job to hobbies to personal development. You can get enlightened as a child and as an old granny. You can understand the meta of your game world in your early or late game and still make adjustments that serve you well.
And as a character in a game, you can become aware of your limitations; What you are able to do and what not. But once you become aware, you can nudge these limits and develop into a direction the ‘meta’ of the game has not intended for, giving you a unique playstyle that might turn into something extremely valuable: A new career path or a mixture of different ones.
The code your character is written from becomes clear to you: because you did decision X, outcome Y happened. Because you decided to invest into social skills, it is easy for you to form relationships. Because your parents rejected your career path, you have become distant towards them, and insecure about your career achievements. It’s all there in the code, you just have to look for it, and once you found it, you can rewrite it.
And the everlasting question can also be found in this game. Why all this? What is the reason to keep playing? For some it’s joy of what they can do, for others it’s the role they play; the wise sage, the helping hand, the determined worker. And the reason can change all the time. Maybe making money and hoarding equipment was once a valuable goal, but now has been surpassed by experiencing different places and culture, or contributing to an organization and giving back and helping new players.
It’s a fun little exercise that lets you see your life as a skill and decision tree, showing your strengths and weaknesses, detached from internal judgement. Have fun with it.
Tobias Bruns 