Permission To Think

It’s an amazing feeling realizing who you’re meant to be, and that you’re becoming that person. For the last couple of years, I’ve been trying my best to become a better person. In some ways, I’ve still got a lot of growth left, but in others, I’m learning that life is both too short and too pointless to fret about things too much. I mean, really, what is the point in the long run?

Ironically enough, my latest step towards enlightenment came from thinking about a certain video game. For any of you that know me well enough, you’ll know that one of my room mates and some of my other friends play the game World of Warcraft. Some argue that they play it too much, which I’ll get to in a second. My biggest issue with this game is that it has no real point. In most video games, you are striving for something. You want to rid the world of evil, save the princess, finish first. And that’s when the game ends. The game ends once you’ve finished the one goal you set out to complete. World of Warcraft is not like this. There are many, many tasks, but it never ends. There is a “boss” that is the hardest to beat, but the game does not end once you beat that character. Therefore, there is no point to the game, or at least, no climax. It struck me, that Warcraft, the thing that people argue is a waste of time, is much closer to real life than any other video game out there.

Stay with me on this one.

What is the point of life? We grow up, we go to school, to go to school, to go to school, to get a job, which will likely lead to others. Then we’ll retire, and just hang out until we die. The first 4-6 years are free. Then we spend at least the next 16 in school, then another 40 or 50 working. Then we’ll have just enough time to do everything we wanted to do, but without the energy to do it. Most of us will never be rich enough to have everything we want. Life is going to be hard work. And for what reason? To buy stuff? To buy things that we think will make us happy? Well they won’t. Life is more than things. Actually, that’s incorrect to say. Life isn’t more than things because life isn’t things in the first place.

You see, if this is the mentality that you have, then you will live a life exactly like someone playing World of Warcraft. You’ll spend countless hours and countless missed opportunities for something real in the hopes of getting all the items that you want that will make you complete. But when it’s all over, you’ll wake up and realize you have nothing real to show for your work. Nothing that means anything to anyone outside of your shallow world.

So what’s left? Accepting that we’ve only got one shot at this life, and we can either make it about ourselves, or make it about each other. Either way, you must ask yourself, on your death bed, what life do you want to flash before your eyes? And what regrets are you willing to die with?

(Also, be careful that your real life doesn’t follow this path before denouncing someone’s video game life, for which is the greater loss?)