As Long As You Are In The Game, You Are Still Playing

GAME OVER

It said with big letters on my screen. I let out a sigh, pressed the retry button and not long after, I reappeared again in the game. I immediately began to hide behind the ruinous castle before anyone could attack me. After having died for more than 10 times, I knew exactly where the enemies were approaching me. This time will be the last time I will die on this wrecked island. But I waited too long to come out of the safety zone when I got attacked from behind. With just a few shots, I died. Again. Those same frustrating big letters appeared once again. Okay, whatever, I can just press the retry button and start again. I won’t stop until I can get off this creepy island, crawling with zombies and other decay looking stuff.

With gaming, we can escape reality for a while and enter into indescribable worlds and stories. In some ways, reality doesn’t really differ from games actually. In the real world, we can’t, unfortunately, choose our own character. We were born with a body and a face we can’t choose out from day one. For us, it is: take it or leave it.

However, we can customize it the way we want, maybe not with weapons, like archery arrows, swords, or poisonous potions, yet to some extent, we can dress the way we want. Reality operates just like a role-playing game where the player controls the actions of a character and where the one of the main focus is on character development. No one already has a set of mastered skills when we just start to play a new game or just start to live life. I mean, no one expects a newborn to be able to crawl, let alone walking in a decent manner. In a game, a character becomes more experienced by gaining new skills, weapons, magic or just through story-telling. In real life, we may not gain more experience by having or buying more materialistic stuff, but we do get more experience by learning new skills through our course of time. In other words, the story we are living: our own story-telling.

We may not retry previous decisions and situations or erase a part by starting all over again from stage one. It isn’t possible to gain more strength or heal a broken heart by drinking healing potions or using a powerful spell. To make the best out of a game, it requires only one thing of you which is: finish the story, try not to die while playing for the ultimate experience of complete immersion. So again: play & enjoy and finish it while knowing in the back of your mind that you can die endless times. Unfortunately, characters from real life can only die once (besides, who wants to experience death for more than one time, really?). Though life requires us too to play and enjoy to make the best out of it.

We might be mortals, but as long as you are in the game, you are still playing.

As long as you are working on to level up to unlock new skills and achievements, you are playing your own character. As long as you are playing and moving around, you are bound to discover new things you haven’t imagined it before. Some people become too satisfied too quickly and end up in a rut, feeling stuck and forever trapped in a level they can’t advance from. Instead of looking for ways to continue and puzzle out riddles that block you from going further into the maze of life, they settle in and stop with improving. And when they stop improving, they locked up themselves for the uncommon.

As long as you are in the game, you are still playing.

You only win a game when you finish it, but you only win in life when you keep developing yourself. Remember character development? Each step of improvement in a game takes you to explore phenomenal landscapes and undetected places. It’s the same. If we keep improving ourselves, it will bring us chances to meet new people and unknown places. There is no reset button or a chance to start over. We can’t start over after a ‘’game over.’’ It’s now or never.

As long as you are in the game, you are still playing, but make sure you didn’t press the pause button by accident.

You don’t want to stay on pause for the rest of your remaining game time.