Game Over, Retry?

Life does not have a reset button. There is no way to go back and do over the thing that we failed at, and try again with the exact same conditions as before. Sure, we all wish that we did, but such is not the case. Yet, at the same time, there are some moments when we have lost and we were able to move forward with what we have.

This is very difficult to see after suffering a loss. Back in October when I had lost my friend, I was devastated. I still am. I had lost someone who was dear to me. However, I could not go back and change any of that. I was unable to change the way things happened before. Video games are unrealistic because they allow us to do just that. Games allow us to go back to before we failed, and saw that "Game Over" screen and give it another go. When I had lost my friend, I still had my support group, I still had my job, I still had my church, I still had my family, I still had a lot to fall back on. Looking back, it was like going back to a save point in a game.

When we lose in a video game, we are often transported back to a checkpoint, where we had everything that we had before. Consider though, that we in fact go back to that place with something more. The player had lost, and he or she knows exactly why they lost. The next time that they reach that point, they will be on the look out and aware of that which had killed them before. The player had grown through that experience of loss. Failure is never a failure, if there is something to be learned from it.

I fail a lot in life, but I do my best to learn from those failures. I do what I can to improve upon my circumstances. It always feels like I'm struggling to get back to where I was, but that is never going to happen. Instead, I move forward, past where I was, and I become stronger. I learned something, and I grew as a result. Games may have that unrealistic experience of being able to go back in time, with everything that we had and have everything reset, but we as players continue to move forward in time and grow with knowledge and experience. This is how we learn from games. This is how we grow. I encourage you to get out there and take risks, fail, and learn from them. You will move forward, and you will level up.