My '1st' Post - Video Games...are they bad?

The 'first' lesson that has motivated me to begin writing again.

So, who likes to play some video games once in a while? I will have both my hands up, in fact, my legs too. I love video games. I used to not know why. Was it the gameplay, the violence, the storyline, or purely because I have nothing else better to do? It turns out that I was wrong.

Couple of years back, before I had a kid, I played a lot of video games, to a point Pik Yeng was upset with me playing games. And then there was this one day that I remember playing an entire day of video game, the game I loved playing then was a football game, because I love football (I'm an Arsenal fan btw, because of Dennis Bergkamp, his goal in the '98 World Cup against Argentina, I will forever remember that moment and my love for the game grew because of him). So, back to the main topic, I tend to like to drift away from the main topic, my training class participants and my wife tell me the same thing, I guess it is my nature, my mind tends to wander off to other...oops, here I go again. 

Really, back to the main topic, I remembered Pik Yeng seeing me play that game the whole day and she got really upset, she asked me why and I thought...I don't know? And then it hit me, I said...I feel like I am achieving something here...The game makes you win tournaments, then you can buy and bring good players to your team (obviously I was playing for Arsenal, once a Gunner, always a Gunner).  It was at that moment I realised, all my life, I love playing games because of the SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT I get from the games!! It's not just because I love football, because I also love Mario, and recently, iPhone games too.

If you look around you (I look at myself too), people my play these iPhone games because they are fun. Or sometimes we tell ourselves we're just killing time, for relaxation. That can be true. But most of the time, you have people asking you...hey hey, what's your high score? And then we begin chasing each other's high scores, comparing and see who's better at which games. My believe is that we're not exactly competing, or perhaps competition exists naturally because we all want to fell that SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT. I guess we need a benchmark to feel that we did achieve something. Imagine if I score 19k on DoodleJump the first time, I'll be thinking, wow, I made it THAT far! But once you check the global high score and see that people are scoring something like more than 100k and you think, what you did wasn't that great. It is always relative. So then we tell ourselves, those are probably crazy geeks (no offence to anyone, I consider myself a geek too) who's got nothing to do everyday but play that game. So you start comparing with your friends.

I think I can easily find many more examples to support the fact that people love playing games because of the SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT that they are aiming for (you may want to check out this article I found "New Studies on Gamers". But that's not the main reason why I want to share this with everyone. The question now is...So? Am I suppose to not play games anymore? Because I now understand that I spend heaps of time on chasing that SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT when there is really not an achievement at all (most would agree that winning in a video game does not bring food to the table, unless you want to be a professional gamer of course).

From my experience, I feel that often I'm using the games to help me find the SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT that I am not finding in life. And I believe that is what the gaming industry is feeding on. Sometimes it does feel easier to achieve something in video games than life itself. My believe is that this occurs because many of us don't have a clear GOAL in life. Hence don't have that high-score equivalent to benchmark ourselves with. I feel strongly that it is vital that everyone find a goal in life, even a life mission so that you can then work out the steps you need to take to reach that goal.

I'll take my life for example. I recently got involved in starting my own company, a training consulting firm (Whealer Solutions). The name Whealer stands for World Healer, and that's something I really want to do, or at least have played a part to make this world a better place. With that in mind, I now create training programmes, train and do a lot of work in my company that helps me drive towards that mission of mine. I am getting so much SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT from the things I do everyday that I no longer place much attention to games. My gaming consoles are kept somewhere in the drawers. Writing this blog is another thing that I decided to do that helps fulfil my life mission.

The next big question, does that mean that we should live in a world where there are no games? OF COURSE NOT! I Love Video GAMES remember?!?!?  It does sound like I am contradicting myself a little here, but the real difference for me now is that I am 100% aware of my choices. When I do play games, which I still do, I know very well that I enjoy the game more because of that SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT, but I know this is a virtual one, it is unreal, the real achievements are the ones that truly make you happy. I am also very conscious about the time I spend playing, which is just enough to give me a bit of relaxation and fun, but not too much that I am wasting my time.

So what am I really trying to say here? If you are a gamer like I was, spending too much time on games everyday, try to do the following:

1. Find your passion and discover what your life mission is

2. Decide on things that you want to do that will help fulfil your life mission

3. Break the big picture into tasks that you can do everyday

4. Enjoy the SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT from completing those tasks

If you are a concerned parent, or you have a loved-one who is facing this trouble, here's what I have to say to you. Appreciate what they are going through. Understand this, their actions (of spending too much time playing games) may be inappropriate, but get this, their intention (wanting to have the SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT from playing those games) is a good sign that this person wants to achieve something in life. The most important thing is to help them divert the energy in to doing something more meaningful than playing games. Especially for children, either let them play games that are educational or create fun out of what you would like them to do and fulfil their desire of wanting that SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT. You may also want to help them with the steps above, talk to them, ask them what their passion in life is, suggest something they can do to replace the time spent on games.

I may not be able to guarantee you that doing the above will make you feel better about your life. What I will guarantee you is that if you do get the SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT from doing things that bring you closer to fulfilling your life mission, you are going to feel a SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT that is totally different from the virtual one from playing games.

Conclusion is this, are games bad? NO! If you know that you are consciously playing for relaxation and fun, it is important to have balance in life too. But if you are playing without control, it can destroy your life. In fact, the question is not in the games, it is our choice of actions that determine whether playing video games is good or bad for us.

I hope you have enjoyed reading as much as I have enjoyed writing.