Video Game Life Lesson: Only you have the power to succeed
Insert coin to continue
Life often feels chaotic and out of our control. Many times it seems like there is nothing we can do to change anything. We often feel trapped in our lives and may feel that no matter what we do, our actions do not have an impact on how things turn out. I personally, almost always feel like no matter how hard I try to accomplish the things that I want to do, the world fights me on it and I just don’t get my way. It is easy to just accept that you are not meant to have your way and that you just need to go along with whatever life throws at you.
Video games can be helpful in inspiring you to action, if you take the right approach that is. Especially difficult games make a sport of beating you down to the point of rage quitting, at least for many players. Not just the games either, often time it is other players if you are playing multiplayer games, and competitive multiplayer games in particular (though it can happen in strictly cooperative games if your partner is just so bad). At that point, you are fighting an enemy that is maybe as desperate to win as you are, but they are just better at the game. In these moments, it can be very demoralizing and push you to just quit the game. I advise you to take this lesson away from crushing defeat: you have not lost until you choose to give up.
Borderlands as a franchise has been a recent reminder to me of this lesson. Because your deaths do not have too terrible an impact and in most cases simply reset a fight or just move you slightly away from the action, it is very possible to run right back in and give it another shot. The severity may depend on whether you are going solo or with a team, but the idea is the same. Especially since enemies remain dead until their re-spawn time comes, it is easy to kill as many as you can before you die, and continue once you come back until you have won. Of course it is tougher to find the will to keep going when you are facing a boss that continues to get back to full health each time you die.
Point being, nothing and nobody besides you can ever stop you from succeeding. You alone have the power to get back up and push on until you get what you are aiming for. Or you can choose to give up. Things that you determine are worth having in life should be worth the struggles. You grow stronger from your failures and the only thing that can keep you down is yourself.