Lose the Battle...Win the War

Hello fellow gamers!

One of the things that I always have tried to do while playing video games is win. Every battle, every level, every time. I don't want to just beat the game, I want to beat everyone in the game. I want to get to the point that it's almost laughable for the AI opponent to attack me. I love when a game has a more advanced AI, so that enemies that are to much weaker than me just run away. Yeah, I know, maybe that's not healthy, but it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

It's not just video games that I do this in, you know? I've always applied the same approach to my life. I don't want to be good. I want to be the best. To me, everything has been a contest. I have turned discussions into arguments, scuffles into brawls, and I've turned relationships into a PR campaign. A fact of life, however, is that, no matter how good you are, there is always someone out there that is better. In my life, when I came to the realization that I had lost, I fell into despair. I felt like I had not just failed, but that I was a failure.

Failure is such an ugly word, isn't it?

I could win in the game though, and that certainly made them more enjoyable to me. Eventually, I received Final Fantasy VII as a gift, and I loved playing that game! The story was a little confusing, but it was good, and the gameplay was so great. I played as Cloud for hours, built up characters, and enjoyed the story that unfolded in front of me. But, then, something happened that shocked me incredibly. There was this girl, Aeris, that was the main character's love interest, and she was written as a very sweet girl. There was another girl that was also interested in cloud, but she was Plan B, you know? And, then, the main villain killed Aeris.

Whoa.

How did that happen? I thought maybe I'd done something wrong, and so I reset and tried again...She died again. This was not making any sense to me! She was his love interest! I spent hours making her better, she can't be gone!

You could beat up the villain after he killed her, but it didn't bring her back. She was gone.
It was the first time since I first started playing video games that I was actually emotionally involved, because she was mine, and the game took her away from me.

I lost.

But, you know what? I just lost the battle. I won the game. You see, I learned in video games something that life had not yet been able to teach me. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you are not going to win. Sometimes, you aren't meant to win. Have you ever wanted something, and tried hard to get it, but it just didn't work out? That happens, it's life.

Sometimes we can't see past the failure in our face to the triumph that is ahead of us. stop focusing on your defeat.

Try something else.

Thanks for reading! Please, tell me what you think.