Replay (Part 1)

Years ago, when I was a more avid gamer, I never really enjoyed replaying involved single player games. My main issue was that at the point when a game is completed, I was usually in a pretty powerful position. If playing first person shooters, I'd had the good weapons and you might have lots of ammo (probably not after the final boss though... ha). If playing resource management games, I'd had a big stockpile of resources to build whatever I wanted and I had a great income stream for various things. In many strategy games there was often a point where victory was inevitable and realising it was just a matter of continuing along a rather mechanical process. 

Replaying games meant starting from scratch again. It was frustrating to have to be frugal with resources after being accustomed to being able to do what I needed to when I needed to. Additionally, I knew how the game worked and I knew success was possible with just an investment in time. Overcoming the same challenges again seemed less fulfilling the second time around unless I intentionally made it difficult for myself somehow. This usually led to a decrease in motivation and interest. Often I would just end up hacking save files to see if there were items or combinations of things I could use that weren't possible in the normal game. 

For a while, I have been feeling the same way about my life. In many ways, my life is restarting and I've felt the same sort of frustrations and de-motivation as when replaying a game. My career is at a total restart along with my income stream and, in likelihood after divorce proceedings, my current assets and resources. Similarly, I have not seen many of my old friends for a long time and it feels like a game where I have to build up a whole new set of allies.

Of course, like in playing games, all that is possible to rebuild. It only takes time and effort and I already know it is possible and how. However, like my analogy, any feeling of fulfilment is not as great the second time around whilst challenges still take a similar amount of time and effort. That is, the reward to effort ratio seems to decrease and be less enticing. For a long time therefore, I felt very unmotivated and disinterested and, along the same lines, my mind did wonder along the analogous route of "hacking" to obtain things that weren't "normally" possible...

Now that I'm actively involved in replaying my life, however, I'm finding the motivation and interest starting to pick up. Is this where the analogy breaks down or is it just a continuation? I'll leave you hanging until I write part 2 of this piece.. :)