#BACKTOSELF
I have been playing Candy Crush for quite some time now, and I sometimes get comments like "you know that game is mostly luck right?", or that it is "set up on an algorithm" to entice you to spend money.
I do know that, but I decided to keep going regardless, without spending any money, because as I was playing I kept on having what I now call 'Candy Crush Life Lessons'.
For example, I was on this one level where I simply could not make any moves that would advance me, due to how the candies were falling. It was as if the game was forcing my hand, giving me no options but to run out of lives before I got anywhere.
I got to a point where I became frustrated and just wanted to give up, or just quickly loose all my lives so that the algorithm would change. But then I thought: sometimes LIFE deals you a really bad hand, where it looks like you just don't have any options, and it feels like you are going nowhere.
And so I looked at it as if it were life, and asked myself: "Who do I want to be in this situation should I encounter it in my life?" And my answer was that I wanted to be someone that does their BEST regardless of how bleak the outlook.
As we all may or may not know, Who We Are in the small, seemingly insignificant moments is the same person we're going to be in the 'big important' ones.
And so what I did was I practiced other skills while repeating the same level over and over. I practiced planning, predicting and strategizing. Finally, obviously I was able to pass the level after many attempts, as if the game decided it wasn't going to get any money out of me this time, essentially giving up before I did!
What I noticed was that, once I started moving on again, I now had new skills and was able to do better on the following levels. What it showed me, and what I have in fact applied elsewhere in my life, is that when we're in a seemingly 'dead-end' situation, like a job we don't like and know we're not going to stay there, we can either coast through (essentially a 'giving up') until it's finally over and we somehow get out, or we can make the best of it, push ourselves to learn new skills, develop weaknesses into strengths, or take that time to set ourselves up for something better.
This way, we play on Our Terms, where we are using the time we have as effectively as possible, even if the future or next step is uncertain. You can either sit and coast/give up, remaining unsatisfied and complain about the current situation, or you can seek out or create opportunities to learn, expand and grow.
If you choose the latter, you set yourself up for Life to present you with new doors to walk through, or you will create a door for yourself, walk through it, and come into the next phase of life now armed with new skills, qualities and abilities that will serve you in your new role.
Candy Crush has also taught me about persistence, perseverance, not giving up, not holding on to undirected wealth, when to give it my all and when to wait for the right moment, among many others!
For more Candy Crush Life Lessons, check out Creation's Journey to Life blog:
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