Get Those Experience Points!
Today my sister bumped into my estranged aunt and uncle, and she told me that they basically bad-mouthed me about my life choices. How I shouldn’t have dropped out of uni. Shouldn’t be writing books. Should get a degree and work a job for 40k a year. Oh and my tweets are depressing apparently just because I advocate for Mental health.
At first I was upset. Then I was angry. Then I was upset and angry that they even made me upset and angry. They have no right to comment on my life when they don’t even know me anymore, they led awful lives themselves and when they don’t understand where I’m headed right now.
How can they know anything about me when I don’t even know myself?
Logic dictates in the end that they don’t know anything. Maybe I have made bad choices, maybe not, but either way they were my choices to make and they were important on my journey to understanding what I want.
Later on today, I came home from work and played Tomb Raider on my PS4. Whilst playing video games like this, you complete tasks and you gain something called XP (experience points) which help you develop the necessary points and skill to advance in the game.
And so this got me thinking. Like I always do. A lot of people are going through life just wondering around and gaining no XP, therefore they’re not advancing. There are millions of games and millions of different ways to achieve XP as well. And this is what I’m doing. I’m someone who is actively gaining XP. I’m going out and trying things. University was necessary in my journey for a brief time, for me to gain the XP needed to move on. But staying there wouldn’t help me get more XP in the areas of my life that I needed it most.
I need(ed) help advancing in my social skills, my writing, my travel, my sense of adventure, my confidence, my attitude, my relationships and my understanding of the world and the greater universe. But at uni I was quiet, shy, the one who felt aside from the rest, on autopilot, handing in half arsed essays that I didn’t care about. Yes I was in a prosperous environment, surrounded by thousands of incredible individuals but in such a place I didn’t feel like I could connect to them, for some reason or another. I tried twice, but it just didn’t work for me on the level I needed and wanted it to so desperately.
So when people get me down, even people who have no right to comment on my life choices. When I feel lost and angry and confused. When I feel like I’m drifting. I will remind myself that I’m seeking XP. As long as I’m gaining valid life experience points, then I’m on the right track and not wasting my time.
And the same goes for you, my friend. Get your XP maxed out!
Peace.
