Introduction
This topic has been sitting on my mind for quite sometime. The publicity that video games receive is usually negative in the media. The media says that they promote violence and things of this nature, but I found video games to be rather cathartic and beneficial for my psyche and development.
School
Back in elementary school, I can recall doing standardized testing and dreading the day the actual test came. Even though I was doing relatively well in class. It seemed daunting trying to finish the test in 60 minutes, especially for math. However, this still didn’t stop test anxiety from rearing its ugly head. In short, what did I do to overcome this anxiety? It wasn’t drugs, money, or candy, it happened to be video games. Video games alleviated so much of my stress in school and I also felt like it helped open up new ways for me to tackle a problem or scenario. For me, it felt like it was the only thing that could take the stress away.
Employment
The job market today is has been unforgiving to say the least. Back in 2016-17 it wasn’t much better but at least it was before the pandemic hit. Me myself, had such a hard time trying to procure work. So much so, that I had fled the country due to the frustration of long response times or no response from jobs. During Covid, I was actually thankful because I had actually started to get callbacks and interviews because motherfuckers were dying. However, I digress, the point here is that during this time my self-esteem and worth was so low that even though I had been working in Japan I found myself working in a grocery store fighting for minimum wage positions. My degree was virtually useless at this point and I felt inept and totally expendable. It became worse when I was stationed at self-checkout for 8-12 hours. My brain literally felt like it was slowly rotting from the inside out. Long story short, I was in a depression until I played my first souls video game.
Bloodborne
When I came back to America, I got to play the, “Old Hunters”, DLC and once I started playing and saw how gigantic Ludwig the Accursed and Holy Blade was I told myself while I was at the self checkout that this job aint shit. This job is LITERALLY not harder than beating the DLC in Bloodborne. As a matter of fact, none of the positions are as hard as this video game. So whenever I beat the DLC ,I became so confident and motivated in my life that I ended up quitting my job and became a Manager at Waffle House. Essentially going from less than 30,000 dollars per year to 60,000 for manager in training to the actual Manager at 90,000. Albeit, I did get laid off due to Covid-19, but I felt like I had reached an internal milestone by quitting WinCo and it was due to playing video games.
What I learned
What I learned from this scenario Is that whatever you think is exactly what you are. Whatever you think about yourself will eventually come into fruition. So if you think lowly of yourself, you will be in a low position. If you think highly of yourself then you will be in a high position. Of course with all things it will take more time for some, but it’s the mindset in which everything starts. So never let your job take your self-esteem about where you want to be in life and if you feel low in life, go and do something that challenges your psyche to kickstart your confidence even if that’s sitting on your couch playing a video game.
