Life is a game
I’m sitting in large room with fluorescent lights and rows of chairs carefully laid in even numbers. I’m tired, but present in a way that you are when you’re pretty sure you’re about to hear something infinitely valuable, but you’re not sure when.
“WHAT GAMES ARE YOU PLAYING TODAY!?” An exuberant woman shouts, her blonde curls bouncing as she leans forward in her director’s chair. She beams at us expectantly and points to several people who have already shot their hands up.
“Making my job fun!”
“Being more positive.”
“Getting my fucking car fixed.”
Laughter rumbles through the room, filling it with an undeniable energy of action and possibilities.
I am in a workshop that I’ve been attending every Monday 7-10pm for the last three months. The last week we were introduced to the idea of making actionable changes in our lives, a game, and the people we want to engage in the outcome, players. We then spent the week, waking up and creating games to win. When I first heard it I leaned back in my chair and sighed, thinking back to the myriad of times life has been equated to a game:
My parents creating a chore chart in the 7th grade, which granted me a choice of different outings and/or money depending on how well and how much of cleaning my room, racking the leaves, taking in the mail, or watering the herb garden I did
TED talks, particularly ones with Jane McGonigal
Probably about 1 billion memes- one of which that seems to be sent me or presented on my Facebook feed about every single day
This is not to say that thinking of life as a game isn’t an interesting tool- it is. However , my experience with it is either others prompting me to do tasks I have no interest in doing or pure marketing manipulation.
For me, chore charts or teacher’s lists are not motivators, they are an obligation to be the best. Winning them isn’t fun, it’s only satisfying. Marketing and gamification in apps, websites, lifestyle simulators, and social media, can be fun, but it’s also followed with a lot of regret.
In 2016 I was quite literally obsessed with the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game for iPhone. I’m not sure how to properly convey how hooked I got. Though I’m someone with a completely eventful, life, that some would say is ‘too full’ already, I became utterly glued to the challenges in the game. It cost me roughly $97, days of sleep, fully participating in social engagements, and sometimes literally interrupting dinner so I could ‘have a date with my bf in the game, because if I don’t do a date challenge every 3 days the bf threatens to dump virtual me and then I have to buy him something and that costs about 2,000 game dollars ANDDDD if I make him 19% happier, he’ll propose and then we can adopt a kitten from the shop in Calabasas (a store which is now locked for me b/c our relationship isn’t game perfect yet’. The sad part is, at the time, I didn’t even feel shame about it because I knew so many other people who were doing the exact same thing. Obviously, this is now a deep dark secret.
Gamification is everywhere, but I rarely see it used right. So when bouncy blonde curls encouraged us to create our games, I shrugged and hoped the answer to life would be at the next session- until I actually started doing it. I had an aha moment. Creating a game didn’t have to look like it had to me in the past. It didn’t have to be mundane, nor did it have to be overwhelming. It could be simple stuff I actually wanted to win. I made a game one day to look at people in the eye every time I walked by them and then make a silly face at the last moment- it was great. I made a game to sing in the elevator at my apartment building- it brightened my day and woke up whatever poor souls live by the elevator. I made a game to be more open and transparent with people in my life and when I realized they are players in that game, and I want us all to win, I became more invested in fulfilling it.
So I suppose I’m at a point where I believe gamification used as a tool to see into other perspectives and to gain insight into our own can be powerful, and I think making games for yourself can be magical if you pick the right ones to play, but the spins I get on Starbucks for Life for the Chai Tea Latte I bought, is a game I’m just not interested in.