Lifes winding road has once again delivered me l checkpoint. Not much unlike the checkpoints us 80's babies (like myself) will remember from our Nintendo games. A place where one hits save, and doesn't have to struggle to conquer the levels they've played before because the Nintendo God's have deemed us worthy of advancement...well at least until someone erases the save. For those of you that I have just shocked into the realization of middle age with my nostalgic metaphor I apologize, but the fact remains that the relavance and relatabililty of it all is something that simply cant be overlooked.
So often in my own "game" I delete these saves, I will replay the same levels, I'll battle the same "bosses" and come to these same checkpoints where im afforded the opportunity to save my progress and avoid the failures and frustrations from the preceeding level, however find myself deleting my progress and trying again because I feel there may have been something i missed. Funny thing is, sure, I may collect some hidden tokens, I may get to indulge in some secret hidden level by ducking down the right pipe, but when it comes time to defeat the enemy the strategy is more often than not, nearly identical. In theory all that I have done is proven that beating the level the first time was as good as it gets, sure there were interesting deterents but I had managed to level up the one correct way already so i find my self questioning why i didnt just honor my checkpoint.
I know it seems silly to compare valuable life lessons to an antiquaited version of a video game, but, is it really that different if you think about it? Whether it be a poor choice in a relationship that yields the same outcome over and over again, or a professional folly that keeps you from advancing to the next level, it could be a life decision like reverting back to a behavior or substance that brought you down the first time, it would seem that it is in our nature to repeat our mistakes until we are so wary of the game we just quit. Im hear to say QUIT stop playing the level, quit when you have beat it. Save at your checkpoint and advance, you have earned it. Then if ,by some stroke of luck, you are faced with the same challenge or game boss, remember how you defeated it in the first place and defeat it the same way. You've already learned how, you have already won.
