Tackling Life’s Lessons Through the Eyes of a Gamer
Shannon King, Charity Director
This past weekend I had the great pleasure of teaching my son to see hardships in a fun manner. Have you ever heard the theory that we are living in a computer simulated reality? Don’t worry, I’ not going to talk about that, but it does lay the groundwork for my fun story. Sometimes it’s more fun to approach life as if you were in a video game. Stay with me, I promise its good.
On Mother’s day, I did what most moms actually do, I spent the day helping my oldest son with some assignments. He’s working really hard on completing his advancement requirements for Boy Scouts in preparation for Summer Camp. One of his requirements was to operate a GPS unit, find your current location, obtain directions to another location, and navigate us there successfully. Being the sneaky and multitasking mom that I am, I decided to have him help me with a quest. Sometimes, in order to get your kids excited to help you do something boring, you need to make it fun.
I had a bunch of camping gear in my living room that needed to go into our new Cub Scout storage unit. It was his job to assist me in loading the gear into the truck and to operate the GPS to get us to the destination on the map. I was going to get my living room back and he gets to complete another requirement. Win-Win, but how in the world do you make this fun for a twelve-year-old??! I told him that we’re going on a side quest. Once at the storage unit, we would have a series of puzzles to complete in order to traverse all of the locked doors and successfully dump our loot into the treasure room. I explained to him that sometimes it’s more fun and WAY less frustrating to approach things as if you are in a video game. We’ve played enough games to know the drill. Here we go…
He successfully operated the GPS unit and brought us to the new “dungeon”. Great job, Boy Scout! Task one accomplished. *high five*
To complete the quest on this level we needed to complete a series of locks or puzzles. Some puzzles are timed. If we don’t complete the task in the appropriate amount of time we’ll be met by additional obstacles. We chose imaginary zombies. The set up was perfect. We were at an outdoor, gated, locked, storage facility. The truck is loaded with gear and the sun is setting. Time to get to work.
We approached the exterior gate. I had him get out and carefully approach the key pad. As any experienced gamer does, I had already acquired the gate code as well as the lock combination earlier in my travels. Using our stellar team work skills, I rolled down the window and read him the gate code. Note, this is the first time I’ve been to the storage facility on my own. Nothing. The gate didn’t open. I read it to him again. Second try… nothing. I texted the Cub Master and confirmed the code. It was correct.
My Boy Scout was feeling irritated and I was too. That’s ok. I told him we’ve done this a million times in a ton of games. We have the right code, but we’re missing something. Sometimes you must try different combinations. After about three more tries we got it! Success!! The gate required us to first enter * to access the code entry screen, then select # to submit.
As the gate began to open he squealed with excitement! I slapped the driver’s door from the window and told him to hurry and get in before zombies hear the gate and start to come after us! We made it through the gate in time and it closed behind us, successfully keeping those pesky brain hungry zombies safely outside of the property.
Next task, find our unit. I gave him the unit # and had him look for it as we drove around. I knew where it was but it was fun to pretend I didn’t. There it is! We found it. *high five*. Now we are met with another door. He grabbed the cord and pulled up. Its locked, but there is no visible lock! What to do… Another test, another puzzle. This door had a latch but no lock. I let him try to figure it out before offering my assistance. The latch had two parts and slid sideways. He got it! Success! The door slid up! *high five*
Next, we were met by a long, dark hallway. We took a quick look around for our imaginary zombies. So far, the coast was clear, but we knew with the noise of that roll up door that they wouldn’t be far off. We used our flashlight and found our unit at the end of the dark hallway. Another lock! This time it was a pad lock with a numeric code. “Oh no! Mommy, do you know the code?!” Of course, I did! I read him the numbers and the lock didn’t open. Now I knew this was correct so I had him try again. We were feeling the pressure. I checked his numbers and they weren’t quite lined up. One more try… Success!! More giggles and high fives. We were having a lot of fun.
He slowly opened the door into the even darker room. It was filled with boxes and shelving. We had made it to the treasure room! Now to add our loot. We ran back to the truck and started to unload. After returning our gear, we decided to pull out the T-shirts to sell at our next meeting. He ran out to check on that zombie situation. They were climbing the fence! “Mommy, hurry! We’re running out of time!” I quickly pulled down some bins that were marked shirts. Right before taking them to the truck I figured I had better check them. Removing the wrong bins might set off a trap! Thank goodness, I had checked because those were the old shirts! Danger averted. Whew!!
We quickly found the correct bins and pushed them out into the hallway. Time was running out as those very slow moving brain lovers were over the fence and starting to make their way to the unit! We team worked our exit. Scout reset the lock as I got to work loading the bins into the truck.
I yelled, “Hurry! They’re coming!!!”, as I jumped into the truck and started the engine. Scout ran to the key pad and punched in the code as I shouted it from the window. This time we got it open in one try. Woo Hoo!! The gate opened and he jumped into the truck. “Go Mommy! Go! They are going to get out!!” We made it through just as the gate closed and the first zombie hit the fence.
What an exciting adventure!! We had so much fun. My son said he would have never have thought to look at the series of doors and locks the way we did if I hadn’t told him that sometimes life is like a video game. He is still talking about our adventure and already wants to go back.
Sometimes life throws you roadblocks. It gets frustrating when you load up the truck with a bunch of stuff, take your Sunday to get things put away and then realize you don’t have the right code to get in. Ugh! Sometimes tackling like’s challenges just takes a shift in perspective. Everything is a lesson. Find the lesson. Stop and ask yourself “What is it that I need to learn? What is it that I’m being shown?” Approach your situation from another angel and try again. Once I find the lesson I always feel like I’ve completed a dungeon. I laugh at myself while imagine jumping up in the air with my fist raised in victory while hearing “level up!” Life really is like a game sometimes. If you don’t learn the lesson being presented in the situation you can quit or backtrack, but the lesson will surely repeat itself over and over until you learn it. It’s the same in your game. If you can’t figure out the puzzle to open the door you can backtrack to find the clues, but the game will not progress until you pass the test.
Don’t get stressed out! You’ve unknowingly been preparing for these moments your whole life. Keep it fun and shift your thinking. Game on!
