Job that i Love

I believe I have lived an interesting life. I have been adventurous and bold which has led me to amazing opportunities and life experiences. I also believe I have gone through most of my life feeling lost. Without a direction or purpose, I was constantly going in circles. With no direction, I was at a standstill. This led to me to allow my time to be taken up with distractions. One of those distractions being video games. I have played videos most of my life. It was something my older brother did. I played a lot but never excessively. I liked being outside and play sports while growing up. After high school, I usually only played during thunder and snow storms. I used to see how people became addicted to video games. I understood they were fun but couldn't understand that it was all they wanted to do. One day I came across a game that changed all that. The game was called Ark. The game was an open concept, where the players could used what the game offer and play it how they wanted. I liked this because it allowed for a lot of creativity. There were many different servers available. A server or gaming server is where someone purchases a server to get the core game and edit the options as they see fit for how they want people playing. They can edit the map, the settings, the rules, etc. They also are in change of that server. They police the server the way they see fit, even in an abusive matter if they so choose. I first started playing on servers where it was player verse player. This was where teams or individuals would battle each other using the game mechanics. That was fun and really didn't take up too much of my time. After about half a year of playing the game casually, my team decided they wanted to go on a different kind of server where it would require a lot more time and effort to accomplish things, to make it a bit of a challenge. I wasn't willing to put in that kind of time, so I decline the offer, and off they went. I was about to quit playing the game out of boredom, when I came across a type of server I have never seen before. It was called an RP server or roleplay server. I had heard of roleplay games like dungeons and dragons and stuff like that, but I never heard them played in video games. Being intrigued I started watching videos on the internet. As geeky as it seemed, it was an interesting concept. Most games you play you must play the game's characters and the game's storyline. In a RP server you play your character and you play your storyline. Being a creative individual, I was eager to give it a shot. The server was customized and built to fit the theme of a medieval era. Three hundred people from around the world were playing on it. So, when you went into game you interacted with other people. There were no computer characters, it was all real people on the other side of the character you interacted with. The server had its economy created by the people running the server called admins. The server was played with seasons. This meant every six weeks; the map would wipe and there would be a fresh start. You could continue your story or start anew. Everything else in the game was determined by the players through roleplaying out events. These were rules, leaders, and scenarios that could occur. Now I was average when it came to playing the actual game. I started on the server trying to learn the rules and figure out how people play this style of game play. I just put in a few hours a day. My schedule at the time allowed for a lot of spare time. After getting the hang of the play style and diving into the concept I found that I enjoyed the game play. I realized by the end of my first season I was rich because how I played the economy. I didn't use the game mechanics, but I used people skills, real people skills to get rich. By interacting with other characters and providing them with services in game, I became a sort of entrepreneur. I went on next season doing the same thing. This time I played with a big group, where last time I played more on my own, so I could get the hang of things. In the game I was face with many scenarios that I applied to real life and allowed me to build myself. For instance, I was working a job that was not going well at the time. This job had given me the most opportunity and experience any job had ever given me. It was the most I had ever been payed. But it was going in a bad direction. It was taking advantage of me and asking of me task that were truly impossible to complete. I was scared to quit. I feared that I wouldn't be able to find as good if not better of a job as this one. With other real-life situations and this game, I was able to give my two weeks' notice. My character in game wouldn't take crap, why should I. I went on playing the game. I got better with the concept of roleplay. Most people enjoyed my characters. This allowed me to attract skilled players and role-players to play in my group or for me to play in their group. This allowed me to pull off major storylines in game and acquire riches and other powerful items. Again, not being good at the game itself, but using people skills I thrived. Every season I came out rich. Every season I was some sort of ruler. I was even king once. On another character, I was a smaller ruler who owned the king. I made great strides in this false world. The problem was I had become addicted to the game. I would spend anywhere from 8 hours to sometimes 16 hours a day playing this game. I had signed up for summer classes to make my fall and spring semester schedule a bit liter. As the classes approached, I was telling myself I should quit and be done with the game. I should focus on school. I started my first class and instead of giving up the game, I gave up sleep. I went on playing. Being that successful in game and respected and loved, it was hard to give up. Through roleplay I created big adventures and storylines. Some of these led to a lot of action and wars. I was too far in. I couldn't be as effective in game because I, at the very least, made school the number one priority in my life. I was in a five-week class. Then what I would call a miracle happened. Due to the admin team, of the server, fighting and there being a lack of consideration from the admin team to the players on the server, the population started to drop big time. People left and banned together to create other servers. I quit the server because I was tired of the way the admin team was running the server and because the population drop made it less fun. Even though I had quit the server, I wasn't completely free yet. I was waiting to see which of the new servers was going to come out on top. I wanted to play on that one. As I was waiting I had this extra time I haven't had in a while. I begin to enjoy not logging into a game daily. I began to realize that it became like a job to play the game in the manner I was playing. I was working hard to create these successes in a world that didn't matter. It was nice not to deal with any petty drama or struggle of in game problems. I started to look at my current life. I wasn't as healthy as I could be. I was at a new job that I hated. Nothing in my real life was where I wanted it. I had spent so much time in game I forgot about real life. I created major successes in game but had not progressed in life at all. This bothered. I knew I was better than this. I knew that I knew better than to let a game take over my life, yet I had. Then I was hit with a thought. If I could be that successful in game just using people skills and creativity, why can't I be that successful in real life. It was at that moment I got to work. I worked on myself and my real life. Today, four months later, I have an amazing job that I love. I am the healthiest I have ever been, and I am the happiest I have ever been. Looking back, I don't know the exact number, but I was addict to this game for a year in a half. Most people hear that and say imagine what you could have done if you didn't waste a year and a half. I think about it too. Oddly enough I am glad I did. If I didn't I wouldn't be the person I am today. I wouldn't be in the position I am today. I would be somewhere, but I would of taken a different road. It took playing this game to see what I was real made of and the skills I must apply to move forward in life. So, I don't see my addiction as a failure, I see it as a lesson and a road I had to take to get to where I am today.

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