The Gamer's Approach

I'm not a neat person. I'm not an athletic person. I don't like being neat or being athletic. My room is a disaster, and I'm out of shape. My last post said I was going to start eating healthy and getting into an exercise routine. I admit, I failed miserably the first day when I fell asleep from 11:30 to 2 pm. I had slept through my exercise hour, and I was so discouraged that I put it off for the next day. I confess, I haven't gotten to it today either. 


Instead, I was inspired to do something more important.


Like I said, my room is a disaster. I don't want to spend time in it. I slept on the couch for a while because I didn't want to spend time in there. My mother was screaming about the fact that her house wasn't clean, and that I have two weeks to help out or I have to get out. I don't work well with orders like that. I will do the exact opposite if someone demands something of me. It has to be my choice, and I was in no mood to follow her orders. But later this morning, my friend sent me a video called Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world. 


Mind. Blown.

If I could harness the creativity and determination I had when making this...

I looked up at my messy bedroom and didn't see a bedroom anymore. First, I saw it as a dungeon. I saw it as a dungeon from the Legend of Zelda series, where I had to move all the "blocks" and find all the "treasures" to "clear" the level. With that level "clear" I could progress. Then I saw it as a version of the Sims, where the reason I am always in a bad mood was because my environment bar was in the red. That meant if I cleaned it my mood would go up and I'd be all around cheerier. The third game I saw was Minecraft. I saw that I had been given a set area on a server, and I could do with it as I wished. I had a bed and other things in it, and I just had to clear the area out, use the resources I had, and make it into my own room. I could even have a rug in there by using "blocks of wool" if I didn't like the wood floor. 

...then I could do far more than just clean a bedroom.

When I realized that I could easily get this done because my mind was able to switch over to game mode, I immediately set to work. Immediately. I'm not finished yet, but now my bed has sheets, a blanket, and a pillow. Now all my laundry has been sorted. I've got unnecessary items ready to go into "the world's most painful trash can" (Thank you, Nicholas Galjanic). I can now properly plan outfits. I can find hidden treasures that were lost over time, and battle against the raging boss that would have my head for the state of my bedroom. This is my gaming approach. And with it I will conquer this house, one dungeon, one room, one block at a time.