The Sims/Real Life

Over the last ten years I have been almost singularly focused on goal achievement. The first seven of those years were spent on career growth, where I essentially tripled my income. That focus however exacted a price in a very severe depression that I spent nearly five years battling.

Now that I'm back in a professional setting, I am once again having to remind myself what is really important. At the moment things are beginning to become tense at work, and it really is going to take some effort to remind myself that this job is merely a source of income, not my identity. I've always had a tendency to take things too personally and in the past that has gotten me into deep trouble. I can see where the tendency is beginning to surface, but I also think I'm self aware enough to avoid the pitfalls.

After my mother, my sister, and her family, nothing is more important to me than school. Then my home and my friends. Then my job. If the job goes away, I'll get another. I'll never have another mother, sister, or education. Those things are irreplaceable.

On a lighter note, last weekend I indulged myself and bought my first computer game, The Sims. Essentially it's an elaborate soap opera game in which you can create the characters and live out their lives. I was going to be really pissed if all of the characters had to be straight, so the first thing I did was starved off the ugly fat woman and her husband. Then I created a gay couple. It took a while for the game to recognized the couple I had created as a couple. It wouldn't let me put them in the same bed. But finally, through a course of interaction, the game offered my an option to kiss. I seized it, and before long my two boys were in the same bed. Soon the game even let them adopt a baby girl. And just like in real life, they can't get married.

It's a stupid game, but I flipped it on this morning, intending to play for half an hour. SIX and a half hours later I quit because I needed food. The game is scored on a number of different categories in which your characters have to perform tasks to keep their energy up in those categories. Much like real life, the key to the game is maintaining a balance. When one thing gets out of balance, the character's whole life suffers.

Everything seems to offer life lessons these days.

I'm exhausted and off to bed. Tomorrow will be a big day at work.