Master your game, Restore your motivation.

Games are my thing. Not so much video games, as it is arcade games. When I was a child, there was always one game that I could never seem to master, and that game was Tetris. It always seemed so hard to me and so I immediately gave up on trying to conquer it. That is one habit I was disappointed to had developed. Though I tried to play it again here and there, I just couldn't create any lines. It was pretty sad that, at such a young age, I decided right then that my lack of tenacity impeded me accomplishing this menial goal.

As I’ve said before, I am a game fanatic. I can get lost in them for hours going from level to level, never truly "quitting" until I was out of lives or out of patience. Through the years I've played every cooking game, character matching, board game, card game, video game, and everything in between. And overwhelming boredom and a fluctuating mild interest were the only reason for such a diverse catalog. After awhile, I forgot about Tetris, but trying to “beat it” was always in the back of my mind but still a challenge; almost as a "do no enter" roadblock that I created for myself.

My invisible barrier made me realize a few things. 1. How irrational my fear of simply figuring out how to play the game was. and 2. I lost a vital motivational spark when I gave up on the game, which ultimately translated into my adulthood. The child in me felt out of her league, dumb, and defeated. However, this now 31-year-old grown woman just recently downloaded the game and I understand it now more than I ever did as a child.

My late 20s gave me the blues. From grief to toxic relationships to backbreaking dead end jobs, my motivation, my true motivation was all but lost. I have stopped and restarted my writing journey more times than I can count. I've realized now that my writing, every piece I've made was met with harsh self criticism and anxiety. Writing had become my Tetris. I forced myself to mold each story, prose, or poetry into this perfect puzzle piece. I had to stack it perfectly to create the lines.

Now I’m surely not the exception of (self) discouragement, but how we choose to carry it, is a direct reflection in how you move in life. Losing that “ spark” for me shaped how I’ve treated relationships, personal, professional and otherwise. Flowing through the highs and lows of my outgoing nature, still made me paradoxically afraid of the things I “couldn’t”do. I definitely wasn’t connecting the dots let alone creating the lines. Nevertheless, my ambition refused to let me fail, even when my procrastination weighed on me.

Everything isn’t as black and white as it seems. I've learned that there's no right way to create the lines in the game. That even when you choose the wrong piece or if it didn't fit precisely that's okay. Simple right? Much easier said than done. If I could I would tell my younger self to not get so frustrated and try again, to try to look at it from a different angle and take your time. But for whatever reason, it's so hard for us to give ourselves grace; especially in both realms of our lives. We owe it to ourselves to master something we never thought we could, it unlocks something very special. Playing Tetris has made me feel fearless again, with the childlike courage and motivation I felt when I was kid. Let us never lose that feeling..