Ctrl+Alt+Delete” the Life You’re Told You Need

Every morning, Jace Martin sat down at the same desk, in the same cubicle, under the same flickering fluorescent light. He wore a button-up shirt like armor, his tie like a leash, and stared into the glow of his office monitor while sipping bitter coffee.

The emails came like machine gun fire.

The meetings dragged like broken code.

The smiles were scripted.

The clock was a cage.

He lived in a one-bedroom apartment where everything was grayscale — even the cat, Byte, seemed to have been born in monochrome. Every Sunday night, Jace would lie awake, scrolling through social media feeds that told him: You need more. Be more. Buy more. Promotions, perfect vacations, smiling couples in filtered lighting.

But deep inside, something buzzed like a faulty wire.

Was this it?

Was this really life?

Was he just... following a template someone else wrote?

Jace had once wanted to be a game developer. In college, he stayed up nights building pixel worlds that shimmered with weirdness and wonder. He dreamed of making people feel something. But somewhere between student loans and survival mode, he took a “safe” job in data compliance.

And now? He couldn’t remember the last time he created, instead of just complying.

Then, on a cold Tuesday morning, his computer froze — not a metaphor, an actual crash. Spinning wheel. No response. He sighed and instinctively pressed the keys he had learned long ago:

Ctrl + Alt + Delete

A menu popped up on screen.

Lock. Sign Out. Task Manager. Restart.

Restart.

That word burned into his mind.

He didn’t click it. Not on the screen.

He stood up. Walked to the window. Looked at the gray sky.

And whispered to himself, “What if I restarted my life?”

That night, Jace opened an old folder on his personal laptop labeled “Unreal Worlds.” Inside were game sketches, story outlines, soundtracks made with cheap plugins. As he clicked through them, his fingers tingled like the spark of a long-lost memory.

He spent the next week coding in secret.

An hour before bed. A half hour at lunch. Sketching characters in the margins of meeting notes. It felt like oxygen after a lifetime of holding his breath.

Then he built a tiny indie game.

It was crude, pixelated, full of bugs.

But it was his.

He uploaded it online. Posted a link in a small dev forum with a message:

“I made this during my lunch breaks. Hope someone enjoys it.”

The next day, he had 200 downloads.

Then 1,000.

A well-known indie dev tweeted: “This game feels like someone ripped open their chest and let it glitch on screen. I love it.”

Jace stared at the screen, heart pounding. He couldn’t stop smiling. Not because he was famous. But because, for the first time in years, someone had seen him — the real him — not the role he was playing in the system.

But the system doesn’t like when you disobey its code.

His manager noticed his energy drifting. “You’re not focused lately.”

His parents warned, “You can’t survive on dreams, Jace.”

The world pushed him to Ctrl + Z, to undo this spark of rebellion.

But Jace pressed forward.

Three months later, he released a second game. This time, it had voice narration, a hand-painted aesthetic, and a story about a young man trapped in a simulated world he didn’t design — who wakes up one day and realizes he can rewrite it.

The game went viral.

He was offered freelance work.

Then commissions.

Then a deal to develop full time for a small, art-driven game studio.

That’s when he really did it.

Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

He shut down the old system.

Logged out of the version of life he'd been sold.

Cleared the processes that drained him.

And he rebooted.

He moved to a small coastal town where the sunsets had color and the people had depth. He adopted a second cat — this one orange. He built games that made people cry, laugh, remember, dream.

Sometimes he woke up at 2 a.m. terrified he had made a mistake.

But then he’d hear the sound of waves, open his laptop, and return to the world he created — the one that was never supposed to be possible.

The one that became real when he pressed the keys that changed everything.

You’ve been told:

Get the degree.

Get the job.

Get the car.

Get the house.

Retire with time too short to use.

You’ve been programmed since childhood to want what others chase.

But maybe... just maybe...

It’s time to Ctrl + Alt + Delete the life you’re told you need.

And start living the one you were meant to create.