Life as a Deck

I've been a gamer my whole life, and still am. it might sound a childish thing but games (maybe more specifically video games) play a major role in the growth of mankind's psyche. we learned from the early steps of the human race on earth about the potential of Playing and Storytelling and used these tools to teach what we know to the next generation. it's not that of a stupid statement to say that I learned a lot through gaming (although it might look like one).

recently there has been a game that I picked up, a card game named Legends of Runeterra. these card games known as collective card games are basically you having some cards with unique abilities, you sit down and play them in turns with another player. the limited number pile of cards that you bring with yourself to the game is called a Deck and the more cards you buy or find or win, helps you to bring better tools to the game. but here's the thing, it's a tricky thing to choose cards for a deck...

some cards are low cost, easy to use, and less impactful. as you go through higher cost cards they look more promising to bring you victory. you definitely want to have them in your deck, they are exciting and they change the course of the game when you play them. you feel like adding more and more of them into your deck so the game feels more exciting. but... what you experience is actually the opposite. Your deck feels frustrating and those amazing impactful cards... disappoint you.

as I tried to build a deck in LoR, I found myself in that frustrating situation. the way I expected things to work and the way they did. "why this doesn't work? my opponent plays so smooth, why i can't play like that?" I thought to myself. I thought maybe I'm not playing well at the moment, but the problem was not that. the deck i built had a bad distribution. it was not balanced well. I didn't have enough of more "normal" cards in order for my special cards to find their own place. it was hugely arranged around the big moves. "these cards look like they do the job for me, let have more of them and guarantee the victory" I thought. obviously, I was wrong. 

in that sense, life is the same. it's made of special things we do in the day. the impactful actions we take toward our future or the amazing things we do that make us hyped and happy. but you can not simply fill your day with all of these kinds of stuff and expect it to work better. maybe less is more.

maybe you are like me, thirsty for a sip of something to hype you or shoots you forward. if you are, you know what I mean. "ow, this is fun let's have more!" let's drink more, let's play more games. let's have more of this person in life. I see these things a lot around me. doing a thing that is the most exciting part of our life more than a certain threshold, not just ruins our day but also ruins the excitement we get from that. we NEED to understand the value of a normal thing and connect with it.

imagine all the things that make you want to do them more an occupy more of your life. is it sex or romance? your job? wandering through instagram? getting drunk or stoned? hanging out with friends? look at them and realize how much of your day you spend doing them. if they are consuming your life you probably passed the threshold. try to enjoy it when you are not doing them too.

try to enjoy playing the "normal" cards, and you'll see how having these two types of cards in your deck serve each other for a better game.