Games & Lessons

When I was a kid I was simply besotted with this video game called "Prince of Persia". So there was this pauper prince who had to fight his way through many challenges to try and win the hand of this princess. He had this sword and basically had to swing and slam his way past all these guards and this very sinister wizard with super powers, who kept springing all these traps and stuff....it was great fun. The game had all these levels, twelve if I remember right, and if you made it to the top you entered this awesome chamber where the princess awaited you. But getting to level twelve was not at all easy. The first few levels were tame, but from level five things got tricky.

When I first began to play the game even the first level seemed tricky but soon I had the hang of it and it was a breeze. At each level you had about a two minutes to make it to the next level and soon I was rushing through the tame levels like in half a minute or so as if it was some kind of a race, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get past level Five where I had this wall of fire I had to leap across. The number of times I got roasted in the fire wasn't funny and it really bugged me no ends. Soon all I was doing was thinking of ways to get past that firewall and it kind of struck me that I really needed to work on my leaping skills. So now in the tame levels I basically kept leaping all the time, not rushing through to the next level till the very last second, using every opportunity to leap higher and further. Guess what, soon level Five was a breeze.

But then I got stuck in level Six, where I had to simultaneously punch and slice at this tiny little spot to kill this fearsome guard. So the tame levels were now all about my swordplay. I practised slicing, punching, weaving and I found all these useful shortcuts and hell no, soon I was like some ninja and that guard wasnt fearsome no more.

As I got closer to level Twelve I kept using the tame levels as hunting grounds for working on all those skills I would need much later in the game. Now I wasn't rushing through them, instead I was using every precious second to work on my skills. No wonder within a month I was routinely getting into that chamber where the princess waited, no sweat really.

Its been years since I played that game but just a while ago something struck me about what that game had really taught me.

Our life is quite like that game, we have our growing years and not much happens to us during those years, we have a nice protective environment around us and people looking after us, making sure we are safe from all those really tricky stuff . These years are kind of like those tame levels, most of us never really face any bruising challenge during these years. And because things seemed tame I was in a big a hurry, I wanted to run right through, wanted to just hop skip & jump straight to being that 'cocky young cousin brother' several years my senior. I talked like him, walked like him and I thought I was like him till I ran smack into a wall of fire, my first proper 'young adult' challenge. Ended up properly roasted. Unfortunately, unlike as in P of P, my life didn't end there, I didn't get to go back to the beginning and start all over again. I just had to get up, dust my bums and get going. And guess what; I kept running into more things I wasn't ready for. I was smacked, pasted and pulverised again and again till one day,  much bruised and battered, I was finally a 'grown up'.

How I wish I had taken my sweet time during those tame years to find out what skills I would need and use every moment I had to get ready for what life was gonna throw at me. It would have saved me so much of the pain and the bother.