Finding an old 1992 SNES Nintendo console in his basement, a very old, valuable video game console, my neighbor was kind enough to give it to me for a while, so that I could play some Mario during my daily breaks. I love Mario, it’s one of the best, most straightforward, yet hardest games ever produced.
Mario simply rocks!
I played the game for one month, about 30 minutes each day during my lunch breaks or at night, but never more than 30 minutes in a 24 hours period. I get addicted very easily and quickly, so the time limitation was mandatory.
I died hundreds of times. I swore like an idiot every time. I got stuck on levels that little kids on YouTube seem to pass in one try. It was so hard getting to that 80% of the game, somewhere around Star World 5, I almost lost it several times for good.
And then, when I finally reached Star World 5 and was one level away from fighting Bowser, the last boss in the final castle, my neighbors’ kid came over, played for a bit and DELETED MY SAVED GAME. All my progress, lost in a second.
I stared at the console for 5 minutes, about to lose my temper, considering throwing the console in the first garbage bin. But then, as I stood there, rage filling up my guts, building a nest in my chest, something clicked inside my brain.
What happened was out of my control, and there was nothing I could do about it. There it was, one month of “riding the bull”, down the drain.
So what? Are you really going to lose it because of a video game?
As soon as I realized that, I just began to play the game again, from level 1, just ignoring the voices in my head, which were trying to convince me that I wasted all of my time and effort in getting basically nowhere.
The experience taught me a valuable lesson about patience
I learned that no matter how much time and effort you put into something, if you don’t have the patience to put the same amount of work into it the second time around, right after your first failure, you’ll never be able to pull that thing off, regardless if it’s a video game, a relationship, a business or anything else.
The deleted saved game incident happened a week ago. Last night, I defeated Bowser, after playing for maybe 3 hours in total for the past week and managing to pass level after level like a Japanese master.
They seemed a lot more easier, and I enjoyed the game much more than the first time around. I patiently played through the whole game, passing the dreaded Star World 5 level after only a second try. And then I went for Bowser, destroying him with no cloak and saving Princess Peach in a heartbeat.
Sometimes for your dreams to come true, all you need is a bit more patience. Even if it seems like it’s the end of it, even if you need to start from scratch, all you need to do is put a little more patience into it, and let it unfold.
“The Princess” might just be around the corner.
