Game On
Image by Robert Lukeman
I’ve been deep in my creative cave lately working on a few different projects and have been ruthless about cutting distractions. This includes cutting my screen time significantly, relegating it to actual working time. I’ve not been watching shows and if I’m honest, I haven’t missed them. However, I do find myself missing the video games.
In case you didn’t know, I’m a gamer with a soft spot for open-world RPGs. For Christmas I was given two new games, God of War Ragnarök, which I opened that day, and Hogwarts Legacy, which was just released last week (and arrived in the mail like another present!). Though I’ve loaded both onto my console, I’ve yet to play either one. Of course, I want to play them – I adore Norse mythology and thought the last God of War was awesome. I’m also a major Harry Potter fan and look forward to diving into the new game. But, I’ve not been ready for the time commitment, so I’ve not actually hit start on either one yet.
That’s about to change though because in truth, I’m ready to play a good story. So, I’ll be re-evaluating my time and screen usage to allow for the fun. Not that writing isn’t fun – I’ve been having The. Best. Time. with my latest drafts (can’t wait to announce those projects!) – but, it hasn’t all been play either. And playing is important not just for our creativity, but for our quality of life.
It can be easy to overlook the things that bring us joy when we’re in the midst of a sea of commitments and/or working to deadlines. We can become so focused on our work and other people’s demands on our time, that we let some of the things we enjoy doing slip out of our lives telling ourselves we’ll “do them later.” And maybe we do actually do them later, or maybe we let them slide, putting them off for whenever we think we’ll have more time to enjoy them.
Doing things we enjoy is a form of self-care.
In the interest of self- care, I’m taking a good look at the things that bring me joy that I’ve been avoiding or ignoring lately (like playing video games), and consciously putting them back in my life. It may take actually scheduling them like I do for meetings and other commitments, but there is beauty in that too. One of my mentors is always saying, “If it isn’t scheduled, it’s not real,” and I think there’s some wisdom there.
Here’s to finding a way to do all the things, especially the ones we love.