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I love Plants v. Zombies. I started playing the game when I was pregnant with Bear and have been playing it consistently for the past five years. It’s a good time waster and it’s really fun. I love coming up with different strategies on how to defeat the zombies with numerous plants.
They recently launched a weekly tournament where various gamers can play. Each week, a different plant is featured and everyone has exactly one week to score the most points. Those in the top three move to the next level. Those in the bottom three move down a level. Everyone else stays the same.
Recently, I participated in one of the tournaments and I was at number four. Pretty close to being in the top three. I had to spend gems in order to reach the top three and move on. It wasn’t like I was short on gems but I didn’t want to use them if I didn’t have to, you know?
I decided to just YOLO and go for it. I did spend an extraordinary amount of gems, but I managed to place second and move onto the next level. After I did my congratulatory ‘You know I’m bad, I’m bad, you know it!’ moonwalk and prepared myself for the next round, it occurred to me I just taught myself a valuable lesson –
If I really want to do something, I’ll make sure it happens.
Now, you’re probably thinking, ‘You got all of that from a silly phone game?’ Why yes, yes, I did. But here’s why it’s crucial to me…
I say, within the past 3-6 months, I fell into a place of complacency. Between moving, writing, the burglary, and just trying to navigate our way to more responsibilities, I slacked on some things. Hell, let me keep it one hundred; I slacked on everything.
It quickly went from I’m only going to put out my best to ‘You know what? This is good enough.’ Everything was good enough. The dishes I made, the way I cleaned our home, how I did laundry; hell, even how much I updated on this very blog…it wasn’t an achievement but it was good enough.
You know that feeling…it’s not what you wanted but it’s good enough. It’s not the dress you wanted but it’s good enough. It’s not the car you desired but it’s good enough.
It’s a dangerous place to be in. Once you decide you don’t want to try harder to get what you want, you fall into that good enough stage. Your appearance then becomes good enough. Your bank account becomes good enough. The food you eat becomes good enough. I can go on but you get the point.
Once I realized what I was doing (thanks Plants v. Zombies!), I decided to kick my own butt into gear. I began walking a lot more and am seriously contemplating a gym membership with a kids area so Bear can play as I work out. I’m experimenting with dishes a lot more, instead of the same ol’, same ol. My clothing has become better quality and colorful.
Finally, my writing has seen a serious uptick in quality. I’m going to pursue screenwriting again.
It was an important lesson I needed to learn. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional slack period. Sometimes, I don’t feel like blogging. Sometimes, I just want to lay around in my undies all day and watch Netflix. But I can never get back into the habit where I don’t even attempt to do better.
Yeah, I might have to spend a bit more money than I’d intended. Yeah, I might have to work harder than I imagined. Yeah, I might have to question if what I’m doing is ultimately worth it. I’m prepared for that.
I don’t want to look back at my life and think the reason why I didn’t do something was because I didn’t try hard enough. I rather give it my all and fail than to never try at all and wonder what could’ve been.
In other words, settling is never good enough for me. I will always desire and want more. You should, too.
