My Thought Process: Learning Through MineCraft Parkour and SnapChat

   Minecraft Parkour is my new video game pursuit; basically you jump really high, really far, as fast as you can. There's more to it, but that's the general idea. I can say in all fairness I am terrible at it. Every afternoon when I cash in my thirty minutes of Video Game Time, I sit or stand and hop around on the same sequence of blocks until my fingers ache and my hand is sore. I spent an entire turn doing one jump a couple hundred times (which means dying a couple hundred times) until my muscle memory learned to time all the variables just right. It's difficult, but fun. 

  

 I am not overly philosophical or preachy - or maybe I try not to be. However, while I sat pressing the jump button (space-bar) repeatedly, my mind wandered, and I began to think about making mistakes in real life as compared to Minecraft Parkour. The exceedingly used (though true) sayings about trying again, getting up when you fall, and learning through your mistakes all came to mind. I am not as dedicated in real life as I am in Minecraft, unfortunately. Of course, progress in video games and progress in real life are very different. But actually learning to make mistakes (yes, learning to make mistakes) and learning from your mistakes is something I am now striving to teach myself.  

 When I say learning to make mistakes, I don't mean finding a check list of ' do a, b, c, and now you make mistakes!' I simply mean being willing to admit that you are bad at something, accept it, then do it over and over again (practice, practice, practice) until you aren't terrible at it anymore. But it's okay to be bad at things. Sometimes there are just things you can't be good at. It is how you face that and not giving up that matters. 

   Truthfully speaking, I hate it when people watch me do things such as play video games, ride horses, play my guitar, etc. I am not a competitive person in that context.  The first time I reached the "Hundred Tries Jump," a certain person in my family was watching and remarked, "Splat!" every time I bounced off the slab's edge and fell to my death. While that may simply be annoying for most people, to me it was not only infuriating, it was insulting. Eventually, I stopped doing the course on our desktop computer, Cerebro, and moved to our family laptop, Friday. That way I could perish in privacy, and Jackson, Parkour and Minecraft Master, could give me the tips over my shoulder every so often when I couldn't (and still can't) pass a level.  But at the root of my decision, I think I was unwilling to make mistakes in front of people. Not just Minecraft, but in 'real life' as well.  

Which made me think about my other video entertainment, SnapChat. I have the app on my beloved Apple iPhone 5c, Sevy (our family names all of our technological devices out of some strange tradition; not even I know how it started).  It's great; I can communicate with my friends practically anywhere, whether that's halfway across the globe or just down the street.  It lets you text, send pictures, and put hilarious filters on your pictures.  The downside, in my humble opinion, is that it gives you the ability to craft a very false image of yourself, which is true for all social media, but with SnapChat especially. With one swipe of my thumb, I can instantly whiten and clean up my complexion, making it unreal and "perfect." Most of the filters give you instant mascara and long eyelashes, and practically all of them change your face shape (something may be said for the doggy ears and buck teeth filters here). Personally, if I am not confident in myself, SnapChat would not only make that worse, it would make me unwilling to either mess up or show my true self or personality - not only in Minecraft, but everything. That being said, SnapChat is not inherently bad. It all depends on how and why you use it. 

Either I have completely confused you with my strange mind and way of thinking, or maybe, hopefully, I have encouraged you.  It is my resolution to now be okay with myself and failing at things, two slightly difficult things for me. Not being afraid or dismayed (Joshua 1:9), and not having a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7).