The 1:1:1 Challenge

Starting Monday, March 6, 2017, I am embarking on the 1:1:1 Challenge. No, this isn't the Catholic 1-1-1 Challenge, although their challenge is pretty cool. The 1:1:1 Challenge is one that I created on my own to pursue my interests and to do the work necessary to build the expertise I want to have. According to my challenge, every week, I will complete the following:

• one video game
• one book
• one craft

The challenge does come with a few rules and caveats:

1. Completing a video game means reaching the credits and/or end screen. It is up to my discretion whether or not to 100 percent a game.
2. Completing a book means reading a book from start to finish
3. Completing a craft means creating something from scratch into a final, new product or form
4. I am allowed to repeat video games, books and crafts. It doesn't have to be "new" to me to count toward the challenge.
5. If a game video game will take longer than a week to complete (I do still need to eat, sleep and work), then the challenge can be extended to two weeks for the completion of that game only.
6. A "craft" is defined as "an activity involving skill in making things." Crafts include, but aren't limited to, paintings, mixed media art, jewelry, blog posts, papercraft, textiles, text-based video games.

Why Video Games, Books and Crafts?

Video games and books are chosen primarily to build my repertoire. My vision is to be an expert in post-escapism, which is the field of understanding "games by placing them in social, political and cultural context. It finds value in what game says about the world around it." Post-escapism combines my love of gaming with my interests in activism, human rights, public police and the like. Playing video games will build my repertoire of games to analyze and place into context. Books will build my repertoire and understanding of past and present social, political and cultural contexts.

Crafts are the synthesis of the first two, since there's little point of building repertoires if the actual analysis is never completed. It's the chance to connect what I've learned, played and read so far. Although I am a writer by trade, writing isn't the only way to practice post-escapism, which is why I defined it to include so many different mediums. Craft is also defined as a trade or a handicraft, and I liked the idea of creating crafts while also working on honing my craft.

Why Do This Challenge at All?

I am embarking on this challenge and creating it for myself as a matter of discipline. I feel I need to double down on my strengths and interests and this challenge is a great way to do that while also pushing myself to execute and to create, whether that's through writing or painting or a household good or what. It's good to play video games and to read books and to think about their contexts, but that alone isn't going to make me a post-escapism expert or build my credibility as said expert.

Also, now that I have the language of post-escapism, I'm excited to explore it and perhaps define its study and some its major theories. It's a rather new field within video games analysis, culture and "new games journalism." I think it'll be really cool to be a part of this evolution within video games. I need a way to get started and embarking on a challenge is the perfect way to get started!

When Does the Challenge End?

Hopefully, the challenge never ends. There will always be new video games and new books to discover. The political, social and cultural contexts in which these media exist will always be changing. The artistry and creativity needed to create great crafts are boundless. Ideally, I could do the challenge forever and tweak it so it includes more types of media. Eventually, I could make it harder by increasing the quantity per week or decreasing the amount of time to take on all three items.

What video games, books and crafts are you doing first?

The video games I am tackling first are Democracy 3, Shovel Knight, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Hand of Fate and Cook, Serve, Delicious. All of these games are titles I've already started, so they are first on my list so I can finish them. GTA Vice City may take me longer than a week to finish, but I think I can do it. I'm about halfway through the game if I remember correctly. I do have a full list of video games I plan to tackle, which is ever-changing as I complete games and own more titles and consoles.

I also have a list of books I plan to read. The first eight books on the list are the first eight I will read because I either own those books or I have them in my possession from the library at the moment. After those eight books, I will read books in any order based on availability and/or interest at the time. Like the video games list, the books list is also ever-changing as own more books or discover new titles that'll provide great information.

As for crafts, I do have projects I need to finish as well before starting on anything new. I do have signs and coasters I need to make since I already have the materials to do those. I also need to make a present for a wedding reception coming up later this year, and have just the canvas for that present. Besides those, there will be plenty of ideas for blog posts, ZEEF lists and other artistic endeavors.

Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar: 10 Years Later

Almost 10 years ago, I arrived in St. Louis to interview for the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship at Saint Louis University. The scholarship had been around for two years, but this year was the first year the college was interviewing candidates before selecting scholarship recipients. The weekend was cold, in the teens, one of the coldest for St. Louis that winter. The water in the ponds next to the Cupples House was frozen over, an incredible sight for someone coming all the way from Hawaii to interview. The MLK Jr. Scholarship is awarded to students "who are committed to the promotion of social justice in our society." Scholars are expected to uphold their commitment to diversity and social justice during their time at the university, as well as meet yearly GPA and leadership requirements. If I wasn't clear by now, I was awarded the scholarship and was expected to uphold this commitment during my four years at SLU and after graduation.

Diversity and Social Justice

Social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities. I absolutely despise the phrase "social justice warriors" because the phrase conjures images of Twitter trolls and selfish individuals who are "activists in name only." Social justice is a good thing. Social justice worth working toward and ought to be promoted on a daily basis. A better term for a "social justice warrior" is "butthead." The term "social justice warrior" only makes it easier for people to dismiss actual social justice as a legitimate goal and perspective, especially in a world that so desperately needs it.

But, I digress.

Diversity is much more than racial diversity. It's much more than making sure your school, company or organization has "this person" or "that person." Diversity also includes religious diversity, gender diversity, intellectual diversity, hometown diversity (diversity of the location of one's upbringing) etc. As a white woman with a white name, I don't look or sound diverse (well, half white, but I look white to most people). Since being a MLK Scholar meant this commitment to diversity, I felt that a Native Hawaiian in the Midwest I could create diversity and contribute to the community in ways different from my peers and from those in the St. Louis area.

What Does It Mean to Be a Scholar?

I always understood SLU's motto to be "men and women for others." The motto could've changed in the years since I graduated, since the university now says its motto is "higher purpose, greater good."  To me, being an MLK Scholar meant taking King's legacy and teachings beyond the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. I think it means finishing the work he was unable to finish and doing the work that he would've been unable to get to even if he was still alive. King would've been a busy man in the decades afterward if he wasn't assassinated in 1968.

During my four years at SLU, being a Scholar meant active membership in the university's Amnesty International chapter. It meant yearly participation in SLU's Make a Difference Day every October and volunteering weekly as a tutor at a local high school. It meant being the one political science major who studied among the physics and engineering majors in Parks College. It meant being one of the few people from Hawaii at SLU. It meant being different was an asset, not a liability.

10 Years Later

Ultimately, being an MLK Scholar meant recognizing that privilege doesn't have to an institutional construct designed to hold others back with the exception of a few. Privilege is bestowed to the few as a responsibility to the many. With great power, comes great responsibility. I graduated from SLU debt free, and the scholarship contributed to that outcome. If graduating on time from a four-year private institution of higher learning debt free isn't privilege, then perhaps I don't really know what privilege is.

Nowadays, I uphold the commitment to diversity and social justice through my work with the Amnesty International St. Louis local group. Being an active member of Amnesty comes with its own set of responsibilities and helps me to have perspective on the full extent of my privilege. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?"

It's also a question a scholarship program at a Jesuit university asks its potential candidates. Ten years ago, I didn't know much about Martin Luther King Jr. except what I learned in class and from our textbooks. Today, I think he has a continual, ever-changing legacy because what he stands for is timeless, yet timely.

Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend

It's You that Made Me Talk Again!

Getting back into writing for myself and blogging on this blog has been an ordeal for the past few weeks. I could never think of anything to talk about. The words did not flow freely! I'd want to write, and surely I've stumbled upon something during the day that merits 600 words, but the motivation and creativity just weren't there.

However, I begun to notice a pattern. Every time I would go to bed, that's when everything would come so easily. Full paragraphs and concepts would create themselves in my mind, keeping me awake as I tried to fall asleep. I couldn't figure out why it was happening, but it was a double-edged sword. I liked that I was finally getting some great ideas flowing through my brain, but they were also preventing me from getting enough sleep.

This happened several times before I figured it out: it was the silence. The absence of distractions and stimuli, even visual stimuli, helped my mind to focus for the first time the entire day. Being creative or "finding my creativity" was no longer an issue. When I take away music, YouTube videos, Twitter feeds and HipChat pings, my brain doesn't have any problems thinking and getting things done.

Once I figured it out, the thought of silence became incredibly exciting! If I make an effort to remove as many distractions and stimuli as possible, then what could I possibly create? How much would I be able to get done? What aspects of myself would improve if I were focusing and engaging in my work in the fullest capacity?

I Tried It Today and It Worked Fantastically

As I worked today, I kept the distractions to a minimum. Unfortunately, I have to keep HipChat on because I need it on for work and I need the pings to know when someone is trying to talk to me about something. I can't never ever log in and tell my coworkers to trust that I'm getting my work done, although they can. Part of it also is to build relationships with each other since we all work virtually, and HipChat and our daily meetings are the only ways to do that.

Besides HipChat, I didn't listen to any music or any podcasts throughout the day. I didn't have any YouTube videos play in the background. I just put on my headphones and had nothing come through them. The silence worked tremendously! It was so much easier to get things done, and I felt less hurried and frazzled throughout the day. It seemed like I was working at a pace that accomplished things on my to-do list, but it wasn't a pace that was rushed or that felt like I was conquering an insurmountable number of tasks.

Working in silence is certainly a habit that's going to take some time to develop. I've already found out today that once the distractions are turned on and allowed in, they are very difficult to turn off. It's become so instinctual to browse YouTube or to check Twitter for what's new, even when I don't have any notifications set on the tabs to remind me about anything new. Starting the day with all the different fun, distracting things turned off is the easy part. The hard part is turning them back off when I decide to take a break.

Overall, I'm relieved and freed. I was trying all sorts of things to "find something to write about" or to "find inspiration" or to "find creativity," not realizing that all that pursuit was really making things worse. All I needed was a minute or two to let my mind speak, and the epiphany hit me in the darkness. Clearly, I can't write in the dark, but it's with eyes closed that I found the light I so desperately needed..

I Was Distracted with Poker This Week

I realized about a week ago that WSOP.com is livestreaming the final tables of many of the events taking place this summer, which took away my attention from writing on the blog. Of course, this is something I learn about at the END of the WSOP, when many of the events are already over. Fortunately, between now and the November Nine, I can catch up and watch all the final tables in the archive if I really want to. I might watch some of them since poker always makes great background noise and I don't know any of the results so it would all be a surprise. But, for now, I've gotten my poker fill so I can get back to work and writing blog posts (especially since the July 4th weekend is over).

I Have a New Idea

I mentioned in a previous post about starting a podcast, and I'm tabling that idea for now. I still would like the start a podcast, but I have a better idea that I'd like to pursue, and getting that idea going doesn't involve a podcast at this time. I don't think it's the best venue for the better idea, although it would be great to incorporate a podcast if I can complete the vision I see for my new, better idea.

I'm not going to talk too much about my new, better idea because I don't want to jinx it. I don't remember where I read or heard this, but from what I remember, there is such a thing as "talking about your ideas too much." The problem is that talking about the idea too much can result in a sense of progress, making it more difficult to achieve actual progress. I completely forget where I heard about this, so I could be making it all up,. However, if keeping it under a bit of secrecy helps me to achieve actual progress, then that's "help" that I should take.

I Will Be Testing the Idea on Twitter

I will say that I will be testing the idea on Twitter by tweeting on some of the topics involved in my idea. I'm testing the idea on Twitter to see if there's any traction to this idea and what kind of traction I get for it. I particularly want to look at which tweets and topics get the most engagement and who's engaging with those tweets. Engagement is good, but I'm hoping to target a specific audience demographic with my idea, so know looking at who's engaging with my tweets is very important.

I'm also utilizing Twitter to continue building an audience on the platform. If I decide to take this idea to the next step, then having a substantial audience that's already familiar with who I am and the topics I cover is an incredible asset. I'm not sure how long I'm going to test the idea before taking the next step at this point, but I think I'll have to test for about a month or two in order to get a good sample size and to give each of the topics enough time on Twitter. I want to test this long enough so that it's clear over time that certain topics are more popular than others and engaging the right people, versus looking at results where other factors could explain the engagement or the popularity on that particular day or week.

Right now, I want to do one thing at a time and avoid overwhelming myself by taking to take this in too many directions or in trying to move too quickly with it. If I overwhelm myself, then I'm not going to want to pursue the idea anymore.

Talking. About Everything.

I like just about everything. I think everything is neat and that everything is fascinating to somebody. One of my favorite aspects to writing articles for the college newspaper was talking to the people who were putting on various events, or who were trying to start a club, or who were behind some sort of student policy initiative. I love this because those people I interviewed were passionate and excited about the work they were doing and I found it infectious. I remember I was doing a short article for the newspaper about a fashion show the Black Student Alliance was hosting. After interviewing the person coordinating the event about it, I really wanted to go! I'm not into fashion and I wasn't a member of the Black Student Alliance, but the event coordinator was so energized about doing the event, about it's theme and about the people she was working in it. It was hard not to be part of her passion.

I'm Interested in Just About Everything

This quality is a good one. I work for a news app that released its first vertical news app, Inside Drones, and we're going to have two more coming out this week on two completely different topics. The week after or so, we're going to have another two or three coming out on two or three more different topics. By the end of the summer, we should have 11 vertical apps out as well as our main Inside news app, all available in the App Store for people to download. That is A LOT of topics, and that won't be the end of the line. The point is that being interested in everything is a good thing because Inside is going to cover everything ultimately, whether we do it in a vertical app or we feature the topic in our main app. My job involves sharing all the cool things we cover and getting people who love these topics into the right app(s). If I'm not interested in drones, then I certainly share the neat stories we feature or get drone enthusiasts using the app. They'll be able to tell a mile away and they'll just use a different app or website instead.

Right now, my job is primarily Inside Drones and the main app. But, come August or September, I'm gonna be doing this 11 times over across 11 different topics. So, really, my job isn't for someone who has already decided they know what they like or who isn't willing to learn about things they may have previously thought was gross or boring. I'm not lying. We cover EVERYTHING, which is a lot of things.

I Just Need to Start Talking, Reading and Writing

I just need to do those things and not be afraid. I need to not be afraid of not being good at any particular thing or of making people angry because I don't talk about the things they want to read about all the time. I need to stop being afraid of being criticized or of crazy people threatening to dox me or send me rape threats or something. Talking, reading and writing, both here on this blog and at work. I think that's really it. I need to do a whole bunch of little things, but talking, reading and writing are the main things. The little things can follow and can amplify the main things once the main things are actually on this blog and on the work blog and are actually being done.

As Seth Godin said, "the heart of real growth is a simple idea: people decide to tell other people. Start with that."

I Want to Talk About All the Things

When most beginners start blogging, all them blogging and social media gurus tell you that you gotta pick something. Nobody likes jacks- and janes-of-all-trades, so you need to pick something and specialize in it and build a community around that one topic you picked. It's easier that way. It's easier to attract a community. It's easier to position and present yourself. Besides, you can't be everything to everybody and you can't possibly do everything anyway. All those gurus forget to mention HOW HARD it is to pick. People are complicated and often have a variety of interests and passions, sometimes competing interests and passions. Other people just don't know what their passions are, or aren't sure among several different choices so they don't want to commit to one topic. Although clarity comes from engagement, not thought, as the great Marie Forleo says, at times it can take quite a bit of "engagement" for folks to figure out which passions and interests to spend their time on.

Therefore, I'm Going to Do All the Things

I'm just going to do all the things cause I want to do all the things and I'm going to be my own blogging and social media guru and make it work. I'm going to make it work because I think it's awesome and I think just about everything is awesome (except cockroaches, as they are not awesome). There's probably going to be a lot of app marketing, inbound marketing and content marketing in here as well because I know a lot about that stuff and I do it for a living so it's kind of hard not to have it seep into the rest of my life. After all, I have plenty of categories in my sidebar, which illustrate that I certainly love all the things and have already made previous attempts at doing all the things, even though I wouldn't have called any of those posts or categories attempts when I first created them. Never mind some of the stuff that I wrote about previously. Some of it I will iterate and bring it back and others I will not.

I'm Also Probably Going to Promote Apps Here as Well

I know! It makes me such a shrill to promote products or whatever on the blog or on the sidebar. But, first of all, it's part of my job. I love my job and I do love the apps that we create. Our apps cover all sorts of topics, and some of those topics I'm probably never going to talk about in depth on this blog. For example, our latest app is Inside Drones, which is about hobby drones, quadcopters, and how they're used in various industries. It features drones news and only drones news. so it won't ever have celebrity news or sports news or even topics more closely related like gadgets or tech news. I'm probably never ever going to talk about drones in a blog post. But, people are doing some pretty awesome things with drones, like this Drones Racing Championship that's happening next month. That just sounds darn cool. How do you not promote that and talk about that?

On a side note, I need to create my reading list for this website. I like to all sorts of books and I have plenty of favorites and recommendations, spanning all sorts of topics. You know what, if I like it I'm gonna promote it. Plain and simple. Marie Forleo does that with some of the guests she has on her show, and I've certainly bought the books and other products from some of her guests. One of my particular favorites is Sally Hogshead. Her research and ideas on fascination is just amazing.

Have You Played A Google a Day Yet?

Every Thursday, I will republish my best articles from Technorati.com. Since Technorati redesigned its website and is under new managements, tens of thousands of articles that were previously published on the site are no longer available. I have been given explicit permission to republish my work on my own website. Think you'd be a master at trivia if you could just use Google to find the answers? Well, now's your chance to prove it.

A Google a Day is a new trivia game where you use Google, and only Google, to find the answers to the questions. Launched over the holiday weekend, it's a twist on typical trivia games, where using the Internet is considered cheating. You can play a basic game that only has three questions, or with a Google+ account, you can play a longer game with 10 questions. As the name states, you can only play it once per day.

The game has questions in six categories: pop culture, history, arts and literature, geography, science, and sports. The categories are random each day, so you could play a game that doesn't have any geography questions, or has four science questions. Points are earned based on how difficult the question is, how long it takes you to find the answers, as well as if you use any power ups (double points, additional time etc.). You have unlimited tries to answer a question correctly, and you can skip a question if it's too hard. However, to unlock the next level of questions, you have to answer two out of the three of them correctly, so you can really only skip one question per level.

If you thought search would make trivia that much easier, you would be sorrily mistaken. As the questions get harder, you often have to do multiple searches based on how the question is phrased. For example, you might have to first search for the name of Gwyneth Paltrow's husband, and then find out the name of the album for which his band won a 2004 Grammy Award. Tricky stuff, although each question comes with one hint and one clue (the clue is more specific than the hint), of which clicking them will add time and take away points. The game also has a "Tips & Tricks" page, which offers advice on how to search Google better. The advice is good for both the game and in real life.

All The Things I’ve Stopped (Part 3 of 9)

For the third part in this series, I'm going to evaluate my 50 blog post topics list. I wrote this list so I wouldn't get stuck with writer's block and stop blogging. I didn't like the blog post ideas that I was coming up with just so I could get a post up, so I decided to ensure I wasn't wasting time coming up with a good idea. The list of topics took me a few hours to put together, and in the end I only did 15 of those topics. I also ended up doing the 15 easiest topics first, leaving the tougher topics for, well, perhaps never.

The Tougher Topics Would Have Taken More Time than I Had

Many of the tougher topics (particularly the questions about current affairs) would have required a ton of preliminary research, and once I sat down to write the post, it would've taken me about two hours to write it. Add that to the research time, and tackling one of these tougher topics would've taken between four and six hours of my time. That's time that I could've made room for if I made the blog post a priority, but I couldn't make it that kind of a priority over paying clients.

I wasn't going to do a sloppy job of tackling these topics either. Here's a David Cameron article that I wrote in September 2013, an example of what I would like to do when answering one of these questions. Sure, I could answer a similar question with only two reasons instead of three, or I could include three reasons but cite fewer sources throughout the article, but the David Cameron article is a great article. Not to toot my own horn, but I did a great job in answering the question. If I'm not going to commit to that level of quality, then I'm not going to start the blog post or find an easier way to do the blog post. The David Cameron article is simply how those current affairs questions should be tackled.

Going Back to Making It a Priority

In the first two parts of this series, I've discussed stopping ventures because I lost interest or because I found a better option. This time, I stopped completing this list because I felt I had more important priorities besides taking the time to write on the tougher topics. This blog (for now) is simply for fun and I can't let it get in the way of paying work. Well, I could let it get in the way of paying work, but I wouldn't be earning enough to pay my bills. I also didn't want to spend so much time on just one blog post, because if I did commit four to six hours to write one post, then I would've had to reduce the number of times I published in a week. Back when I was doing those posts, I was publishing about every other day (and I'm currently working to come back to that frequency). Tackling these tougher topics would've meant publishing only about once or twice a week, perhaps even less frequently. That's just no good for blog. At least I don't think that's good for a blog.

Perhaps I'll be able to tackle some of the tougher topics in the future if I plan accordingly. I would probably need to give myself about a month's leeway, and if I do that, then I would need to choose topic that would still be timely in a month or two. That's not too hard, considering that some current issues can go on for months.

I Finally Have a File Cabinet!

It was almost a year ago that I set out to purchase a file cabinet for my home office. I have lamented many times about not having quite enough to buy my file cabinet, whether it's not having enough points, or not having enough money, or not having the time to pick one out. Well, no more worrying. No more lamenting. No more wishing and wanting. I finally have my file cabinet!

I've Been Needing One for Well Over a Year

Ever since I transitioned to a virtual office toward the end of 2012, I've needed a file cabinet. I didn't have one in my home office, so my files were in piles in a corner of my office, collecting dust. My cat even peed on the pile once and I had to throw a whole bunch of files away since there was no way I was going to get the pee out of the paper (and I didn't want to encourage him to pee outside the litter box). Not only did have to throw away a few files (fortunately, none of them were too important), but when they were in piles, the files and their contents were useless. It was too much trouble to dig through them to find what I needed, and since they weren't organized, there wasn't any point in creating new files or adding to them.

But, That is All Over

I only spent $90 on this file cabinet, which was at the top of my range but I think I got a good deal. I bought a wooden file cabinet just like I wanted. Even thought it only has two drawers, it functions like four-drawer file cabinet, as shown in the picture on the left. It even came with about 50 extra file folders that I wasn't expecting. The previous owner threw them in for free. I didn't need them, but I couldn't say no because the folders were in one of the drawers ready to go with me. I didn't want to tell the owner to take them out and waste more of their time.

Anyway, I organized my files and created several new ones to accommodate more important papers and articles that I've accumulated over the years (such as the lease on my apartment and the adoption papers for my cat). I accumulated so much that I've run out of manila folders. It's a good thing I found a file cabinet that's essentially four drawers instead of two. It looks like that I'll be needing the extra room, and I'm excited to fill it with all kinds of neat stuff. I pondered on whether or not to get a two-drawer file cabinet or a four-drawer file cabinet. I eventually settled on a two-drawer because I didn't think I would have enough room for four-drawer, so I was really happy to find this cabinet in such good condition.

Now I Have a Clean Desk

Since I went without a file cabinet for so long, papers started piling up on my desk. I had two big piles, one on each end of the desk (the clean "after" version is shown on the right. I didn't think to take any pictures until after I had cleaned it up, so I don't have a shot of the "before" version). I also had papers tucked into folders and piled up in other parts of the office. Once I started cleaning everything up, I found so many bank statements (both opened and unopened) it wasn't even funny.

But my desk is much cleaner, which should help me to get much more done. They say that a cluttered desk hinder productivity, so perhaps my uncluttered desk will mean an uncluttered mind and I will have an easier time getting work done. After all, I can now use more of my desk and use it better since the space isn't taken up by random papers anymore.

All The Things I’ve Stopped (Part 2 of 9)

I'm going to bet that a few people thought that I failed at finishing this blog series, much like the projects that are going to be mentioned in this blog series. But that is not the case! I did want to finish the Blogging Heroes blog post before continuing with the series, and I got that done last week. Then, I decided to keep my personal blogging to one to two times a week, unless things change in my life. The last thing I need is to pile on more responsibilities, and I'd like to ensure that this blog doesn't end up in "failed and forgotten" bin again. So, I'm keeping my blogging schedule to something manageable so it fits in with the rest of my life and I don't get burnt out from overextending myself.

What Is SuperBetter Again?

SuperBetter is an online game designed to help players get better at "something." Since the founder, Jane McGonigal, founded the game after suffering a severe concussion, many of the "somethings" are health-related. For example, there is a "Power Pack" in the game designed for eating healthier and losing weight (and a multitude of other health issues) called the Full Plate Diet.

With this pack, the player completes a series of quests to help them get better at eating healthier and losing weight. There are bad guys that need to be overcome, such as drinking liquid calories or having no fiber-strong foods for meal. To help you complete quests and conquer bad guys, you can enlist allies (such as your family and friends, or maybe a nutritionist) to help you. There are also power ups, which are actions that the player can take to get stronger and to do better against the quests and bad guys. Hopefully, the player completes all the quests, has lost some weight, and is much better at eating healthier than they were before.

Naturally, those same steps would happen with any Power Pack. The only differences are the types of quests, the types of bad guys, the types of power ups, and perhaps who you might choose as an ally (like switching out the nutritionist for a physical therapist or life coach). The idea is to turn healing and recovery into a game.

Why I Stopped Playing the SuperBetter Game

To be honest, I got bored with the game. After I completed the Full Plate Diet pack, I found little value in continuing the game with the other packs. The Full Plate Diet pack was a great pack and I don't regret doing it, even though I still have room for improvement. The main complaint I have about SuperBetter is that there's very little "re-playability" after you finish or take on your primary health problem. There aren't many people who want to eat healthier, but also need to recover from a sports injury and work on their migraines. Once that person starts eating healthier, the other two problems may become less of an issue.

It's possible to create your own pack, and customize the game toward something that you do want to improve, but that takes time and research that I didn't really want to put in. As much as I liked the thought of, say, creating a Power Pack to improve my poker game, I wasn't enthused enough about SuperBetter to start "modding" the game. It would have been nice if a modding community formed around the game, so that half the packs available weren't geared towards those recovering from a concussion, but I didn't have the time, enthusiasm, or skill set to start creating my own power ups, bad guys, and quests.

I stopped in the middle of a Power Pack called, "Better Than a Chill Pill," which is meant to lower stress, to combat anxiety. or to relax more easily so that you can sleep better. I think I originally chose this quest to lower my stress and to sleep a bit better. I don't think I have a problem with either now. I would say my new problem is that I sleep too much. I need a Power Pack to help me get out of bed, start the day, and to be excited about the day. I don't need a chill pill. I need an awakening pill.

I Might Restart with SuperBetter

They have added a few new Power Packs since I stopped, and one of them looks really interesting. It's called "Make It Epic", and it's designed to help you improve your motivation and persistence. There's another one called "Absurdly Grateful", which is to help you focus on gratitude, which also looks pretty neat. But, instead of starting a new pack, I should probably restart some of the old packs. I could certainly use a reboot on the Full Plate Diet to improve my eating habits and to lose a little more weight. Naturally, I could always do another run of "Being Awesome", even though I haven't been diagnosed with depression or psoriasis, and don't have too many problems with anxiety.

But, then again, maybe not. I don't need more things to do. Besides, I am working with my business coach, and she's giving me plenty to help me get super better at all sorts of things. I don't need two tools in my life accomplishing the same thing. That's why I got rid of the bullet journal. I also don't need more tasks to add onto my to-do lists. My life already provides me plenty of quests, bad guys, and power ups.