The Video Game Life

So among my many random theories, I've brought to life one that's sort of been milling around on the backburner of my mind ever since I got a credit card at 18, and particularly since I started having regular bills knocking at my virtual front door since the beginning of the year. I've never had a problem paying bills, unlike most people. Not that I look forward to them, but at the same time, I get a bit of a euphoric feeling when all my accounts blare "zero" from the computer screen. And whether or not I have an adequate surplus of disposable funds left over (I know my last post tells another story, but generally I don't worry about money), I feel like I've accomplished something, gotten that one step ahead, no matter how small.


I see credit and accounts like sub-levels in a video game - for example, World 1 in Mario 3 is the desert level, and within it are sub-stages until you reach the floating boat in the sky, defeat the koopa king, and restore the real King to his original human state before you can continue to world 2. Each world gets harder and harder, and each sub-level becomes more difficult, until finally, finally, you reach that princess that for SO long has been in another castle.


Each payment I make to my credit accounts, and every deposit I make in my high interest savings, is like beating one sub-level in the bigger world of life. Each payment made in full and on time to my Visa is equivalent to a 1-up green mushroom, giving me strength to get more credit in the future, obtain the trust of "the man", and to move on to bigger, higher worlds, eventually able to buy a car, rent or buy a condo, then on to a house, and all those consumerist things we aspire to in life.

Of course it doesn't have to be material goods we aspire to; one of my major goals, my castle which I must toil and trouble within and beat the fire-breathing dragon - the almighty dollar - before I can exit triumphant, is to tour the United Kingdom. For a year I've been scrimping, saving, forcing myself to open a savings and account and actually SAVE. With each deposit, I move closer and closer to that goal.

So whether your Princess is a car, a playstation, a university education, a trip to somewhere you've never been before, learning a new instrument...the list goes on. You get what I'm sayin.


Keep looking!! It's going to take a lot of castles until you find the right one, and it's not the destination, but how you got there!