Lessons that I learned while playing Dr. Mario

So the other day I saw my mom doing her hula-hoop while playing Dr. Mario on the N64 (it has to be seen to be believed... but for now you'll just have to take my word for it) and I decided, hey I have nothing to do, why not play. So I pulled up a chair and grabbed another controller and had her switch it to two player. Now if you know my mother, you will know that playing her at Dr. Mario is like ten times more difficult then playing the computer. Why you ask? Because she plays for an hour everyday while she's hula hooping... (can that be a verb?) Now that I've given you a brief background of the situation I'll tell you some things I learned. You might be surprised.

Lesson #1

Similar to Golf, Dr. Mario has handicaps. One person can be on one level and the other person can be on any other level higher or lower than the first. When setting up the game I chose to be on the same level as my mom. She looked at me and said, "Are you sure you want to go that high?" I nodded and so the game began. Now I'm sure we played at least a dozen rounds maybe more, and I only beat my mother once, which really means that I didn't win at all because you have to win three times to get a star. I decided from that time on I would never play on a lower level than my mom. I knew I could beat her, why not rise to the occasion. Sometimes in life we're offered a "handicap" or an easy out. We can do better. Don't make excuses.

Lesson #2

When playing Dr. Mario on level 10 the viruses are stacked up pretty high and it can be a little intimidating when the pills start to drop. But if you can give all your attention to the pill thats falling and not focus on anything else until the pill is firmly on its intended location, you usually do pretty well. Sometimes we're tempted to let the pill fall on its own once its above its desired location and move on to the next pill, but this error will cost you if you don't see it through. In life problems will come from all sorts of places and all different angles, but if you can focus on just one at a time, they won't seem so daunting.

Lesson #3

Sometimes you just find yourself in the most impossible places. The pills are stacked up to the top of the bottle and the viruses are still rampant. You can't remember how things got so backed up and your almost ready to bomb out. When you decide to focus on one area at a time. Before you know it everything has fixed itself. Not because you were able to focus on every virus, but because some were killed as the result of falling pieces from the other viruses you were busy getting rid of. Similar to lesson 3, there are a lot of problems and tasks we're faced with that seem impossible. Its interesting that as you focus on bettering yourself in one area of your life, other areas of your life our inevitably improved without intention.

Who knew Dr. Mario could be such a good metaphor for life? And who knew someone could actually hula hoop and play Nintendo at the same time? Seriously, that might be a whole other post on a metaphor for life.