WoW Life Lesson #33 - It’s Your Game, Do What You Want To Do

When I started playing WoW years ago, one of the first things I did, without knowing much about the game, was get a fishing pole and started fishing in Elwynn Forest. Within a few casts, I fished up a 15 pound fish that I could hold and slap people with it. It was so funny. I also caught a few fish that I used to level up cooking. I remember thinking that was a cool part of the game, fishing and cooking, and that I’d do that along with all the other stuff there was to do in the game.

Later I told a friend about how I liked the fishing aspect of the game and he said he hoped I was a glutton for punishment.

What? Well evidently he said that fishing was the most boring thing in the game and that it wasn’t worth the time or effort.

Well that wasn’t a very hopeful thought, but I really didn’t care. It was fun to fish and make receipes. There was loads of downtime between instances and raids, and the foods gave me buffs so I kept doing it.

Then TBC came out and fishing got really lucrative. I can’t tell you how many Furious Crawdads I sold. And now with the WotLK, selling Pygmy Suckerfish has kept me in gold and gear that I hardly do any dailies.

The point is that in the game I decided what I liked and I kept doing it because I liked it. I did what I wanted to do and I had fun and made a big profit. Of course I listen to advice from some people about where to fish, how to fish better, and where to get the best recipes, but that all helped me have more fun in the game.

Now in RL do you know what I do? I get paid to do this. Write here. And produce and direct Project Lore. Interesting isn’t it? I did what I liked, asked people how I could be better, followed my intuition and got probably one of the oddest jobs on this planet.

And in RL, it’s your game. So do what you want to do.

If you want to be a game programmer, do it. If you want to be a florist, do it. If you want to stare at a screen of numbers, betting on the market, then do it.

Whatever it is, do it. Please. Ask around and follow your fun. Do it for a career or as a hobby or anywhere in between. Whatever it is, it’s your game.

Because when you do what you like, it makes the whole game that much more fun.