Tag Archives: Game

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Another week has passed and more big news has come. I wasn’t joking about life’s great junction and it seems a few more people have reached theirs.

Now one thing to remember is that the choices these people make can sometimes affect other people too – such as a driver changing into your lane in front of you or your favourite watering hole closing down temporarily because the landlord decided to move to work at the brewery that owned it – and sometimes this may present opportunities to you and suddenly before you know it, it’s your turn to go left, right or straight on.

How you proceed is of course, up to you and it’s you that you should be looking out for. But it really gives you a numinous feeling knowing that the butterfly effect can even crop up in your everyday decisions.

I find this idea fascinating sometimes (and if you’re still reading this 3 weeks into the topic, I can only assume you’re either humouring me or are interested in the same manner) and how similar it can relate to media such as ‘choose your own adventure’ books and  recent video games such as much of the Telltale collection of games, DONTNOD Entertainment’s “Life Is Strange” and Supermassive Games’ “Until Dawn”. Running through these media not only allow good replayability and good value for money, but let you answer that “What If?” curiosity that many of us posses. If we were allowed a rewind superpower or the ability to quickly press “reset” on life and to replay from where we last saved, our lives would be perfect!

Or would it? I suppose it would be theoretically impossible to be right for everyone as we would have to have infinite parallel timelines to satisfy this, where in only one or a small number of the outcomes would allow us to be happy (not that we’d know unless we had a magical TV channel selection like in Rick & Morty). But even if only one or a small number of us had the power to change and re-change the world over indefinitely, would we appreciate the perfect life? Would we eventually know what perfect was given nothing will have gone wrong in so long that we can no longer appreciate what ‘wrong’ is? Who knows, but thankfully having both right and wrong in life ironically allows us one constant in our dynamic day to day lives that we so often managed to take for granted.

So whilst we might only get one go around and we often can’t see all of the outcomes first, we know that many people before us had to make this decision and we won’t be the last to either (unless a number of certain world leaders all make the decision to type in some given codes and launch some pretty world ending stuff, then that might be, but hopefully that won’t happen anytime soon!), so if it’s your turn, go ahead and give it some thought, but be sue to make it before those lights change and the opportunity passes you by.  And if you’re not the best decision maker, maybe have a look at some of the suggestions above to give it a practice – over time you might just surprise yourself.

I’ll see how my story goes and if any junctions may or may not come up for me in the meantime.

Happy Travels!

Mike

Find Your Community

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So recently after settling into a new place I’ve been thinking about getting out and meeting some of the locals (whom I don’t already know through work). After uni I only really had my previous partner and her family to converse with locally with my other lifelong friends being in my hometown back in the East Midlands and my uni friends spread all across the country and internationally. Once we went our separate ways and I moved out I needed to find other people to talk to. Sadly in my temporary housing this wasn’t the most successful endeavour (although that said I got on with my housemate really well when we did see each other.

After being where I’m now based for a couple of months I’ve met a few people here and there and got to see a few of my colleagues from work let their hair down and it’s been good fun and the social circle of the outside world slowly continues to grow (it grew today in fact when I was drafting this post in The Ferret just outside of Preston City Centre and got to chat to the bar staff for a bit – seriously, if you’re ever in the area and you want a really good burger or sandwich and/or you like an unapologetically good gig night, give them a go!).

Whilst I was worrying previously after nearly 11 month whether I was being too introverted, I’ve come to realise the community I have both online with old friends and family coupled with the amazing people I know both in Blended Learning and the wider Health Academy and the few people I’m getting to know here and there are my little community.

So, for those who are feeling lonely or feel thrown into the lurch of not knowing anybody (be you a student starting in University, somebody that’s just moved to the UK or just people starting out somewhere else in general), don’t panic about meeting hundreds of people at once. Even at university it took time for me to meet the large circle of friends I had in halls and over the year that only grew and grew.

If you feel you’re not meeting the people in your local proximity, the Internet also provides a wealth of different places to meet new people and build your own circle of friends. You could sign up to a set of forums where people share common interests, or maybe start playing your favourite game online to meet like-minded players. This option often opens up the whole world to you, allowing you to meet people everywhere.

If you fancy getting to know these people further there are both dating based sites out there and well as the idea of Pen-friends in both the traditional and newer electronic form  that allow you to talk to people all over the world either by email or, as you get to know them, sending letters through ‘snail mail’. Two I have discovered are PenPal World and Interpals, but I’d do your homework on search engines to find the right site for you.

Whatever path you’re coming from and whatever you choose to go forward, take time to find your community and don’t force it! You never know who you’ll meet around the corner. But equally don’t let the opportunity pass when it comes to say hello (Unless it’s night time and they’re dressed in something a little clown like – in which case you may want to walk in the other direction!) or you may wind up wondering if it ever could have been.

Take Care and Be Safe.

 

Mike