This past Saturday night, I made a grave mistake. One of those mistakes that you know you will instantly regret the minute you fall into the trap, but proceed to give into the temptation regardless.
The mistake? I downloaded the app “Flappy Bird.” A simple, eight-bit-themed mild-mannered action game that provides a bit of a cheap thrill and a lot of frustration.
There really isn’t much to the game. Just tap the game to get your Flappy Bird to stay afloat in mid-air, but don’t lead it to make any kind of contact with the pipes that treacherously jut out from the top and bottom sides of the screen. Easy, right?
It is an extremely easy concept, yet with exponentially frustrating execution. If you haven’t made the mistake of downloading the app, allow me to paint a picture for you of what happens within the first hour of falling into the bittersweet temptation. You may get past the first set of pipes, but then you come crashing down quickly after. However, you get how to play now and you’re convinced that you can get the timing and execution down next time. So you go again. And again. And, yes, again.
It’s not a coincidence that this game has been invading my Twitter timeline, as it’s the latest thing everyone seems to be talking about. Really, we’ve seen this type of behavior before, with people seemingly obsessed with something so simple despite losing time after time (see: “Candy Crush Saga”).
It seems to me at first glance that we are addicted to losing, that we are infatuated with failure. Yet clearly this is not the case. We are not obsessed with the process, but with the end result.
We want to succeed, to supersede what has already been accomplished and achieve despite the odds. I am of the belief that this is just humanity’s nature and what may seem like an unhealthy relationship with losing is really a journey towards success (despite the countless roadblocks in-between). We can see this attitude applied to many facets of life, whether it be in the classroom, out on the hardwood, on the gridiron, in the office or truly in almost any situation. People just strive for more. They work to be better. The numerous encounters with failure only seem to add fuel to the fire within each of us, and with each reminder that we did not achieve what we set out for, we grow increasingly obsessed with succeeding next time.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to try to beat my own score of 15.
