Starcraft II (SC2) changed my life. It helped me make friends, forced me to become more disciplined and patient, and taught me the value of sustained hard work. I fell in love with this game. More importantly, it was one of the first things I stayed interested in and dedicated myself to for an extended period of time.

Although some may slam video games as leading to unproductive people, I argue that like any media it has the potential to connect or isolate. Video games effects depend on how they are used. At least in my case, SC2 positively impacted my life and taught me some valuable life lessons along the way.

Some of you may be reading this and wondering “what is Starcraft II?” Well, for those uninitiated, here is a quick primer on the video game that made my junior year of high school bearable.

Starwhat?

Image result for starcraft II — **Welcome to the insanity!**

To quickly summarize, Starcraft II is an RTS (Real Time Strategy) game. The aim of the game is to build your base while trying to destroy your opponents. Although simple sounding, it is anything but.

Throughout the game, you have to constantly make decisions on whether to build more bases for more resources or to build more units. Further still, you have to decide which units to build based on how long the game has been going on and what you think your opponent is doing. Oh, and did I forget to mention all these decisions had to be made in real time?

If you wanted to get good at the game like I did at the time, then you spent many hours perfecting the perfect opening (like in chess) and learning counter-play. This exact need led me to make friends through the game.

Lesson 1: Making Friends

This game took a ton of practice before you became anywhere halfway decent. One reason for this is just when you thought you understood how your opponent would play, you would run into something you never saw before and have to figure out how to counter it.

Because of this need for constant iteration, people often sought practice partners to make the monotony of practice more fun. Also, although there was AI, at the low levels it was totally predictable and at the highest settings, it was too fast for new players to do anything against.

This led me to seek out and find a few online friends at a similar ranking as me (more on this later) to practice with. It was nice because we got better at the game together while enjoying laughs along the way. It made the experience more enjoyable and let me feel a human connection, which was largely missing from my life at that time.

Despite feeling mostly isolated, I still did have one or two friends I could play the game with. Granted, none of them got into it nearly as much as I did, which caused minor friction later, but it was still a nice way to connect with people IRL (in real life.)

Lesson 2: Patience and Discipline

Image result for patience — Many days I felt like this robot, putting in the passion and work even before the results were there

Because of how the rankings in the game worked, and the value of compounding experience, you had to play every day in order to advance.

Some days this was easy. I would log in, go on a winning streak, and proceed to have a great hour or so of play time. Other days, it felt like chewing on glass. I had a bad day at school, lost the first game, and tilted, which led me to lose all my other games and slide in the rankings.

Whenever I would want to throw in the towel, I would remember the advice of Day[9], a major broadcaster of SC2 when I played, and sit down for one last game. Even if that game was a loss, I felt better because I put in the work and knew I could always gain ground again the next day.

At first, I didn’t feel like I was improving. I was proven wrong within a month when I advanced out of bronze (the lowest rank) and into silver (the next rank.) Considering I had only put in about 30 hours into the game at this point where many people put in 100+, I felt this was good progress.

To this day, I credit my ability to sit and grind through tasks, even if they are unpleasant, to the practice I gained while trying to master Starcraft II.

Lesson 3: The Value of Hard Work

Image result for starcraft II gold rank — **I ended my SC2 days in Top Gold which meant I was in the top half of all North American players**

After about three months of play, I finally reached my personal goal, to reach top gold or low platinum. I cannot explain my excitement at seeing the small, shimmering emblem following a hard-fought victory.

Shortly after this point final exams rolled around and I had to dedicate more of my time preparing for those before I went to college, but the glow of reaching my goal followed me.

For the first time in a long time during my junior year of high school, I felt proud of myself and hopeful for the future. Some may claim this is an extreme reaction to a digital medium, but I would challenge their assumption. People understand and accept when others are moved to tears by an amazing musical performance. Video games are another art form, able to invoke deep emotion in the player(s) at their peak.

Lesson 4: Even Good Things End

Unfortunately, as the year drew to close and final exams crept closer I wasn’t able to keep up with the game. I was okay with this though because I got what I needed out of it. Even today I still have a bittersweet fondness of this game.

Although it reminds me of a fairly dark period in my life, it simultaneously reminds me of the power of self-belief. I bought this game to let off steam and seek a challenge I was unable to find in my academics, but I got more than I bargained for.

In this game, I found community through those I played with and the streamers I compulsively followed. I found other nerds like me, which made me feel much less alone. I also found out that I truly could be good at things other than school if I was willing to put in the time and effort.

Although this game has now been largely forgotten by the esports and gaming community as a whole, it will always hold a special place in my heart and helped form my beliefs which carried me to success in university.

Why Apprentice Adult?

For me, the title is a double entendre. Firstly, since I’ve recently become a “legal adult”, I view myself as an apprentice to all of the additional responsibilities, expectations, and opportunities presented to me. Since I have only been in the game for a moment, I have much to learn, thus the apprentice title.

The second reason for the title is because of my intention to use the next few years for personal and professional growth. Inspired by the work of Scott Young, Cal Newport, and Gary Vaynerchuk, I’ve realized in order to create the type of life I want, I need to get so good I can’t be ignored (thank you, Cal, for this phrasing.)

Despite my decision to commit to one craft, I also personally believe that variety is the spice of life, and innovation results in the cross-sections no one else plays in. Thus, to validate my need for novelty and expand my horizons, I’ve decided to explore various hobbies.

My intention to constantly explore new activities is the second reason for the name. In my view, there is often a self-imposed stigma about adults trying new things or learning new skills. Being a beginner is highly uncomfortable. This is especially true for people like myself that have an ego.

The Intention

At this point, you’re probably thinking to yourself “that’s a nice manifesto, but what’s the point?” For me, the intent is two-fold. Firstly, I’m hoping to derive benefit from writing the blog posts and trialing different skills.

Although the writing benefit should be self-evident, I’ll expand upon it briefly. I’ve decided to dedicate myself to written and verbal communication. To do it well, I must write, a lot. Further, a majority of my work will be average or below (thanks to statistics for this sobering reminder.)

In order to produce the 10,000 shitty first drafts, I’ve decided to write a bi-weekly blog. Not only will this force me to write on a consistent schedule, which will be required if I want to make writing a large component of my career, but will also give me practice at properly writing in a near-universally understandable way.

Aside from improving my ability to communicate via the written word, I hope this exercise will foster more humility into me. One of my favorite characters from Avatar the Last Airbender said that true humility is the only antidote to shame, and boy do I regularly feel shame.

For those who don’t know, this is Iroh and he’s pretty great!

I believe attempting to foster more humility will benefit my personal life immensely. Humility may also help me combat the demons of self-loathing and self-doubt that plague me. Through becoming a perpetual beginner, it is my hope that in time I will learn to regard myself kindly, despite the obvious lack of skill in a particular task.

Lastly, through publishing it in a public forum, it is my hope that at least one person can gain some nugget of wisdom from my failures and successes. I also hope that seeing a fairly unremarkable young adult attempting to learn new things and better themselves despite their self-doubt will inspire someone else with a similar temperament to consider the same.

What Comes Next

So, if you’ve made it this far, first let me say thank you! I really appreciate the time you spent reading an article that’ll likely provide you with little to no value. Secondly, with that being said, I’m going to attempt to make sure the next articles do not fall into this vein.

Therefore, if you decide to keep reading after this one, here’s what you should expect. I plan to publish an article every other Sunday. In this article, I plan to chronical any new novel things that happen in adulthood, say, first time investing, taxes, etc. In addition, I also hope to chronicle my progress with whatever new skill or activity I’m trying to learn.

It’s my belief that you’ll gain some kind of value through these posts, whether it be entertainment by laughing at my stupidity, or maybe, just maybe, a neat tip or trick for a new or existing hobby. Once again, thank you for reading this far and I hope you’ll stick around for the next post!

Apprentice Adult

Lessons from Starcraft II