Unlocking.

While eating some lunch and watching an old episode of Saved By the Bell on MTV2 (seriously, WTF? Of all the things to show. But it is a fun nostalgia trip to sit and watch a show I used to watch all the time as a kid), I had a mini epiphany.

My life… is pretty good, to be honest. I have my basic subsistence covered, and then some. I have a good family. I have loyal, cool friends. I’ve accomplished quite a bit in my life already.

That being said, I’d be a fool if I said there wasn’t a lot of room for improvement. Simply put, I’m not the greatest at this real life thing. The older I get, the more I think no one really is. But still, you have to have something to aspire to, and I’m accepting that I’m not too great at it.

But two things I AM quite good at, are writing (duh) and video games. In the latest generation of console and PC games, a strong phenomenon has taken the gaming world by storm. X-box live introduced a system simply called achievements. The concept was simple, but stirring. Beat a game? You get points, and a notation telling you when you did it. It hearkened back to the older days of gaming when you’d brag to your friends that you beat that really hard game, but didn’t really have a way to prove it.

I don’t even play my X-box that much anymore, but I still have over 20,000 achievement points.

So I got to thinking… what if I treated my real life more like a game? Not as in… taking stuff less seriously, but more like I get achievements for doing stuff?

As such, I’ve decided that every night before I sleep, I’m going to make a list of achievements for the next day. Okay, yeah. This is basically a glorified to-do list. But my intent is to make it more fun. My ultimate goal is to have a long string and a huge document full of days showing me just how much I get done, or don’t get done.

I don’t think for one second that I’m going to never miss an achievement. But I want to be as productive as I can, therefore I want to give this a try.

Here’s my list for today:

Another drop in the bucket: Apply for another job (I’ve got a lot of possibilities rising, but you can’t ever quit on this until you have one)

Happy Birthday!: Procure a gift for my mother, whose birthday is coming this weekend.

You’re never really finished: Edit a short story for a writing contest that’s due on the 31st.

Just for the noms: Make dinner in the crock pot. *already complete*

Admission, one million: Come up with a solution for watching movies streaming online with friends. *already complete*

I hope to be more productive, and have fun with this. We’ll see how it goes. 🙂