Why bother playing video games?

[Onyxmeth]

Hawkeye said:

Thinking about the meaning of life brought this on.

 

Why should I even play video games? I am not accomplishing or achiving anything, and I won't be rembered or admired for playing games. The best I can hope for is to be respected by other people who play games, and that isn't very impressive.

Instead of playing games, I could be exercising, which would garner much more repect due to my looks, and I would live significantly longer AND my quility of life would dramatically improve. I could read about proper posture, eating, (health in general) and then carefully imlement good health habits into my life so that I improve. Eventually they would become second nature and I wouldn't have to think about them. I could talk to people more, criticily analzyzing my own patterns of speech and other peoples behavior ect until I am a master conversationalist and have freinds and connection everywhere. I would probably become a master of influecing people too.

I could study more. My grades are excellent, but not perfect. If I truly knew all the material at a high level I could get a 4.0 GPA next year in college, and that would sat me up for future sucess at a graudate school. That combined with my good looks from exercise+ my great social skills and ability to win friends and influecne people, I would be set for life, even if I merely met new people and learned stuff for my job but coasted and didn't learn any more "life skills"

I know all these things and yet... I still play video games/ surf the internet for a combined 3-8 hours a day. What the Hell is wrong with me? Why can't I do what I know must be done and secure my own future? Why do I even bother playing video games?

If you think long and hard, none of those other things are any more productive than videogaming if your goals in life are merely changed. You find excercising and getting good grades as being more productive because your end goals involve being healthy and getting a good job. If the end goals were to be changed to lounging on your couch having fun, then videogames would be far more productive than excercising and getting good grades.

However, there's very little reason why you can't accomplish all three. There are enough hours and days in the week to study, exercise and play games.