Friday, September 28, 2012

Racing your way through life

 Recently I downloaded a simple car racing game on to my i Pad for my kids to play. The objective of the game is to drive as much distance as possible without meeting with an accident. It's a straight four lane drive with either side having concrete fencing. When you start the game it automatically cruises at a speed determined by the game itself. Vehicles will cut across to your ane from time to time and your task is to navigate the traffic and ensure you don't knock any of the vehicles or the side fencing. As you progress in the game the levels of difficulty will increase as more and more vehicles get on the road along with their errant driving.

Difficulty becomes really tough after 5000m with the environment becoming pitch dark to experience night time driving. When this happens all you can see is few steps ahead, to the extent of the coverage provided by your lights that have to be switched on.

At the initial instances when I played the game I hardly managed to reach 300m. But then I realised something so simple but yet very profound. It became clear  to me that I was looking all over the screen when I was playing. There were interesting things to look at such the distance travelled, complete landscape etc. However this was the reason for my down fall. Upon realizing this, I started focusing 100% on the vehicle and what was just in front of me. Amazingly I ended up reaching 3800m. Even then the down fall was due to my eagerness to take my eyes off the car to see my progress!

With the night fall the need for immediate focus becomes much more important. With the environment being pitch dark your focus has to be razor sharp. In my several attempts afterwards I managed to reach a maximum distance of 14,830m.

While it is a fun filled exercise there is an important lesson for all of us,

You have to keep your eye on the ball (in this case "car") all the time. You cannot take your eyes off. The moment you do, you stop short of your full potential!

May be its time you play the same game! More importantly to play it the way it should be played