How 8 Years of Gaming Taught Me Work, Resilience, and Beating Boredom
Could ‘Wasted Time’ in Gaming Be the Key to Success?
I’ve been reading The Sovereign Child, which questions conventional views on parental control and encourages giving children more freedom—even with activities many deem harmful, like video games. One passage struck me:
’s idea made me think of how, despite extensive video gaming, I developed traits that adults want in their grown children.A unifying theme is that no one can know ahead of time how a process of discovery will play out. This includes parents and other adults. Parents cannot know what’s best for their children because they don’t know what their children will discover about their own interests. We see this phenomenon in stories and movies about childhood fascinations dismissed by adults, only later taken seriously when the adults see what the child has discovered. In these stories, one special adult acts as the child’s mentor, providing support and confidence that there is something worth finding. My goal is to be that character as my kids explore the world.
I host book seminars, close-read two to four books monthly, and pursue a Master’s in Liberal Arts—all while directing marketing for a high-touch virtual school, training salsa four days a week, and consulting for various companies. Yet I wasn’t the standard “curious child” devouring books. My father could quote Don Quixote from memory but never bought me non-school books, and my mother considered books too expensive. I read only a few titles, like John Katzenbach’s The Analyst, plus school-assigned classics like Dante’s Inferno. Completing any book felt like an uphill triumph—few people in my circle read for fun.
While reading was limited, I became myself despite growing up as an avid video game player. My family frowned upon gaming, viewing it as a waste of time or a gateway to addiction. Yet my dad gifted me a PlayStation One when I was four or five, followed by a PSP, a Nintendo DS, a PS3, and a PS4. I “wasn’t supposed to play too much,” but these consoles were always close at hand—likely to keep me occupied since my classmates lived far away.
An influential genre soon captured my attention: MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games). These games immerse players in vast virtual worlds with thousands of real people. A core feature is dungeons, which demand individual skill and teamwork against tougher enemies, yielding rewards more likely to keep you alive than those received by playing alone. Finding the right group and gear to tackle dungeons became a cornerstone of virtual “wealth” and survival.
In MMORPGs, you must meet specific prerequisites—like finishing a challenging quest—to access dungeons. Real life mirrors this: you often can’t seek tenure or career milestones without meeting particular thresholds, such as earning a PhD or building the right portfolio. Both worlds hinge on proving readiness before moving on to more rewarding opportunities.
Once you could enter dungeons, your success depended on teamwork. Ideally, you have a player who provides defense, another who attacks, and one who supports the wounded. The party collapses without balanced roles and someone to pull back when needed. It’s not unlike an overleveraged startup rushing out products without checks and balances—they’ll eventually fail. MMORPGs underscore that complex tasks often demand a well-coordinated group rather than solo heroics.
When players aren’t in dungeons, they "grind," killing enemies repeatedly for small experience gains to level up. Early levels pass quickly. You might need to kill four enemies from level one to level two. However, reaching high levels could take weeks or months of tedious effort. This monotony echoes real life’s spreadsheets or endless editing. At ten, I’d say, “I’ll grind for six hours”; as adults, we grind at work. Both mean pushing through mind-numbing tasks to reach a goal.
Videogame grinding teaches delayed gratification. By leveling up and growing stronger, you eventually earn bigger rewards or tackle tougher content. It’s no different from putting reps in at the gym or studying for a challenging exam—patient, often dull work that eventually pays off. Early on, I wasted my in-game earnings on cosmetic items, but by age 12, I ran in-game “businesses.” For instance, I became strong enough to clear dungeons intended for four people and charged weaker players 25% of the gold reward for letting them tag along. I reinvested in better gear to finish dungeons faster, knowing that trimming 10% off my run time would yield far greater weekly earnings.
I can’t conclusively prove that video games alone shaped my discipline, grit, or love for knowledge. Perhaps a guiding mentor would have highlighted how “killing virtual monsters for hours” parallels reading a dense textbook or leading a major project. With early mentorship, I might have connected these dots sooner. Even so, my experiences suggest that if a child’s curiosity is taken seriously—like The Sovereign Child proposes—they might develop resilience and self-motivation through unconventional mediums. Questions remain about cause and effect, but it seems plausible that gaming contributed to my growth.
MMORPGs did provide tangible benefits, such as sharpening my English. Interacting with players from the U.S., Australia, and Europe forced me to negotiate and solve problems in real-time, all under the pressure of keeping my character alive. Traditional classes never offered that high-stakes immersion with native speakers. My vocabulary and fluency soared because I had to communicate effectively or fail.
Fluent English opened doors beyond what local Colombian jobs could offer. By age 21, I’d leaped from a middle-class background to an upper-class income bracket. I edited novels for best-selling American authors, directed work for 9-figure startups by 23, and had the flexibility to fly back home to care for my mom in her last year—accomplishments partly owed to in-game interactions that honed my language skills in ways formal schooling never could.
Because hindsight often distorts our sense of cause and effect, I remain cautious about attributing my work ethic, cooperation skills, and persistence solely to gaming. Still, my experiences align with the idea that young people thrive when they can explore their fascinations, whether with books or video games. In my role directing marketing for a virtual school, I’ve watched students labeled depressed, suicidal, or ADD "suddenly" flourish in smaller, more personalized environments. Their “problems” fade when they focus on what sparks their passion. In that sense, my experience echoes The Sovereign Child’s emphasis on taking kids—and their passions—seriously.