Recently, my wife and I made the trip out to Texas for the Call of Duty League World Championship. For the uninitiated, I like to call this the “World Cup of Call of Duty”. It was a really neat thing for me personally because it is something that I have always wanted to attend as a kid when I was competing but have never been able to. Yet now, as an adult, I got to share this adventure with my wife. And to top it all off, the team I root for won it all! A 2-million-dollar prize pool and the title of “World Champion”. Couldn’t ask for a better scenario.
The best part of all of this was how much my wife enjoyed it and how she, like me, came back home with a desire to play Call of Duty. My wife has always understood and appreciated my interest and participation in competitive CoD but has never shown an interest in actually playing it. I totally get it. I like watching baseball, but I have no real desire to go play it. However, for my wife, being in the crowd and watching the best of the best perform at the highest level sparks a real desire to “see what I can do”.
As someone who did the same thing over 10 years ago and started down my journey of competition, I get it!
Here is the best part and why I write this. Seeing her get that drive to not only try something new, but also something that I personally care so much about was a cool thing for me. And to top it all off, she wanted to do it with me as her teacher. So that’s what we did; I have started to teach her things about how to play from the most baseline standpoint and she has started to figure it out and take the training wheels off. We have really enjoyed spending time together on something unique and wholesome. As time has gone on, I have started to talk less and just let her play and enjoy figuring things out and getting better.
That was the point where my wheels started to turn, and I started to just smile. Why? Because I remember this. I remember being new at this and being utterly awful. I remember getting annoyed that people were better than me and getting frustrated because “I should be better than this!”. I remember the very slow learning curve where I started to figure out how to play the game, how to control recoil, how to do all the things that good players would do and where the stars started to align. And now I’m watching my wife do this too. Regardless of the frustration of the learning curve, watching her continue to play and just enjoy the game for the sake of enjoyment was a wonderful reminder of what I and many other seem to have lost in recent years.
Games are meant to be fun and yes, competition has its place but it’s always good to be reminded to slow down and enjoy things. There is going to be contention in life. There is going to be highs and lows in life. There is going to be things in and out of your control. But maybe we’re all due for a healthy reminder to slow down and enjoy things with the people that mean the most.
This has been a wonderful opportunity to take a step back and share something with my wife that we both have an interest in and it has given us a chance to grow together in something unique. I know there are a lot of people that would say that this is a bad way for a husband and wife to spend time together, and to that I say three simple words: shame on you.
Slow down. Enjoy life. Enjoy the things that make you happy.
Do them for the right reasons and you’ll even find peace.
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