The end

Okay I'm opening this with a side note. I had written this entry at this point several weeks ago, but have found that I have been so busy catching up with other things that I haven't spent much time on the computer. Anyway it was still something I wanted to get published... so with no further Adiue.... My post.


Well last week I ended my Fiesta experience. I had been having an internal struggle with this for quite some time now, at least a few weeks. I found that while there were many things that I enjoyed about the game, it was too much of a distraction in my real life. I did my best to budget out my time and to only play during certain hours, but I found that I would play late into the night at times which would affect the next day for me. Plus I found that in the back of my mind there was always Fiesta going on. I also noticed that while I would still go out and do stuff, I just didn't as much. I found that while I think it would serve me to think about my ebay business and some of the other pressing things in my life, I was thinking about Fiesta, such as, "How can I make more money in Fiesta?" and "how can I better my Fiesta skills?" I also found that even though I wasn't playing much in the day I stayed home more. The moment I made the decision to let go of the gaming I found that I started to think about other things I could do, such as going to the mountains with Jasmine, focusing much more on working with Jasmine in general. I began to ponder my plans to cook and expand my cooking horizons. I have a set of bongo drums that I purchased not to long ago. I simply began to start thinking in terms of other things I could be and wanted to be doing. What I find really interesting is the more I played, the more I had a "satisfied" feeling, so for example, I am part time right now and should really be looking at what it is I want to be doing with my time or how to generate additional income in my part time. But I began to lose interest in those things.
So these are some of the things that were not working for me about the gaming. But it was still a tough decision for me to make and that's due to a lot of positive things that I feel I got out of the gaming, in fact as I was pondering my Fiesta experience I have a lot of memories come up.
This was one of those experiences where I had the "newness" feeling. Where I'm starting up something for the first time and there's the learning period. I find that while this stage can be quite uncomfortable, it is often quite memorable. I find I get this in new jobs a lot too. It's fun to look back to see how different things were in the beginning compared to the end once all the learning was done. Perhaps there's something to the process of learning somethings new as well that's energizing and inspiring. These are the times where I felt like there was always something new to learn and it was fun to learn all the in's and out's of the game. I didn't really talk to anyone very much in the beginning, I did so much on my own, by myself, but by the end I found that I enjoyed working much more in a team and that I had a place where I could serve the other players well. At the very end as I was distributing all the stuff I had acquired during the game I took about 110 silver... actually more, and began to distribute gifts of 10 silver each to the new players getting started. With one of the other games that I've been playing having a higher level character give me a hand has made the experience so much better (granted I see myself continuing the other game either.) In fact, it was so much fun I wondered why I had not done something like that throughout my Fiesta experience. It took a bit of work to as I found a lot of the new people starting out were very suspicious of a higher level character giving gifts, but once they discovered I was someone that meant only good they began to talk more and ask questions. It was fun.
*****On a side note to me, this last line is something to consider in what ever it is I'd like to be doing with my life. I enjoy working with others giving them a hand getting started in different projects.*****
As I write these things it occurs to me that I may have opportunities to do this in my real life all around me. I know that the zoo has volunteer opportunities all the time and that's something I thought would be fun to do, while not perhaps as a career, the opportunity to of course, a. work at the zoo, and b. getting to serve others sounds rewarding. There may be other things as well... somewhere out there, oh such as the school systems, and even in community education. I'll have to explore this a bit further.

I really enjoyed the people that I played with as well. I found a guild... a very cool guild, one that I really enjoyed being a part of and enjoyed the people that I played with (that would be the Pepsi Guild...granted I tend to drink Coke when I drink that kind of stuff). It was nice to find place where I felt a part of... to feel wanted. It's got me thinking about other things I can do in my life to be part of a larger group. I found there really is strength and opportunity to be found in a group. I find that so much of my life I attempt to do things on my own... all by myself, which honestly can be very challenging and makes things tougher than they perhaps ought to be, plus it can be hard to stay motivated I find that one of the reasons I at time do things by myself is that I can work at my own pace and don't have to count on anyone else. I'm finding though that I really would like to work at a pace faster than I'm currently working at and in a group where I have things that are my responsibility as long as they are things I feel I can do I really enjoy doing my part. So I suppose the big thing is to find groups that I would like to be a part of. I ran into and old friend that told me about an investment group that her and her husband does on Tuesday evenings. I think that'll I'll send her and email to see what she says. I found that I was much more apt to keep my investments up when I had a group that I was part of