Nomad Online

Jane McGonigal is a games designer and creator of SuperBetter. She shares some insights about living life when all hope seems gone.

In her TED talk she also promises to increase our lives by seven minutes by the end of it. Seven bonus minutes that we didn’t think we’d have.

It is an intriguing idea.

I won’t spoil it for you by going into the mechanics of how she gets there. I will just encourage you to click the link and spend about 19 minutes of your life watching it. It’s well worth the investment, if only to be reminded that the little things really do matter.

I asked my son what he would do if he had seven extra minutes to his life. His answer was quick and simple. He would spend it playing video games. I’m sure Jane would love that.

We all have a certain amount of time on this earth. I think most of us would like to live it well. And it seems like how we spend our time, how well we live it, gives us those few more moments of life.

Jane encourages us to build our mental, physical, emotional and social resilience. Being a gamer, she survived some of the toughest moments of her life, by turning every day interactions we take for granted, those actions that build our resilience, into a game.

My son and I dutifully did what she requested in her talk. And as a result, we were promised seven and a half extra minutes to our lives. The thought makes me smile because I don’t believe we have any control over when our time’s up. But if we did, and we indeed just bought some precious extra minutes, the question is what shall we do with it? How shall we live it?

I think just I spent it all writing 328 words for this blog post, encouraging you to spend time watching Jane play the game of her life.