How do you restart?

I used to play this old video game when I was younger. One of my classmates back in high school had recommended it to me, and I easily became fascinated with the concept of playing a game where you go on an adventure with your pet companion as you battle your way to victory. It’s easy to say that I got addicted so fast that I would even stay up till midnight playing, trying to be careful not to be seen and get scolded by my parents.

But there was a time when I was playing, and I got stuck at a certain part of the game, wondering why I couldn’t progress forward. Seeing my little sprite character on the screen running around the place, searching for any sign or clue that I could get to finally move on to the next part, slowly made me feel frustrated and defeated. I was at a loss and couldn’t figure out what to do, to the point that I left the game and couldn’t go back to it for the longest time.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t given up so easily back then. Would that single action be enough to change anything and make it possible for me to move forward through the game, or would I have still been in the same position as I was back then, lost and frustrated?

Even outside playing these video games that I used to play, there would be plenty of times that I remember being so easily defeated by the slightest of things. And perhaps this may be a reason why it led me to make some of the mistakes that I’ve gone through in life. To be completely honest, I wasn’t always as good as everyone perceived me to be; I have made a lot of mistakes, especially when I was younger.

Even looking back at my past self from right now, I would immediately admit to myself that I was being too naive back then. And if real life is an actual video game, I would have had a save file ready for any time that I made a mistake. I could easily go back to a point in time where I think I did something wrong and completely change what I’ve done to get a different outcome that’s better than the one that I initially got.

Despite these mistakes being from a long time ago, they seemed to always find their way to creep forward from the darkest corners of my mind and take advantage, invading my thoughts, especially at times when I felt the most vulnerable. It would be one of those times that I would stare at nothing, my mind completely overtaken with the scenes of the past replaying over and over again, eventually ruining my mood for the whole day. I tend to overthink things a lot, and doing this has helped me a lot, but it also led to many instances of me having a breakdown in the middle of the night.

It’s definitely a double-edged sword; by overthinking, I was able to immediately prepare for any sort of event or situation because I was able to foresee and know what to do and still come up with a solution for any problem. But on the other hand, doing this can easily exhaust me emotionally and will definitely take a huge toll on my mental health.

Processing too many thoughts at the same time is like being bombarded with too much paperwork or requirements. It almost feels like you’re slowly being pulled down into the abyss, drowning you along with it to the point where it would lead to bad moments of wanting to explode and accidentally taking this sort of frustration out on others, which is a really bad way to handle such a stressful situation.

I know this because I experienced it a lot when I was in junior high, and I didn’t know how bad it really was until I graduated and became a senior high student. I’ve had many instances of lashing out at people, especially when I’m filled to the brim with stress that I just had to yell it out.

Especially when it comes to being in a group for a project, most of the time I had no choice but to take a step forward to be the leader because no one else in our group would do it, and if I didn’t volunteer myself, it would only go downhill for our group if no one took the reins, and the time for making a project would take too long to start just because everyone else is having trouble making a decision.

To be completely honest, I don’t really want to be the leader in a group; I know how to take responsibility for things, but it can get too overwhelming a lot, especially if you don’t know how to gauge the personalities, strengths, and weaknesses of the people you’re in a group with. It’ll be an absolute nightmare if you don’t know how to handle someone who can’t cooperate or synergize with your group well.

I’ve said many mean things out of the blue to those people because of it, and I badly wanted to go back in time again to stop my old self from ever lashing out like that ever again. But what’s done is done, right?

Everything is in the past, and there’s no way for me to actually go back to those exact moments, unlike in video games, there’s no option to save either to help me restart and get a better ending. I guess there’s still a good thing that comes from being able to have these bad experiences, and it’s another way for me to learn from the mistakes I’ve made and move forward to become someone who’s improved and finally made things better for me and for those who are always around me.