Something I am passionate about is video games. I have been playing games ever since I was little. My father has been playing games ever since they were created. He has a strong passion for video games and always enjoyed them. Because of this, he wanted me to be able to experience these fun games as well. I remember sitting in my dads chair and him teaching me how to play a game called World of Warcraft. It was a complicated game to a five year old so I never understood a thing he was trying to say , yet, I enjoyed trying to learn and play.
As I got older and started spending more times with friends than family, I started playing games with people from school. Video games were almost a way to hangout with people and spend time with them. Although you could be doing dumb stuff on the games, you were still talking and socializing with the people you were playing with. I think this is why I enjoyed playing games so much, not because I had fun playing the game itself, but instead, I had fun joking and laughing with my friends. Video games were also a way to relate with other people. It was easy to make friends or talk to someone when you both played the same game. Additionally, for a kid, being good at a game meant a lot. You could brag to your friends that you were better than them or they could rely on you to help them win. It was almost like a status symbol. So I think in a way, me spending time on trying to get better at a game gave me some sense of fulfillment knowing this.
When covid game around it was especially hard to hang out with my friends. We could no longer go play basketball after school or sleep over at someones house. Sure we enjoyed playing video games before, but we liked doing other things at the time as well. Now that we were forced inside, video games were almost our only options. I began to spend a lot more time online playing games as that was really the only way I could have fun with my friends. We would play all day non-stop. Because of online school, it was hard for our teachers to tell what we were doing behind the screens so almost everyone was doing something else. Me and my friends were most likely playing Minecraft or some other game. We would also stay up late at night playing games as school started later in the day. My county’s grading policy changed during the pandemic as well. A student only needed a 75% or something to obtain an A which mean that we barely had to pay attention or do anything in school. Looking back on it, me and my friends played way too much during the pandemic. However, I do not regret it. I don't remember anything specific but I remember always laughing and smiling while playing with them. Till this day I am still playing games with my friends despite our busy lives. Although we play a lot less, we still have the same amount of fun.