Put Down the Controller: How video games became my first lessons about struggle

At some point in my life, I realized something strange: I had been living as if the world were a video game.

Every problem felt like an enemy. Every obstacle felt like a level. Every victory felt like proof that I was meant to overcome whatever stood in front of me. Without really noticing it happening, I had slowly started to believe something even more dangerous—that I was the main character in the story.

The phrase that eventually helped me question that mindset came from an unexpected place. One day in recovery, I said without realizing it, almost casually, “Sometimes you just have to put down the controller.” The line landed in my chest in a way I didn’t expect. It sounded simple, almost obvious, but it stayed with me for days.

Video games have been part of my life since childhood. The first one I remember playing was Super Mario Bros. I was introduced to it when I first met my stepfather. Our relationship was complicated in many ways, but one thing I remember clearly is him bringing home a Nintendo. For a kid growing up in that era, that console felt like a portal to another universe.

Mario is a simple story. An Italian plumber runs through endless levels trying to save a princess. Along the way, there are enemies to dodge, pits to jump over, coins to collect, and mushrooms that make you bigger and stronger. If you make a mistake, you shrink. If you get hit again, you lose a life.

At the time, it was just a game. But looking back now, I can see how much it quietly shaped the way I thought about life.

Life started to look like those levels. There were obstacles everywhere, enemies waiting around corners, and the goal always seemed to be the same: keep moving forward and survive. If you timed your jumps right, you advanced. If you messed up, you learned something and tried again.

That was one of my earliest lessons in resilience.

Games are incredibly good teachers when it comes to persistence. You fail constantly. You fall into pits. You mistime jumps. You get hit by enemies you didn’t see coming. Then the screen resets, and you try again. For a lot of young boys, especially boys who didn’t always have clear rites of passage or mentors guiding them through life, games became a strange kind of training ground. They taught patience, strategy, and problem-solving.

You learn that losing doesn’t mean the end of the story. It just means restarting the level.

Looking back, some of my earliest experiences with resilience happened behind a controller. But there was another lesson happening at the same time, one I didn’t fully understand until much later.

Most video games are built around a simple idea: you are the center of the story. Everything in the world exists in relation to you. The enemies are there to challenge you. The rewards are there to strengthen you. The world moves forward only when you act.

It’s not a flaw in game design. It’s exactly how games are meant to work. But if you spend enough time inside those kinds of stories, that perspective can start to bleed into real life. Without realizing it, you begin to see yourself as the main character in every situation.

Your struggles feel epic. Your enemies feel personal. Your victories feel like proof that you are destined for something bigger.

For a young person trying to figure out who they are, that narrative can be intoxicating. It tells you that suffering means something. It tells you that obstacles are proof you’re special. It tells you that if you just fight hard enough, you will eventually win.

Mario also quietly taught me another lesson that stuck with me for years: the hustle. In the game, you collect coins everywhere you go, and when you collect one hundred coins, you earn an extra life. The message is subtle but powerful. Take risks. Gather resources. Buy another chance.

In some ways, that mindset helped me. Hustle can build resilience. It can teach you to keep moving when things get hard. But there’s another side to that mentality, too. When every situation feels like a level you need to beat, life starts to feel like a constant competition. Every problem becomes an enemy. Every opportunity becomes a coin you have to grab before someone else does.

That kind of thinking can help you survive. But it doesn’t always help you live peacefully.

In earlier generations, young men often had clearer rites of passage that marked the transition from boyhood to adulthood. Some were cultural ceremonies. Some were apprenticeships or physical challenges. Some was simply time spent learning from older men in the community. Many of us didn’t have that structure.

Instead, many of our early experiences with challenge, failure, and persistence happened in digital worlds. Games became our training grounds. They taught us to keep going after failure. They taught us strategy and patience. They taught us that persistence matters.

But they also taught us something else I didn’t fully understand until much later: to see ourselves as heroes in a story that revolved around us.

That mindset can become dangerous when it follows you into real life. Real life isn’t structured like a video game. In a game, you respawn after failure. The story is built around your choices. The world waits for you to act. In real life, mistakes can have permanent consequences. Other people have their own stories. And the world doesn’t revolve around you.

When you carry the “main character” mindset too far, everything begins to feel personal. Every conflict becomes a battle. Every challenge becomes an enemy you need to defeat. And if you’re not careful, that perspective can slowly isolate you.

You become the hero in your own story, but you forget that everyone else is living a story of their own.

It took me years to understand how deeply those early narratives had shaped me. Games had taught me resilience, strategy, and persistence. Those were real gifts. But they had also quietly taught me to see the world as something I needed to conquer.

Eventually, life forced me to question that perspective. And the surprising thing is that some of the very games I loved would eventually challenge that mindset, too. Games like God of War, Cyberpunk 2077, and The Last of Us all begin as stories about powerful heroes.

But if you play them carefully, they slowly reveal something else.

Sometimes the hero is the problem. Sometimes, power without restraint destroys everything around you. And sometimes the most important thing you can learn is not how to win the game…

But when it’s time to put down the controller.