Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal Page A

in the effort can’t help but get better. And yet the better we are at a game, the less of a challenge it presents. Harder levels and tougher challenges can keep the feeling of “hard fun” alive for a while. But if we keep playing, we keep getting better—and so it’s inevitable: the unnecessary obstacle becomes less of an obstacle over time.
    That’s why, Koster says, “the destiny of games is to become boring, not to be fun. Those of us who want games to be fun are fighting a losing battle against the human brain.” 8 Fun will always morph into boredom, once we pass the critical point of being reliably successful. This is what makes games consumable : players wring all the learning (and fun) out of them.
    Fun failure is a way to prolong the game experience and stretch out the learning process. Meanwhile, when we can enjoy our own failure, we can spend more time suspended in a state of urgent optimism—the moment of hope just before our success is real, when we feel inspired to try our hardest and do our best.
    Learning to stay urgently optimistic in the face of failure is an important emotional strength that we can learn in games and apply in our real lives. When we’re energized by failure, we develop emotional stamina. And emotional stamina makes it possible for us to hang in longer, to do much harder work, and to tackle more complex challenges. We need this kind of optimism in order to thrive as human beings.
    Scientists have found that optimism is closely correlated to a higher quality of life in pretty much every way imaginable: better health, a longer life, less stress and anxiety, more successful careers, better relationships, more creativity, and more resilience in the face of adversity. This isn’t surprising: optimism is what allows us to take action to improve our lives, and the lives of others. It allows us to flourish—to create the best life possible for ourselves. Flourishing isn’t about pleasure or satisfaction; it’s about living up to our fullest potential. And to truly flourish, we have to be optimistic about our own abilities and opportunities for success.
    In fact, optimism about our own abilities not only makes us happier in the moment, it also increases our likelihood of success and feeling happier in the future. Numerous studies have shown that students, executives, and athletes are consistently more successful if they agree with statements like “I have the ability to change things with my actions” or “I am in control of my own fate.” 9 Other studies show that when we’re in an optimistic state of mind, we pay more attention, think more clearly, and learn faster. 10 Hope primes our minds for real success.
    Of course, it’s possible to go overboard: too much optimism can be as harmful as too little. We have to have the right level of optimism for the occasion. Martin Seligman recommends adopting what he calls “flexible optimism”: continually assessing our abilities to achieve a goal, and intensifying or reducing our efforts accordingly.
    When we practice flexible optimism, we see more opportunities for success—but we don’t overstate our abilities, and we don’t overestimate the amount of control we have over an outcome. And we reduce our optimism when we get feedback that we’re pursuing unattainable goals or operating in a low-control environment. We recognize that our time and energy would be better spent elsewhere.
    Games are perfect environments for practicing flexible optimism. And we do need help practicing more flexible optimism in everyday life. Randolph Nesse, a professor of evolutionary medicine at the University of Michigan, believes that our happiness depends on it—and has depended on it since the earliest days of human civilization.
    Nesse’s research focuses on the evolutionary origins of depression. Why does depression exist at all? If it’s stayed in our gene pool for so long, he argues, there must be some evolutionary benefit. Nesse believes that