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Can video games be useful for personal development?

During the long Thanksgiving weekend, I spent a fair amount of time playing Call of Duty 4 on my Xbox gaming system. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Call of Duty 4 is a video game that allows you to play as a modern-day soldier, pitting your simulated gun-fighting and grenade lobbing skills against players from all over the world.

It was a great way to kill time on Thanksgiving Day. My in-laws helped themselves to my Xbox controllers, and later they helped themselves to my pumpkin pie.

Video games can help us experience the joy of victory and the agony of defeat without the dangers of real conflict, providing an interesting and fun way to learn valuable lessons in a low-stakes environment. Intended mostly as a fun diversion, here are 7 important lessons I learned by playing Call of Duty 4 online with my family this weekend:

1. Don’t Sit Around Waiting for a Miracle: In online shooters, the guy who sits still rarely wins (unless he’s a crazy-good sniper), and the same rules apply in life, where the game doesn’t come to you, so you’ll have to go out there and get it yourself.

2. Try New Things: Human beings are creatures of habit, whether we’re playing games or just living our lives. In a game like Call of Duty, you might be tempted to stick with the M16 because it works… but what if you have the potential to be the greatest sniper on Earth? The same rules apply to real life, where you might prove to be great at something you’ve not yet tried. Break out of your comfort zone. Try something new. Explore your potential.

3. Don’t Obsess About What Other People Think: You can’t let the opinions of a bunch of other people determine how you play your game. When you’re playing an online shooter, people will tell you not to hide in shadows, not to ambush, not to sit still, and a bunch of other completely ridiculous rules invented by people who don’t enjoy losing. And in the real world outside of online games, people will tell you what career to pursue, what sort of person to date, where to go, what to do. Bottom Line: Make your own choices. Live with the consequences. Let other people think what they will.

4. Seize Opportunities: If you find yourself in a position of good fortune, make the most of it. In Call of Duty, you might find yourself in the middle of an enemy bunker with a superior vantagepoint. In real life, you might find yourself with a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity or business prospect. When opportunity knocks, answer the door.

5. Keep Trying: I can’t tell you how many times I died while playing Call of Duty this weekend. I was blown up. Beat down. Shot up. Rocket-launched into next week. But it’s a game, so you pick yourself back up and keep trying. As in life, you get better the more you practice, and if you never risk failure, you’ll never grow.

6. Have Fun: To the extent possible, it’s important to recognize that losing is part of life. Make the most of every failure so you can learn and grow. And don’t forget to smile! Some online gamers (and quite a few people in general) seem to approach every situation with anger and fear instead of embracing life for the wild roller coaster ride that it is.

7. Enjoy the Process: The pleasure of the game is not in your rank, your position, or your score. It’s in the game itself. I’m not so naïve as to suggest that measurable results don’t matter – they do. I’m simply suggesting that the process of achieving a goal, and not the goal itself, is where the real joy must come from, whether we’re talking about a video game or real life.

Well, there you have it… 7 life lessons you can pick up playing video games.

Oh, and one more helpful tip. If your in-laws start eating all your pumpkin pie, tell them it’s time for another game, wait for them to file out of the kitchen, and then hide the pie in the crisper until they leave.