While I was playing NFS:Carbon today, I remembered this story out of no where. 7 or 8 years ago, there was a game on Playstation -PS 1 indeed- called "Gran Turismo 2". It was a car racing game. I kept playing it with no luck of winning any race. The game had mutli-level driving license system. Level A to C and anther 2 advanced licenses. Some races require licenses higher than the others. Of course those races gets you has a much higher winning prizes. After a year, I was able to get license A; I think that was the most basic license. To win a license you must win through some tests. Anyway, that made me finally can access better races, thus buy better cars. I stayed at this license for another year. Then I got license B. Winning prizes per race of license A only reached 400 dollars. But with license B you can access races that gives up to 5000 dollars. I kept trying to win races with no luck. I had bought a Nissan Skyline. I had hard time to win. With extra money, I upgraded the car. I also tuned it (by the way, it has an advanced performance tuning system that none of NFS have reacehd, most of it could be understood only if you have studied car mechanics in details); as a matter of fact I tried tuning it for several values randomly. I kept trying for 3 months till I found optimal values that made me win a certain race very easy. That race winning prize was 5000$. But still after that I couldn't win races that require License C; those races winning prize can reach 200,000$. While seeing what cars I can buy I found an 1000 Horse Power car (this particular car had a subtitle that this value is fictional, other cars are normally equivalent to the real thing). That car costs 2 Million $. Of course by only winning races of 5000$ I couldn't afford it. But that car really deserves it. I was sure that it can make me win absolutely any race. What do you think I did ????
What I did was that I kept playing that 5000$ race until I could afford that car. I kept doing that for 5 months and I didn't even collect 400,000$. I learnt about another race of the same easiness -almost- that gives a car instead of 5000$. Normal used cars cost less than 5000$. But what was special about that race, is that it's car can be sold for 20,000$. That race required a license that is more than C. The international A license. I kept trying for 3 months till I got it. In these 3 months I also kep playing the old race. Anyway, finally I entered that 20,000$ race and won it enough times to make 2 Million $. I took 1 month only because I played it more than 12 hours a day, in the summer vacation. And I bought that car, and indeed it made me win all other races in the game and I lived happily ever after :D. No, this is not the end, there was one race, where I have to race the same car that I am riding. And of course I never won it.
The moral of the story: keep it up till you reach what you want, but be sure that what you want is the thing that you really need. In this story what I needed was better driving skill, not better car. On the other hand I would never be able to get that car if I didn't keep trying over and over. So never give up hope in something because if you believed in it and you kept working hard, isA you WILL reach it. Also know that what you reached will NEVER be the magical solution to ALL of your problems. Be wise and look inside yourself for the truth.
