[pdrummond]

I've found it's true that the point/meaning of life is to find happiness. The trouble is, most of us (including me up until recently) seem to have the wrong idea of what happiness truly is. I've learned (the hard way) that, for me at least, it's less about chasing material success or desires that I can never fully satisfy and more about taking the time to understand all the stuff going on inside my head and figuring out how to wake up every day with peace of mind and giving myself permission to focus on the things I love doing.

One of the things I love doing is making video games (with a lot of help from my son!). But my goal when deciding what game to make isn't to be "successful" by making a lot of money or using it as a springboard to start a business or whatever. If that were the goal I would end up with a completely different game that I probably wouldn’t enjoy making as I would always be consumed by the fear of making something that appeals to as many people as possible in order to maximise profit. It's not about making something I can sell. It's about sharing something I loved making.

I've recently just finished my first original game and it genuinely won't matter to me one bit if no one plays it except me and my son (and hopefully the rest of my family!). I had so much fun making it that I’m actually a bit sad that it’s over! That is the definition of success for me - finding a project that I truly enjoyed working on every day for a year and a half for no other reason that I wanted (needed?) it to exist. That doesn't mean I don't want to make money from the game though if possible! That would be great! But the happiness I get from trying to sell it is completely different from the happiness I got from making it. I'm in the process of trying to market the game now and trying to dive deep into it, looking for ways to enjoy each part of the process. But if I try for a while and can’t find a way to enjoy it, I will just stop and move onto the next game.

So in a nutshell, if I genuinely try to focus on doing the things I love every day (and I have many, many things to choose from - video games is just one example), then I am happy and if indeed there is a point to life, I think being happy every day (in the true sense of the word) is it.