How Super Mario taught me perseverance
2000’s. After some years waiting, my wishes were finally realised, I got a SNES. It wasn’t exactly mine, my cousins were bored of it and left in my home.
Holy guys. Can you imagine a 7yrs old boy at that time, surrounded by friends with PS1/PS2, receiving a videogame that he could call it “mine”. That was me.
The new routine was:
Wake up → Super Mario World → School → Super Mario World → Sleep late.
So this keep going for a couple weeks, when I discovered the SPECIAL zone and this stage:
Start. Dead. Start. Dead. Start. Dead. Start. Dead. Start. Dead. Start. Dead. Start. Dead. Start. Dead. … (I believe you can imagine the scenario)
I was devastated. “How I am not able to beat this single stage? I’m the best player (used to compete with my sister), this is impossible.”
It repeated for days. Got 50 lifes and lost all of them.
However, the story has a nice end.
One day, my dad said that he will watch me playing. For the first time, he would really pay attention on every single jump and movement. And obviously, see mistakes.
“NO!”
I’ve passed through lots of stages! Tubular will not beat me! Dad will be proud of me!”
(it’s funny to see how small things matters VERY MUCH for children)
So the start button was pressed. And again. And again. I knew it was possible to win, I had to win.
My fingers were tired, the dirty inside the controller requested me to push harder and harder.
And finally…
I won.
