People tell me I am slouching my back, but is poor posture just a matter of appearance, or is there something more to it?
“Stand up straight, dude. You are slouching again.” This is what my friends and family members often say to me.
Bad posture can be a pain in life
I was told ever since I had my growth spurt as a teenager to stand tall and straight, instead of slouching. I did not take heed of this classic posture advice because I never paid heed to my posture and had a relatively uneventful life so far.
However, my slouching was due to no accident. I have been bending my back because of many reasons.
Firstly, being the introvert I am, I tended to look on the ground so as to avoid eye contact with others while walking, this had led me to the habit of bending my head and back while I look down as I walk.
Also, there were a few years when I was at my grandparents’ place for after school care, and the square table at the living room was much shorter than my sitting height. The other rooms were not as appealing for me because they were more stuffy, and the tables would usually be cluttered, so I was left with the sofa and the small square table in the living room. This led me to having to bend my back whenever I did my homework and revision there.
Finally, when I got my first iPhone after graduating primary school, I used it quite frequently for messaging, research and entertainment at school. I usually do not have any place to rest my arms while I hold my phone up, so I had to bend my back while using the phone with my arms supported by my thighs.
(Image from Today Show) Looking down while I walk and poor posture when using a handphone shaped my back to the slouch it has today.
I lacked the concept of maintaining a good posture then, and lacked ergonomic furniture and personality too. As such, the bad posture stuck with me.
My slouching was not a particular problem that stood out, but it had caused my life to be more troublesome. For one, whenever I took photos, I would look awkward because I was slouching and my neck seemed shorter as it was bent forward. Another example could be that I was not able to stand for long periods of time because my lower back will become sore, my hamstrings start complaining, and the soles of my feet get hurt. I might have been able to sustain myself for longer if I had stood up straighter.
DISCLAIMER: Oddly shaped bodies are not always due to poor posture. Please do your research properly!
My younger sister developed scoliosis a few years ago. My parents were convinced that it was due to her lifestyle that led to poor posture habits, giving rise to her body not being well supported and her body weight not putting pressure on the bones that were supposed to support her body. They claimed that she was using her phone and laid on the bed in most of her free time (which is not a healthy lifestyle!), so her back was not well supported and the curvature of the spine grew to be an abnormal “S” shape.
I could not get pictures of her X-ray, but this image might show how this scoliosis of hers could have looked like:
(Image from verywell) Graphic of scoliosis, which is when the spine shows an S-shaped curve.
She had to wear some kind of mold (it is actually called a spinal brace) to support her back, but I could not remember whether she underwent surgery. Wearing the back support was unpleasant because she had difficulties maintaining in the supported position, it felt stuffy and she was unable to scratch any kind of back itch. That was the extent of the seriousness of her poor posture. Eventually, the mold came off when her condition improved.
However, scoliosis is not caused by poor posture. According to authoritative sources, current expertly-reviewed medical literature does not show any conclusive link between poor posture and this condition. Instead, genetics are more likely to play a larger role in such a situation.
There are also other problems stemming from poor posture, asides from looking less smart. Poor posture could lead to “postural kyphosis” or rounded back, which could worsen into back pain if uncorrected. Postural kyphosis can usually be treated with physical therapy to correct one’s body posture and strengthen the back muscles and to improve the condition. However, if left untreated, these conditions may worsen and lead to degenerative conditions of the spine in adulthood and may affect daily activities.
There are many other posture problems too. These include sticking your bottom up in a “Donald duck” posture, poking chin posture and hunched back posture. These guide to poor posture and fixes from the NHS will be worth a read if you can relate to these problems: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/common-posture-mistakes-and-fixes/
Sounds like you?
Yes, if you had a similar life story, it goes to show how important maintaining proper posture is. Asides from avoiding the straining of your muscles and not having to go for surgery, there are other sensible reasons to hold up a good posture. Look at this infographic to find out more!
To sum up, not only will good posture make you look and feel better (no more stiff back!). You lessen the strain on your back and help yourself breathe more easily. You will also not get sick as often as you do not put pressure on your organs by allowing your core muscles and backbone to do the job of supporting your body weight.
Maintaining good posture and what to do if you already have bad posture
Mitigation
Learn the signs of good posture and start doing them in your daily life. Get someone to help supervise you so that you can really get it right!
There are two kinds of posture: static and dynamic posture.
Dynamic posture is how you hold yourself when you are moving, like when you are walking, running, or bending over to pick up something.
Static posture is how you hold yourself when you are not moving, like when you are sitting, standing, or sleeping.
The key to good posture is to focus on your spine. Ensure that the spine is straight as much as possible. It gets strained and injured easily when you apply too much pressure on it. So, ensure that when moving things or getting seated, much of the weight is focused on the lower body (from the hips onward) instead of the back.
The interesting thing about posture is that there is no single correct posture. As such, experiment with what is the most comfortable for you to sustain in.
To make things easier, get furniture that is suitable for your own height to avoid having to lean forward or bend down. Do get chairs with backrests and ensure that your joints are well supported. If you want to be really sure, spend some time getting to know about the study of all these things. Known as ergonomics, it is the process of designing or arranging workplaces, products and systems so that they fit the people who use them.
Prevention (for healthy beings and at-risk people)
According to Dr Lau Leok Lim, Consultant in Spine Surgery at the National University Health System (NUHS), “Poor posture is a choice, not a condition.”
Simple lifestyle changes can do the trick. Making a conscious choice not to use phones while walking and monitoring your posture through a mirror or reflective surface can help you become better at maintaining good posture. One of the most essential lifestyle changes is to exercise more.
Exercise is key to maintaining proper posture. It helps to build strong core muscles that ensures that the body is well-balanced and that the body weight is spread out evenly without straining the back too much. This helps the body to support itself without having to strain a specific part of itself.
Though any kind of exercise works, there are a couple of interesting exercises that I will like to share for improving posture. They may not be much proof for their effectiveness, but it does not hurt to try them out, and I have benefitted from them too!
Qi Gong
By aligning the body’s joints and distributing the body’s weight through them equally, it functions as a natural resistance training to strengthen the joints and improve circulation and posture. Poor posture puts pressure on anatomical structures surrounding internal organs, which causes diminished circulation of Qi and blood in channels, therefore leading to imbalances in internal organs.
Not only Qi Gong provides us a metaphor to guide ourselves to having a better posture, it allows us to practise movements that encourage good posture too!
Yoga
Yoga encourages one to be more mindful about its movements. The effects of bad posture are more pronounced while doing yoga poses and stretches. Doing it wrong can lead to pain and injury, so like all exercises, do not push yourself too much and approach with care.
The breathing techniques and huge variety of positions can allow one to find inner peace and be more connected to its body. It also stretches the back to minimise back pain and strengthens the core to improve body posture.
This post also functions as a teaser to the upcoming post detailing the progress of Life Challenge #4: Gamification.
This will be the last post on this series for a long while, and it will decouple itself from the "Life Challenges" series
After a few months of using Habitica, I have found it increasingly difficult to maintain it as my mindset and my tasks have more or less migrated to the two new productivity tools that I have created to organise my life and inject some fun into my clearing of to-dos. These tools are namely, “Commitment Tracker” and “Motivation System”.
I can only share some basic information about these two productivity tools because I will be divulging the details of how they work in the upcoming post about my progress in the Gamification Challenge. To put it simply, the Commitment Tracker is to help me organise my tasks my regular cycles and quantify the value for each task (assigned to a commitment) to me, while the Motivation System takes these numbers and either process them into trends that give me a bigger picture of my productivity over a certain duration, or exchange them for rewards that I can enjoy, so as to give me the last push I need to complete a certain task and to give up a certain distraction or reward.
With these systems, they have effectively rendered Habitica obsolete for me. My usage of Habitica was mostly concentrated on its task management system. In comparison to that, I spend much less time engaging with different people on guilds or on the shop and stable for the virtual rewards. The pixel art loses its charm over some time, because I find that its visual appeal means nothing to me, and I have no actual use for these pixels on the screen.
For instance, these equipment does not make sense to me, because there are no monsters that actively appear at the “Tasks” tab trying to gobble my character up if I am lax in my checking off to-dos and habits. They only serve to enhance my attribute points, for which there is little use other than changing how fast one clears the quests (which is just a progress bar) and the rate at which one's health drops for a missed daily or a negative habit.
Another example of why I do not find the rewards provided by Habitica appealing is the system on its Stable. Although I admit that the pets look cute and value-added to the visual appeal of my character avatar, after a long time trying to get along with them, I cannot quite figure out what the use of them are other than being decorative items that can only eat food and grow (which I pity the pets and mounts for not being able to present themselves as lively creatures that actively bring joy to their masters and assisting their masters with various tasks).
How about supportive communities like guilds which are one of the biggest draws to this gamified task management site? In general, I feel that many Habiticians are either talking to themselves or responding to each other’s questions quickly. Unless one is lucky enough to join into a very supportive and family-like party, it is hard to develop any kind of relationships with other users or engage in deep conversations over productivity with other like-minded people. Maybe nothing will happen if I do not get the ball rolling, but this is not where my life interests lie, and I have other hobbies and commitments to attend to. As such, there is no reason for me to continue contributing to these guilds, unless there were some extremely kind guilds that would give me gems for completing something and I would be able to unlock something cool on the shop for them (still, it will only be for a very short time).
The fear of incurring penalties such as reduced health and mana, as well as getting hit by the monster of the party quest I am on, also contributed to my lack of willingness to check in to Habitica. I know that skipping on dailies and habits will be detrimental to my personal growth in the long run, but there were days where I felt so tired and burnt out that I wanted to escape the reality of holding myself accountable or responsible for all the tasks and habits that I am struggling hard to maintain.
All these negative experiences I had on Habitica had led me to the conclusion that I am able to make something that is better than this site and I will not need to pay a single cent for anything when I am designing the reward systems and progress trackers myself. Perhaps I am asking for too much, but it is worth a try to see what I can make on my own. As such, I have decided to put Habitica on the backburner and use it mainly as a source of inspiration for future ideas about self-improvement.
The general election is a form of a parliamentary election, where all incumbent members of the parliament (MPs) are dissolved and an opportunity arises for all able men and women to become election candidates to compete over their position in parliament. Usually, most of the dominating party (the People’s Action Party) will still remain, so in order to ensure a good level of representativeness of Singaporeans, there are other positions such as non-candidate MPs (NCMPs) and nominated MPs (NMPs) to bring in different people who will introduce fresh perspectives to the conversations surrounding the governance of the country.
First, the results:
Of interest is the process of the election this year, not the results. This year’s general election is a breath of fresh air for a few reasons:
New norms for voting - time bands, self-inking pens and more eco-friendly booths
Since 2019, the Elections Department has pushed for changes to make the voting experience better for everyone. These included polling booths made of recyclable materials like cardboard (though it is still a prototype), self-inking pens (basically a stamp which is more elderly-friendly than normal pens), and more electronic documents such as online forms for nomination of candidates as well as electronic voting slips.
Thanks to the pandemic, more safety measures have to be in place. Recommended time bands are given in the voting slips mailed to those eligible for voting to avoid crowding at polling sites (since most people are still told to stay at home then). However, this could not stop long queues from forming due to safe distancing measures. Many voters complained of how inefficient the whole process was, and some were told to go home and come back later due to the long queues.The voting time was even extended from 8 PM to 10 PM at the last minute, causing a lot of dissatisfaction among voters and the opposition parties.
Campaigning goes digital
Due to the pandemic (again), most of the campaigning have to be brought online. Still, the human factor and the intimacy that can only be realised in face-to-face meetings are still extremely crucial. As a result, we see political candidates engaging with people in the heartlands - doing home visits and making their rounds in hawker centres and wet markets.
The digital space had brought in more engagement and conversations during the campaigning period. There were even memes surrounding candidates who stood out, such as Jamus Lim, who was the sensation online after his performance at the televised debates. Such conversations showed that Singaporeans are actively involved in politics, and are open to discussing their opinions online.
However, digital elections can have a lot of risks too, as evidenced by the 2016 US Presidential Elections, which revealed signs of intervention from other countries through hacking of emails plus the creation of widely-circulated misinformation and fake news online. We cannot even trust videos anymore because of deep fakes, where artificial intelligence can create convincing scenes of any person speaking without it actually happening.
Female representation in the parliament is important. According to an article by Channel NewsAsia:
“There was a conscious choice to include more women candidates in this term of Parliament as women bring important issues to the table and also offer different perspectives,” said Ms Sun Xueling, the Punggol West SMC MP-elect and the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs and National Development.
The same article gives a good example of how female MPs usually bring up issues like caregiving that are unrelated to economic development, and pushes for more urgency in developing policies that seek to address such issues.
“Female politicians are known to be more inclined towards engaging on topics outside the traditional bread-and-butter concerns like the economy, said Ms Nydia Ngiow, a senior director at public policy consultancy BowerGroupAsia.
Citing the example of MacPherson MP-elect Tin Pei Ling, Ms Ngiow said that the parliamentarian has championed issues that were not widely discussed such as mental health and difficulties facing single parents.
Her work appears to have paid off. This election, Ms Tin won 71.7 percent of the votes in her constituency - more than she garnered in 2015, and putting her among the candidates that won with the highest election margins this year. “
Opposition parties now have more influence and powers
Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh has been appointed by the Prime Minister as the Leader of the Opposition. This will give him more staff support and resources to carry out his duties. With such a decision, Singapore will be able to move away from a one-party state and see more balance in policy-making, as well as increased competition in the local political scene, which brings out the best in future batches of MPs. Although the concept of opposition leader has been emerging since the last few GEs, with opposition parties trying to band together in their face-off against the PAP, having it as an official position is a first for Singapore.
This is slightly off-topic, but there has been a coalition that opposition parties have been striving for in 2018, which did not go very well. It was inspired by the elections of other countries such as Malaysia and those in the West, which saw opposition parties reign over their countries. Read more here.
His speaking time will be doubled from 20 minutes to 40 minutes, which is on par with office holders.
An office in Parliament, staff support and resources, as well as additional allowance.
He will generally be given the right of first response among MPs to ask the lead question of ministers on policies, Bills and motions in Parliament. This will be at the discretion of the Speaker and subject to existing speaking conventions.
Duties:
Leading and organising the opposition’s parliamentary business.
Possibly: attending official state functions and taking part in visits and meetings with members of the Government and the public service.
Occasionally: receive briefings by the Government on confidential issues, and the matters to be briefed will be determined by the Government
These duties and privileges are based on the conventions and practices of other Westminster-style parliamentary systems, but reflects adaptations to Singapore's political and parliamentary context.
Personally, I find it quite heartening to see the members of the opposition working hand-in-hand with the ruling party to improve how Singapore is governed. I can only hope that as Singapore is able to establish an identity for herself, her political structure will evolve to be more mature and empower talented, caring people to influence decisions that will shape the society of the future. Perhaps, it can even become more robust and innovative, with parts that are uniquely Singaporean, just like our financial system.
National Day SG Together Pack
With the cancellation of plans that involves hosting this year’s celebrations at The Float @ Marina Bay, the original fun pack was repurposed into the SG Together Pack, which would be available for collection by every Singaporean and PR household starting from 20 July 2020, Monday.
I was involved in the packing of this too! More details can be found in upcoming posts of the “My Year 2020” series (will be linked there when the post is out).
The pack has received much attention in its conception stages - but for the wrong reasons.
The opt-out petitioning
The question that everyone wants to know about was, “Do we really need that pack of things as a physical token to commemorate this year’s National Day?”
A lot of Singaporeans believed that the resources poured into the making of these packs could be put into better use, amidst the pandemic crisis. Hence, there was a petition directed at the organising committee to allow Singaporeans to opt-out from this initiative.
Yes, their voices were heard, and as Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen mentioned in his parliamentary address, the production will be scaled down to cover only 80% of households, as compared to around 90% to 95% in previous years. In addition, uncollected funpacks will be donated to homes and institutions who would like to have it.
However, the Minister raised a good point about the need to have these packs. Prudence is necessary, especially when the nation’s finances have been stretched. But it cannot be at the expense of overcoming the mood of despondency that has caused us to be further apart from one another. As with the unwavering, and if I may, defiant spirit that Singaporeans have shown ever since the inaugural National Day Parade in 1966, the unity and collective confidence for the future that it engendered among Singaporeans was priceless.
That brings me to the significance of the SG Together pack this year.
Significance of the pack
As I was involved in the packing of the pack this year, I could tell that it was designed with Singaporeans in mind.
Let us start with the bag. The visual design of the bag was done by students who were mostly at Primary School level. No wonder these innocent-looking designs spark joy in me. What is more impressive is that pupils with disabilities also contributed to the designs. I was told that some of the drawings were done by the visually impaired students. What a powerful message for those feeling depressed under the bleak days of COVID-19! To learn more about the different types of designs, click here: https://www.nylon.com.sg/2020/07/ndp-2020-singapore-together-pack-whats-inside-and-where-to-get-yours/
The bag is environmentally friendly too. The cloth is quite durable and my parents like to reuse it as a recyclable bag when they shop for groceries. The bag itself may look a little flimsy, but it has a velcro at the top to help close the bag, which neatly makes up for the flimsy appearance by ensuring nothing in the bag accidentally spills out.
Moving on to the items in the bag. There were very practical things like a thermometer and quite a number of face masks inside. There were also a lot of Singapore flags and symbols included in the items for us to feel that we are a part of the nation. I bet they look lovely in photos and videos. The snacks were quite healthy (biscuits, chips or energy bars, depending on what you get) and the drinks were replaced with cans of chrysanthemum drink. I loved this change because it would be a great help to those who would want to binge-eat during this stressful period and lacked awareness of healthier alternatives to the usual snacks, plus the aluminium cans for the drinks are one of the most recyclable materials out there, satisfying environmental advocacy groups who wished for a reduction in single-use plastics in the pack.
Although there were not many things in the pack, it was a physical touchpoint from the organising committee to all Singaporeans, and symbolised a whole-of-nation effort to celebrate how far our country has come despite all the challenges that were in the way. In this sense, the pack was an uplifting gift that would hopefully bring smiles for all Singaporeans.
WORLD
NASA Mars Rover Launch
As you and I may get tired from reading through all these lines and lines of text, here is a quick video to bring us up to date on what this Mars Rover is all about:
NASA’s Perseverance rover, the fourth of its kind to be launched to the red planet, has taken off in July 2020. It is expected to land on Mars by February 2021.
What will the rover bring us?
In short, it will bring back soil and rock samples from Mars. What is this for?
According to NASA, a drill on the rover will collect core samples of promising Martian rocks and soil, then will deposit them in a "cache“ (inside very clean tubes to avoid potential contamination from Earth’s microbes) on the planet's surface. A potential future robotic mission could pick them up and ferry them to Earth for analysis in laboratories by equipment too large or bulky to go to Mars. Perseverance will also help us learn more and test technologies that could benefit future human expeditions to Mars. For instance, it brought along Ingenuity, a robotic flying machine, which will be doing test flights on Mars. This will pave the way for similar machines to be used to aid rovers, landers and even humans in future exploration missions.
DISAMBIGUATION: landers vs rovers
Landers are spacecraft that are designed to land on the surfaces of another planet and last long enough to telemeter data back on Earth.
Rovers are vehicles that are activated upon reaching another planet. On their way there, they will be part of the payload in spacecraft.
One special thing about rovers that aim to land on Mars is that they need some way to decelerate when they enter Mars’ atmosphere to avoid itself from being fried alive by the heat generated from the air resistance. Find out more about the excruciating details of landing on Mars here: https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/timeline/edl/
Under NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Program, previous missions have helped us look for signs of habitable conditions in ancient times. The program's series of missions is helping us answer key questions about the potential for life on Mars. Perseverance will take it one step further by searching for signs of past microbial life itself. This will be done through the search for biosignatures through studying the texture of the rock and soil samples, as well as the composition and distribution of organic molecules. Biosignatures are patterns of texture or substance that require life to form.
We can also look forward to a richer experience of Mars than we have now, as the rover is equipped with microphones that allow us to hear the sounds on Mars, and it will have many high-end tools to research more into the various questions of scientific interest on Mars.
As this is the closest to finding definitive proof of life on Mars, we will finally be able to answer the question of whether we are alone in this universe. There are countless planets out there who have habitable landscapes that are suited for life, but only Earth is currently inhabited by living creatures. If there is life on Mars, everything we know about the origins of life on Earth could change.
Other missions bound for Mars
July has been a pretty busy period for Mars exploration. I did not plan to include the other missions in this post, but since the Seeker videos have touched on them, I will give them a quick look.
Other than NASA, Japan’s very own space agency, JAXA, has sent its spacecraft to land on Phobos, one of the two moons that orbit Mars. This will finally unravel the mystery behind the origins of Mars’ moons.
For the red planet itself, China and the United Arab Emirates have also launched their spacecraft toward there. The main highlight for China’s mission was that it was the first to send off a rover, lander and orbiter to Mars all in one go. While for the UAE, the star is its objective to better understand Mars’ atmosphere and geology by recording them for a few Martian years.
Find out more through these videos:
Japan: Martian Moons eXploration (MMX)
China: Tianwen-1 probe
UAE: Hope Probe
California’s Wildfires
California has been battling wildfires for some time now, and in the months to come, the fires would only get worse. This natural disaster is unprecedented in scale and complexity, so understanding such incidents will help us to be much better prepared for future waves.
Epic and record-breaking
The fire has been raging, burning millions and millions of acres. In October, months after this issue of the Kaleidoscope is supposed to have been published, the fires have now burned more than 4 million acres, a record for the most acres burned in a single year. The figure, which equals an area larger than Connecticut, is more than twice the acreage burned in the state’s previous record-worst fire season, in 2018.
In addition, due in part to human-caused warming and a drying climate, California recorded its first “gigafire” since modern records began in the early 1930s. The August Complex, a group of fires burning in and around the Mendocino National Forest, has torched more than 1 million acres and counting.
Effects of the fires
Loss of land, lives and properties, toxic air, the sky turning red… All these descriptions are measly in compared to the visual impact images from the fires have given us.
Here is a video that gives a comprehensive coverage of the wildfire situation:
Climate change - global warming causes vegetation and basically anything that can serve as fuel to be burnt up to be drier. Drier things catch fire from a spark more easily. That spark could come from lightning or humans setting fire, intentionally or unintentionally.
People - downed power lines, the vehicles’ rim scraping against the road surface and fireworks have all been contributing to the sparks that are needed to set vegetation and other objects ablaze. More people have chosen to live in areas that are near to forests (term for it is “urban-wildlife interface”), increasing the likelihood that some accident might cause the vegetation to blow up in flames.
Fire suppression - in the history of firefighting in the US, much of the vegetation avoided being burnt away, but that led to an accumulation for more vegetation that fed materials to keep the fires going. As such, now controlled fires are taking place to get rid of unneeded material that will contribute to the spread of fires.
Strong winds (Santa Ana winds) - each fall, strong gusts known as the Santa Ana winds bring dry air from the Great Basin area of the West into Southern California. These winds drive the second fire season which is thought to be from October to April. As these winds bring fires to urban, built-up areas, the economic losses in this season tend to be more severe.
Life Challenges #4 & Habitica Crossover #3 | Gamification Challenge
Part 1: Release of challenge
Background of this challenge
Have you ever done or experienced anything boring before, so much so that you really wanted to doze off or do something else? That was the kind of feeling I had when I went about doing most tasks in a day. I started to dread most of the work I did and wanted to dive into something that felt good, like going on social media and finding out the high life my friends were having, or bingeing on shows and manga, which mostly ended up to be a waste of time.
But before we think, “Life’s like that. It sucks. Suck it up,” let us give ourselves the chance to entertain the thought of making the most monotonous tasks more interesting. I did a bit of Googling, and it hit me back with this term, “gamification”.
The gaming industry is massive, with games being increasingly popular and engaging. Games have allowed us to see traditionally boring tasks like walking, reading and doing housework in a new light, by employing some of the features in actual video games that affect us psychologically.
Seeing something that could be boring turned into something that everyone wants to be let in might sound far-fetched, but take a look at how this presentation (on presentations) was turned into fun games:
As such, I have started exploring this concept with Habitica (you can learn more about my exploits in the “Habitica Crossover” series). However, I became disenchanted with it after some time because it did not offer much engagement for this. It is hard for me to be invested in pretty pixels without a compelling story to back them up, and only be focused on logging in my tasks and watching my points gauges get filled up. For gamification, this RPG for being productive was doing its job, but it was not good enough for me. I wanted more customisability and unpredictability in the mechanics of the game.
Description of the challenge
Overarching purpose
To help myself in staying accountable and productive in completing this goal, I have set up a motto for this challenge. It is semper prorsum, a Latin saying for "always forward". Through gamification, I hope to create something that I can look forward to, be it to see what kind of rewards and achievements I will be unlocking, to look out for what crazy challenge awaits me to be conquered, or to find out how much progress I have made in my work. In this way, instead of being held back by past mistakes and fears, I can take the one step forward in the direction of my goals that is set to generate countless steps more.
Having a cool motto is nice because it can serve as a catchphrase to remind myself about how deeply related the challenge is to my life, which makes it too significant for it to be ignored and be left on the back burner.
The specifics
I will be giving myself until the end of this year to complete this challenge, since trying to gamify my life from scratch is a really challenging undertaking.
For my first phase, I will complete a system where it will quantify what I do and develop some rewards and penalties (so that the reinforcement of any behaviour that makes me more productive can be done in both positive and negative ways).
For my second phase, I will make use of analytics tools such as point gauges and graphs to make my progress behaviour and motivate myself to improve on my previous performance in my tasks.
For my third phase, I will be integrating these personal systems into Habitica. With the points or rewards I accumulated in these systems, I can use them in exchange to make myself move faster in the game. Also, I can measure up to how another Habitica user has been progressing to add in the element of competition, so that I can catch up to others. Finally, by mixing my own games and the mechanics of Habitica, it will make the element of play stand out more in every task that I do.
As I could not wait to get on this challenge, I have already started this in August. However, it is going to take quite a lot of time before I can conclude what I am doing in this challenge, because I have to test these systems out and determine whether they are fun enough for me to progress smoothly in my work, but not so addictive that I push off the important work to get on with the game.
In my next post under “Life Challenges”, I will share some sneak peeks of what my gamified task management systems are like, and what kind of features I have built in to hack my own psychology that drives me to work harder.
What makes Habitica so great is its diverse community of players who want to get things done. In the time since I restarted using Habitica this year, I have found myself in a guild where I stayed active for some time. In addition, I have tried out some challenges and used the guilds and taverns to find out more about the awesome people they have there.
I was involved in a guild named as “Inspiration Station”. What it mainly does is to allow members to uplift each other by sharing quotes, poems and stories. The guild master motivates everyone to do so by giving out gems. I received some too, but the amount of gems I have is so little that it is not quite enough to get anything. In addition to the gems, the appreciation given by others through their likes and replies really boosted my morale and drove me to commit more time in searching or coming up with good quotes.
However, as the length of my posts became longer and I can’t quite seem to make up my mind on how many quotes I should share, I have since shifted my attention to maintaining a quote blog, on which I lovingly create collections of quotes. Link to blog here: https://embersinspiration.blogspot.com/
Hence, this guild master soon became my inspiration.
That level was simply crazy! It is quite rare to meet someone who has exceeded level 100! Each level requires easily hundreds to thousands of experience points. I cannot imagine how many tasks this person has to check off to get to this stage.
I also looked around in the tavern to get to know some strangers. Many of their profiles have their life stories and some of their achievements was mind-blowing. But before that, allow me to introduce the one behind the well-known “Use Case Spotlights” guild and the column that goes by the same name on the official Habitica blog. Their posts could easily reach many Habitica users.
I was amazed by the number of blogs and book reads shanaqui maintains. And I saw some lingo that I have not encountered before. Time to search up on these! Part of the fun about playing games, even on gamified productivity platforms like Habitica, is that you feel like you feel good about learning new “made-up” things even though these have no bearing in the real world (unless the community of famers become large enough or the game interesting itself for people to attach value to it; then the game becomes more of a commodity than a pastime).
I did not know that profiles can become so colourful that they put a smile on your face. It seemed like many Habiticians have many things going on for them. For me, I have the same situation too. I definitely have enough things to do and habits to maintain to get myself to level 100!
Back to the amazing users I discovered while scrolling through the Tavern.
It seems like the profiles I stumbled upon (I chose tiered users and high level ones to find out more about) usually present themselves as solo players or guild leaders. Maybe being in a party may not be as common as I thought.
This Habitician is a legend because of what comes next in the profile.
Through this serving wench's being overwhelmingly above my current level, and reaching heights that I have not even imagined before, I now learn that when one’s level is sufficiently high (maybe at 100?), one can rebirth and choose another class (be it a mage, warrior, rogue or healer). And it is kind of daring to start from all over again just for a class switch in order to get limited edition equipment. Just HOW NICE are these pixels?
On a side note, that pink coloured tree must be the beautiful cherry blossoms that stand to be admired during spring. Unfortunately, there are not quite enough pixels to faithfully recreate the shape of the sakura flower.
To sum up, I could not have sustained myself on Habitica for long without these amazing people. Unfortunately, the stats and characters that aim to simulate a role-playing game are too superficial to imbue much meaning to checking off your task, and not many challenges have stories that are interesting enough to get people hooked to fulfilling their tasks and acquire their next purpose in life.
