Candy Crush and Life

Candy crush is a metaphor for life. That is all there is to it. 

You sit there, and you play your game, and you have your time do accomplish your goal and then you're done. You are given a situation, and you have the option to say yes or no- (that's the re-roll, if you're using an iPhone). And you can always turn down a difficult situation, but you don't. You don't turn it down because you WELCOME the challenge. You look forward to having the challenge. You take your first steps, and just like in life, once you've made that first move, there's no going back. You're in it to win or to lose, but the stakes are set and you've got nowhere to move but forward. So you're stuck with whatever life is going to throw at you. And you can play for as long as you want, that puzzle is still going to be there, waiting to be solved. You've got to seize that game by the horns and make it your bitch. 

So what do you do? Well, the rules of candy crush are simple. You try to accomplish the goal with a puzzle in your way. Sometimes you've got to get rid of all of the obstacles, sometimes you've got to ferry a precious fruit from one end of the puzzle to the other. So you start on your way, moving pieces, you've only got 40 moves to do it, or you've got a time limit, and the entire time you're moving, there's that dark nemesis- chocolate- trying to overtake you. Every time you make a move, it makes a move. And that shit is SENTIENT. It KNOWS where your most valued pieces are, and it will make straight for them, just like that tricky devil we call life, finding that one thing that gave you sanity and destroying it. 

That is the chocolate of your life, dear readers. That is what life is like. For every move you make, remember that there is a dark nemesis making an equal and possibly more devastating move against you. But remember, that one of your moves in the right spot can demolish those evil intentions of the candy pieces, and break down its entire design. Remember that just one move can take down at least three of its moves. You've just got to be lucky and smart. 

And luck is a big part of it. What if you've got a match up at the top, where the pieces come from, so you don't know what's coming next? Well that's life. You NEVER know what's coming next. But say it’s not chocolate. Say it’s a move-sensitive bomb that is counting down from 3 and not 8 like a normal move bomb, because that’s the hand you were friggin dealt? You've only got three moves to disarm a bomb that's going to go off. Then what do you do? If it's at the top, and it's stuck there, you just have to bring it down, or bring down the pieces next to it, and hope that the candy crush gods will provide. You don't KNOW. You CAN’T know. You have to live on faith, just like the rest of us. What kind of candy pieces is the randomizer going to throw at me today? I don't know, but I've got to have faith that for every bomb it gives me, it will give me a matching pair from above. Amen. 

And what about when you screw up? The game is over, you blew it. Who among us has not completely failed at solving a real-life puzzle? Who among us has a perfect candy crush score on the first try, with those glorious three stars and the trophy for having the most stars out of all of your friends? Of course not. No. Only one person out of your friends can have that trophy, and it is not you. It is me. But you lose, you restart, and you try again. C’mon. Because problems regenerate every 20 minutes or so, dear readers, and don’t deceive yourselves into believing they don’t, because you can watch them generate themselves if you do nothing but sit there all day. Those problems will grow up and they will stare you down! But those aren’t problems- they’re Opportunities For Success!! Seize them! Own them! 

And every puzzle is different because it's randomized using some kind of terrible machine that seems to always get it wrong, and then you re-roll until it's something you think you can solve but LO! IT IS NOT! Because that's life, dear readers. That. Is. Life. And sometimes you go at a really difficult situation and you think to yourself, 'there is no way I could possibly do this. This is going to take for-fucking ever. Don't I have something better to do with my time?' But no you do not, because this is YOUR life. This is YOUR choice, and you will not back down from this challenge like a pussy. So you go in there, and when you do, it's one of those levels where you make four moves and all of a sudden a salted chocolate candy comes down spontaneously next to a striped candy and you wipe out that board like it's a fucking candy holocaust with little chocolate pieces running and screaming for the hills, because you are a candy GOD.

But Are you a candy god? Are you really? Remember that the salted candy and the striped candy come from the randomizer, and not you. Remember that the plentitude of matches that wiped out all of your chocolate nemeses were built by the candy that fell from above. Remember these things and be humbled, because those things did not come from you. And remember that you doubted, at the beginning, that it would even be possible, and you had no idea that the level was one of the ones with only three colors so it was actually pretty easy, because you didn't look ahead on the online walk-throughs LIKE A CHEATER WOULD. Because you have some faith in the candy crush randomizer, which did, after all, provide you with the tools and the puzzle that made this feeling of success possible. Those matches don't always happen, and they don't happen for everyone. We all have that friend who's stuck on level 7 or something. To them, all we can offer is a shake of our head and the sympathy of our hearts. But we also all have that friend we aspire to be, the one who is at level 200 and counting, and never seems to get stuck, but who we also suspect secretly has no life. So remember to be humble, but to be proud, and to always forge on to the next level.