NPC Traits for Life

As I go about life, I have started feeling lost. Consuming more than a dozen motivational videos and article, it comes down to systems and finding your purpose, your goal, a vision, and something you want to achieve, as long as you can visualize it, you can work towards it.
It may just be me, but I dont have that, in this world, it is so easy to do nothing, and it is so costly to do anything to improve your life by even a small amount on a societal status level, I looked at the only two things that are my glitters, things I find joy in without a price, anime, and gaming.
For anime, it is a story by the author, we dont have a role to play, we cant control, we just enjoy someone else’s journey. However, for games, you do get to grind and improve your skills, get experience and slowly follow through the quest line. Ah, the quest line, I do not have that in real life. But is there anything in games that can assist me in improving my life?
As soon as you start the game, as you define your player, as you choose what traits you would like and what expertise you want, it becomes a journey with assistance, you have a proper way of leveling up and improving, its well defined and clear to go through, you also have quest markings and elements to guide you along so you can achieve more and then someday in the future, finish your story. Most of these games have short stories that take a few hours of campaign, which if we transformed into real life could take months or even years. However, it is an assisted journey, even if you don’t know at all what to do, someone will remind you, a notification, the map, etc. Even if you are in a mission and you get lost, the best way is to follow the enemies, follow the obstacles and you will for sure get to the boss fight, be the hero, and complete what you were meant to do.
The real life is similar, we do have obstacles and going through them, doing the hard tasks can help you improve, but does it guarantee fulfillment? maybe. Nobody can be sure, the future is very unpredictable. We cant even choose what traits we want? I would personally love to have more self-esteem and confidence, better articulation and just a beautiful greek god like body. However, thinking about it, I have been extremely unhealthy and obese in the past, but at the same time, I have worked out consistently to look better and better. I was not given the opportunity to choose my character and traits, I was just given the opportunity to build it, so that is one.
The issue remains the quest line, as there is none, you may find fulfillment, you may not. It has been a dream of mine to live a life of no regrets but after a certain point, I realised, regret is over a life-time, you can regret or not regret your decision in the moment, but in the timeline of your life? it may turn up for sure. Decisions are scary, and it requires so much thinking to make any decision, should we do it? would it help? how would it help me right now? is this a bad habit overtime? do I really need it right now? what if it goes wrong? what would I go about if it goes right? what if other people get to know I made this decision? so on and so forth. Decision fatigue is a thing, and it plagues us more and more in real life as there is so much more to decide from. There are so many options, we can never be happy no matter what we choose.
There was this study that concluded in happiness in decision is inversely proportional to choices. If you had very few choices and you chose one that made you happy, it is easy to live with it and move on, but if there are a lot of choices, no matter what you choose, a part of your mind would start wondering what if I had taken one of the other dozen choices and such.
Going back to gaming, the element that always stays consistent in the game, are NPCs or Non Playable Characters. For most of us, the NPC have a certain pattern they follow, they open up their shop at a certain amount of time, they have a way of responding based on where they are in the story, and where you are in the same story, they do not make decisions, they follow a pattern that has been hard-coded into memory, similar to habits that they do not question at any point of time. Though NPCs lack one characteristic that is inconsistent with real life, NPCs dont grow, but we do. No matter what habit we practice, we will get better at it, if we find it fun and have passion, we will find a way to improve it and find better ways to do it also.
As boring as it may sound, I have realised that there are certain NPC traits that can be helpful in life. A few things that jump right out by incorporating NPC traits would be -

1. Reducing in Decision Fatigue
2. Consistent Habits
3. Confidence in Repetitive Actions
4. Patterns to tackle situations as they come. However, sticking towards the topic, there are some disadvantages that NPCs have also -
5. No Freedom of movement.
6. No Growth in the story line.
7. Reduction in relevance as the story progresses. While some of the disadvantages that NPCs have in their life in the game are not applicable entirely in the reality. It is important to keep in mind as we progress as a playable character in the game of life. Moving forward, I love games and everyone wants to be a hero of their own journey and achieve something, leave behind a legacy or save the world. We do lack a clear defined quest line, and we also lack the boss fight at the end for us to aim and train for. However, with all the information in the world available to us, and given the game of life is a tidy bit more complicated than a game developed in history. It should be alright to incorporate some NPC traits into our Player persona, and understand what to change. The two great strengths of NPCs are consistency and confidence. The lack of decision fatigue to go about their action, and the follow through with their actions without wondering if its wrong, the sheer unwavering will to follow through every single game day. However, they do lack a sense of growth and freedom, which constraints them to a certain section of the game. The NPC Traits to include in real life :- — Consistent habits to follow through without doubt, the habits should be able to provide either a sense of growth, or freedom (in real or abstract sense). Examples include -
8. Exercise regularly -
   1. Define your environment - park or road, gym, backyard, etc.
   2. Define your activity - running, weight-training, HIIT, push ups, etc.
   3. Setup cue and craving for the activity - after waking up, before going to work, before going to sleep, etc.
   4. Clear growth vision over the long time - increase weight, better features
9. Creative Skill -
   1. Define your skill - writing, coding, drawing, consulting, researching, etc.
   2. Define checkpoints - clients, projects, artworks, case studies, publications, etc.
   3. Setup consistent timing - every day, once every two days, once a week.
   4. Reward and result - Publication, sharing, feedback.
10. Self Care -
    1. Define the time - After waking up, After laundry, Before going to sleep.
    2. Define the activity - making your bed, grooming, brushing your teeth, shower, etc.
    3. Define the reward - Feeling less clustered, feeling fresh, etc. So on and So forth. Habits do they take time to form, but these consistent NPC habits that can be incorporated through NPC traits can reduce decision fatigue and make more time to actually make decisions towards the future. — Purpose or calling, to find inspiration in the activities that feel rewarding but are difficult to complete. Activities with a sense of fulfillment and passion. A Belief. Examples include -
11. Build Systems -
    1. Find activities you enjoy (that have resistance) - solving problems in code, writing and brainstorming articles, creating art or designing for people.
    2. Convert these activities into a system to roll over everyday, consistently. Reduce decision fatigue and get repetitions.
    3. Improve the system with efficiency or better rewarding activities
12. Calling -
    1. Find fulfillment - Activities that lead to a result with fulfillment, where money is not an object, and status is not rewarded either.
    2. Find satisfaction - Activities that require you to keep getting better, but even as it is, fills you with hope and zeal to go at it another day. So on and so forth. It is important to have a belief and build systems and find your calling because the quest line is not defined for us, we have to build it over time. A popular quote I once heard was you can only believe in something you don’t know about. If you know it, you dont need to believe in it, and if you believe in it, you dont know it for sure. That is our quest, the journey, we are not sure, but it is ours, so we believe in it. The monsters, the obstacles, the boss fights, we dont know when they will come and how they will come in what shape or form, but we can prepare for it through our systems and to find our calling. — Character & Role NPCs have defined characters and a role they play, a shop keeper, a bard, a inn keeper, a guard, a blacksmith, a magician, and more. All these characters follow through a certain pattern to maximize their own existence. Believe in your character and define your consistent habits
13. Atomic Skills -
    1. Figure out the consistent small skills that make up your character - Coding, Sketching, Painting, Writing, Communicating, etc.
    2. Find connections in all the skills that make your character/role.
14. Network -
    1. Reach out to people and sell your knowledge, and always be open to incorporate more by buying some.
    2. Freely share knowledge about what you know and activities going about to showcase your fashion.
    3. Be consistent with what you are, and portray the same.
15. Consistency -
    1. Act on your atomic skills every day.
    2. Learn and understand where to work on, and what to improve.
    3. Create your own side quests and achievements for just the minor character/role that is a part of your being and complete it. For most characters in games, they have skill trees that can be leveled up, dozens of roles included that you can improve on over time, every one with their own side quests and achievements, for betters skills to unlock and be more dazzling in a way. Overall, Reality is an infinite game in finite amount of time. While games are finite but can exist forever without degrading in energy or running out of time at any point. The important thing is to keep learning from every source we can to improve at everything we decide to take a role in, our own side quests, our own achievements and checkpoint. The point is not to finish the game of real life, it is to have enough quests to fill us up with pride and fewer regrets so when it does come to an end, the list of achievements are mile high. For this, I am building my own Status Window project, a side quest, to incorporate NPC traits that are habits and actions, reduce decision fatigue and give experience over time. Skill trees, talents, status effects, and different campaigns as I go through life. The current version is - status.pandeakshat.com, but I am building more and improving it over time. Thank you for reading.