On Knowing Oneself

When I was a kid, World of Warcraft was basically my entire universe. By the age of 12, my total in-game playtime across all characters summed up to a couple of years (no exaggeration!).

The funny thing was, despite all those hours, I had never hit max level, never gotten insanely wealthy, never mastered a specific class or profession. Granted, I started playing around age 7, but it genuinely took until I was 12 to finally reach max level—thanks to the Death Knight’s shortcut starting zone (lol).

My main issue was always the same—I constantly started new characters (known as "alts") to experience fresh classes, abilities, and races. The thrill of novelty and the sheer potential of each new combination kept me grinding through those starting areas I'd already seen hundreds of times. Of course, eventually, I'd get bored and jump onto the next alt. In gamer lingo, this made me an official "altoholic."

But then, in my late teens, something interesting happened. After years of slowly leveling alts, experimenting with professions, and exploring every corner of Azeroth (around 135 square miles of virtual territory, for context), I suddenly realized I'd absorbed a massive amount of knowledge. I instinctively knew the strengths and weaknesses of every class, economic vulnerabilities of every profession, and could navigate nearly the entire map by memory.

So, when I dove into more advanced gameplay, like mastering the player-driven economy (trading, speculation, market manipulation) or competitive player-versus-player matches, I discovered I had an enormous advantage.

This same pattern played out with my deep dive into League of Legends, a hyper-competitive 5v5 team game where you select a champion (with pre-defined abilities) and battle it out. From the beta onward, I repeated my classic cycle: I'd pick a champion, obsessively learn their strategies, play them intensely for about a dozen hours, then get bored and switch to another champion.

I never became a hyper-specialist who dominated using a single champion. Instead, I found myself constantly facing players who poured hundreds of hours into one champion and one playstyle—they were incredibly focused and effective. Yet, as the years passed, something fascinating occurred: my scattered approach became an advantage. Because I'd extensively played nearly every champion, I understood their tactics, weaknesses, and win conditions intimately.

And so, unintentionally, I became an expert—not of a single champion or a specific role, but of the entire game. I started seeing broader strategic patterns rather than isolated interactions.

My whole life, people had told me this trait was a major flaw. I internalized that guilt deeply, viewing my superpower as merely a guilty pleasure. It wasn't until more than a decade later, through therapy, that I began to see it differently. I realized my "flaw" wasn't entirely negative. Sure, it created moments of disruption, but it also energized the most passionate, engaged parts of myself—parts activated only by immersion in novelty and the excitement of future possibilities.

This revelation led me to embrace my unique strength fully. Without this approach, my life would lack the diverse "charcuterie board" of experiences that I thrive on. I’m not built to be a hyper-specialist who dedicates 20 years to researching something ultra-specific, like the magnetic properties of rare metals (though thank goodness those people exist!). And that’s okay.

In League of Legends, there's a term called "Win Condition," meaning the exact goal a champion or team must achieve to secure victory—like getting kills, out-farming opponents, or successfully coordinating team fights.

In my own life, my "Win Condition" is leveraging my deep, generalized knowledge and slowly-earned expertise across a vast array of interests. That's how I win.