We learn from anything in life, be it after watching an inspiring video, or driving in a congested traffic, or even drinking too much. What we learned in any event would sometimes eventually become a life inspiration. Here’s what I’ve learned after playing Real Escape Games
1. See things for what it is
When I first started playing Real Escape Games, whenever I face with any puzzles, I would always apply 3-layer-thought-process.
Eg. What letter is next in this sequence? And this is in a prison break room on the wall
O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, __
My thought process would immediately be:
Prison break = prisoners scribbling = something related to how they want to escape
or
Scribbling on wall = tools the prison use = something related to something sharp
But it always happened that, what’s written is the clue and you can already solve it as is.. there’s no need to think further for what it is.
In which it applies to what happens in normal life as well: We sometimes would react overly too much what something happens:
Eg: A friend suddenly turn down an invite to a party in the last minute after confirming a few times.
Immediately the thought process would go from maybe he wanted to be with other friends than you = he did that on purpose = he hate you.
But it always happened that, he’s just not free.
Almost no one is so free to screw up your life. You just watch too much TV. See things for what it is, nothing more.
2. If you’re smart, just solve
When we first started, each of us practically do everything, from always passing the torch between each other, to flipping through everything and any movable object, to barging all locks, overlooking all clues, and of course screaming frantically when we’re stuck.
Then we found out it just doesn’t work in the short timeline, hence we started to assign roles in our core team when we play any rooms, two frontliners, Wei Ming (aka Dory Croft) with Cheech (aka Bacon Columbus), who would do all the searching and attending to locks, while another two solvers, Jing (aka Rosie Ring) with me (aka Scooby Holmes), who would just focus on solving. (We still share the screaming frantically portion)
The reason is simple: When I’m searching, I’m not attending to locks. When I attend to locks, I’m not thinking to solve.
Since we, the solver are the ones that is less frustrated to have our brains get hurt, then we just focus on what we do best.
In which it’s similar to our normal lives, especially in work. I know I’m smart (everyone says that to me too). It may sound like a show off, but I do that to remind myself that since I’m smart, then I should do what smart people do: Think and solve. I know not everyone could do that, so I know I should be the one doing it. Likewise, I’m a bad negotiator, so I remind myself to let someone else to do negotiating for me.
Hence If you know you’re smart, do what smart people should do.
3. Someone blur would save you
Once we played for the second time, we already know we need someone blur on our team. It’s because no matter how hard we try to solve a puzzle, our team’s thought process is very similar, and we’ll almost always fail on certain types of puzzles.
Hence when it comes to introducing Real Escape Game to any friend, and explaining how it works, if the first impression is: “Har.. i don’t want la, I don’t use my brain after working hours wan” or even a blurer friend: “………………………………………………………..Huh?” Then we’ll be so glad and say “Good.. I don’t need you to, come.. let’s play”
In which it’s just the same in normal life. Our thought process is trained to be the same when we face any particular issue/problems, and someone out of perspective would often gives us insights on what is there all along, we just can’t realize it.
Hence, keep those blur friends close.. (it’ll make you look smarter too) 😀