Reality Is Broken

When we’re in a concentrated state of optimistic engagement, it suddenly becomes biologically more possible for us to think positive thoughts, to make social connections, and to build personal strengths. We are actively conditioning our minds and bodies to be happier.

Awe is a unique emotion. According to many positive psychologists, it’s the single most overwhelming and gratifying positive emotion we can feel. In fact, neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall calls awe “the orgasm of positive emotions.”11

can. It doesn’t have moments, but events. Experiences that tickle the soul, sending shivers down the spine.”10

clearly defined, demanding activities that allow us to see the direct impact of our efforts.

In other words, we have to both be close enough to the action and see the results directly and quickly enough for work to satisfy our craving to make an impact. When we don’t have visible results that we can clearly link to our own efforts, it is impossible to take real satisfaction in our work. Unfortunately, for many of us this is true of our eve

Learning to stay urgently optimistic in the face of failure is an important emotional strength that we can learn in games and apply in our real lives. When we’re energized by failure, we develop emotional stamina. And emotional stamina makes it possible for us to hang in longer, to do much harder work, and to tackle more complex challenges.

With each epic win, our possibility space expands—dramatically. That’s why epic wins are so crucial to creating sustainable economies of engagement. They make us curious about what more we can do—and as a result, we are more likely to take positive action again in the future. Epic wins help turn a one-off effort into passionate long-term participat

Second, gamers aren’t afraid to fail. Failing in a good game is at the very least fun and interesting; it can also be instructive and even empowering.

And there’s an explicit call to action to do so, for players who complete all five stages of the game successfully. Spore has what game developers call a “primary win condition”: a supergoal that represents the ultimate achievement in the game. The primary win condition in Spore is to develop your single-cell creature into such a successful interga