Challenges of Endings and Finding Closure after Finishing Video Games and other Enjoyable Tasks

Have you ever finished a video game or TV series and have that moment at the end wondering what you'll do with your life and free time moving forward? There's this sense of grief when finishing something you enjoy and realizing that you can never experience it for the first time again.

Yes we can rewatch series, we can replay video games, but it's never the same...

Have you ever noticed yourself avoiding completing the main quest in a game just to keep the fun moving? How many hours have you logged in Skyrim and still haven't defeated Alduin?

I've logged literally hundreds of hours in Skyrim completing side quests, boosting my skills and trying to fill all of the skill trees. I've completed 99% of the main quest: just haven't defeated Alduin.

Why?

Not because I can't. Because I feel like if I defeat Alduin, despite the infinite side quests and areas of the map to explore, not even including the DLCs, I'm afraid I'll lose the drive and motivation that keeps me coming back to Skyrim. Sure I could create new characters and go again, but it's not the same. I've already finished. That same drive isn't there. So I continue to put off that final battle.

What's so hard about endings?

We're praised so heavily for completing tasks and focus so intently on reaching a destination, achieving goals. We forget about the journey itself.

In school we focus on completing homework assignments, learning the information long enough to take the test and regurgitate whatever has been drilled into our heads for the past 6-weeks.

In our professional lives we focus on completing that project, or getting freight stocked, getting as many customers through the line as we can, completing documentation at the end of they day so we can go home.

Even in our personal lives, we're praised for emptying the dishwasher (even though this task literally never ends), or finishing vacuuming, achieving that next belt in Karate or winning the final Soccer game of the season.

Completion. Endings. Goals.

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So if we're praised so heavily for completion, why do we put it off? Why do we procrastinate? What's so hard about it?

There's such a need for closure after finishing video games or other tasks.

Sometimes when we complete a task it's "whew! Done!" and we can relax before the next thing hits.

Other times, I think when the task itself is the fun part, we're left with a void where that activity used to be and the joy of the storyline or the battles used to hold our attention. Do we have that same sense of adventure in our everyday life? Emptying the dishwasher isn't exactly an epic battle (although, I did watch a woman have an epic battle against a garbage can once... Lady went in fully prepared with a stick and fought valiantly).

I think the adventure is where most of the fun lies. Take time to enjoy the journey to the end, rather than focusing on the end itself. The end will eventually come. There's no need to rush.