Playing some Transformers games with Jason last week, I could feel myself getting frustrated.
Being frustrated is a novel feeling for me, and being frustrated at my friends even stranger.
That was one of the moments when I realized: The pandemic is getting to me.
It just is. I am sure everyone is managing in their own ways: I am pretty fortunate, myself, to still be employed and have a regular schedule. I can connect with people online to play games, and most of them are willing and able to do so.
That doesn't mean the strain isn't wearing on me. It's been over a month now and I don't know about you, but I don't think we've seen the worst of it.
So I started to think about what I can do to try and keep myself calm during these times and I remembered that there are some pretty simple breathing exercises that help. I thought that maybe if I consciously took a breath between plays, that might help me slow down enough to not get irritated at anyone.
As a bonus, it might help me see plays I was overlooking and perform the best play possible.
I began by doing this while goldfishing Hunter-Killer and it's more challenging than I thought it would be! Twenty plus years of playing Magic have given me a lot of shortcuts, some good, some bad. Slowing my play down to accomplish a conscious breath is hard to remember.
Still, I'm making the practice so that I can exercise patience. Hopefully that will be something I can talk more about in the future, to see how it's impacting my experience.
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