WWYD - Contagious Attitudes

You may have an idea of what WWYD means, and I'll go ahead and be blunt; you're WAY off.

Over a three year span that just recently ended a few months ago, I had a weekly battle within myself. It was a battle between my normally positive, happy-go-lucky self, and a worn out, new-parent who was also working way too many hours.

This battle took place every week when I played the tabletop RPG, Dungeons and Dragons. I played the most positive, supportive, happy character that could ever exist. He constantly viewed everything through a lens of positivity. He wanted every character he encountered to succeed. It was intoxicating.

Each gaming session was usually three or four hours on Saturday nights after my wife and child went to sleep, and that positivity just kept bleeding more and more into my actual life. The sessions would end, and I felt like I was floating on the clouds. At first, it was only for hours after, but eventually, it was for days after. My goofy, little, hobbit-like character named Yan was somehow trying to get the best out of me, too.

Ever since then, I've been asking myself "What would Yan do?" Normally what he would have done was way more kind and supportive than I, James, ever feel like being. It reminds me a lot of what James Clear wrote in the book Atomic Habits. He wrote that people who were wanting to break bad habits, such as eating unhealthy food, were far more successful when asking themselves, "What would a healthy person do?" This is along those same lines, except to take it further, I've seen what I'm capable of doing, since I did it as Yan for those three years. I know what Yan would do, and I know I can do it, too.

I know that roleplaying games like D&D have done amazing things for people, such as raising their social and speaking skills, but even as an avid supporter of the hobby and an avid believer in positivity (as well as negativity) being contagious, I don't think I ever even considered the chance of a character I played as once a week to affect me the way it did.

I don't often feel like a friendly person. I like being alone, and I am terrible at small-talk. I'll just be sitting there wracking my brain of what I could possibly say to a person, but I somehow get complimented on how I know everybody and am friends with everybody. I give all the credit to my WWYD mantra.

I think that roleplaying games are a beautiful opportunity for people to build each other up, and this has only reinforced that view for me. While it has already been a few months since Yan's adventure ended, I still think back on that character fondly, and I imagine he's still rooting me on and building me up, just as he did for those three years. I plan on making him proud.