Thought: Think

It is often said that the current culture of the United States, my home country, rewards and encourages instant-gratification, impatience, and a severe lack of focus. In my experience this is quite true, and it presents a severe handicap for anyone attempting to improve or test ideas in League of Legends.

There is a significant extent to which one can improve simply through brute force. Play often enough and through simple osmosis and observation almost all players will get better at the game. However, eventually they will reach a wall which cannot be breached by simply force. Eventually, all players have to stop, reflect, and consciously consider what is required to continue moving foward.

This is where the culture of the now, the instantaneous, and the immediate undermines efforts to progress. It takes time, thought, and patience to step back and deconstruct the events of a game into digestible, informative bites. Meanwhile the large, friendly "Play Again" button presents an invitation to the next adrenaline rush, the IP counter looms in the corner begging to increase, and the thrill or disappointment of losing or gaining Elo defies the concept of a moment's pause. Who has time for analysis when there are game to be played?

Our distractibility manifests itself in many ways. Players don't practice their last-hitting outside of games, even after particularly horrendous performances. They don't test junglers and their routes, even though it's the single easiest form of practice in the game. Not a moment is spent thinking about where they are, what they are doing. All of these myriad obstacles, and countless others, conspire to constrain a player's potential.

The solution to all these problems is simple. Stop, and think. Maybe for just a few minutes the first time, maybe fifteen minutes later. Gradually, carefully exercise your ability to sit and think about something without distractions. Relearn and rediscover what it means to focus.

It's hard in a word of apps, facebook updates, texts, and constant connectedness, but the ability to simply think is one which will serve you well beyond the virtual conflicts of Runeterra.