Hi, My name is Carey and I am addicted to Animal Crossing – City Folk for Nintendo Wii.

There, I said it.

This is my favorite video game.  I play hours  upon hours, every week.

What is Animal Crossing you ask?  The basic idea is to build and take care of your town.  My town is called Sparksty.  My character name is Princess.

I tend to my flower garden, I water my flowers & pull weeds.  I fish out trash from my river and ocean.  I visit & talk to my neighbors to make sure they are happy.  I take them medicine when they are sick.  I run errands for them and in return they bestow gifts upon me as a thank you.  I also send gifts to my neighbors.  I send them just because, not because I am looking for something back., even though sometimes they do suprise you with a gift back.  I play games with them such as Hide & Seek.  All this makes for a happy town.

If you don’t take care of your town or be nice to your neighbors, the neighbors get upset and leave, you get overrun by weeds, your town gets a bad rating and no new neighbors want to move there, etc.

I also have a house to take care of and build up.  To do so, it takes Bells, which is the currency.  To earn Bells, I can sell the fish I catch in the river and ocean. I can sell the fruit that grows on my trees.  I can shake trees and knock bells out of them.  I can find fossils and either donate them to my museum or sell them.  I can sell other items as well that I don’t want.  After all my hard work, I can go buy new furniture or work on expansions on my home.

I caught a Tuna!

It’s very addicting.  I want my town to be nice and I want nice things for my house.  All that takes time and hard work.

So what lessons can be learned here?  Very basic, simple lessons really, but ones that get forgotten every day by every day people.

#1 – How you treat others, reflects directly back on you.

#2 – Take pride in your home and surroundings.

#3 – Great rewards takes persistence and hard work.

So ask yourselves this:

Do you actually know all your neighbors by name, talk to them or just say hello?  Do you offer assistance when they need it?

Do you put in the extra effort at work to get the job done to earn your salary or do you do the bare minimum and complain when you don’t get the higher salary or promotion?  Do you feel just because you have been there for a long time that it is due to you?

When you are at the park with your kids, do you pick up that soda can that was left behind or do you assume someone eventually will come along and get it?  You know what they say when you assume….  Take pride in that park.  That’s where your kids play.  You should want them to be in a nice place.

Do you use common courtesies when you interact with others?  Say please and thank you?  Hold the door for someone?  Greet someone with a simple hello?  Clean up after yourself?  Respect differences of opinion or do you blast them for not agreeing with you?

When you sit back and look, these are not hard things to do, so we really don’t have an excuse.  Just need to be reminded every so often.  So on that note, I am heading back to Sparksty to shake some trees and make some bells and check on a neighbor or two.  Tomorrow however, I am walking next door to my real neighbors to just say hi and see how they are doing.