"[Story] How I stopped learned to stop worrying and love the game"

#PokemonGO: Nobody has enough stardust. Everyone's collection is flawed. You finally found a 100% IV Poke...and it has a terrible moveset, eh. It took you 30 raspberries and an equal number of Ultraballs, but you finally captured that ultra-rare Poke for your Pokedex... now you just need walk a zillion kms for candy to power it from level 4, right!I started playing the game in August, a month after my young son started. Through July, I was just taking him on walks at the local hot spots to be a good dad. Then I started meeting the dads of the kids, strangers and schoolfriends alike. At their encouragement, I downloaded the game for myself and quickly identified all the flaws in my son's approach to the game.I discovered that the two Vaporeon's he had powered up had 64% and 56% IVs, respectively. He evolved anything he could without regard to its quality and poured stardust into any and every Pokemons that struck his fancy.But me? I had the benefit of hindsight. I would not repeat those mistakes. I took off like a rocket, catching every Pokemon that crossed my path, hoarding stardust, using low CP but super effective Pokemon to defeat more powerful defenders and gain more stardust and coins for eggs. Despite my efforts to help my son as much as I could, I soon passed him in levels. I planned my evolutions carefully, hoarded candy, walked 100s of kms to incubate 100s of eggs.I was going to rule! Then, after a recent midnight gym bender, I stopped at the local hotspot to replenish my items. It was very quiet, just a couple of other people making the rounds, but one young man dropped lures at all 9 Stops. I caught up with him to thank and we ended up in a small group shooting the breeze and talking about our buddies, collections, Pokedex's. We were raking in Magikarp hand over fist and I went from 390 to 420 candy in short order. I was looking forward to evolving my third Gyarados from that 98% IV Magikarp I'd been saving and I worried myself about whether he'd get stuck with Twister.Then, disaster! The combination of exhaustion, darkness, distraction led to my evolving, not transferring, some crap Karp that I'd caught! Like that, 400 Magikarp candy were flushed down the goldfish cemetery.As I lay in bed later that night, wife sleeping sweetly by my side, I looked over my own collection of Pokemon and contemplated my son's. It struck me that it wasn't just those 400 Magikarp candies I'd flushed. I'd thrown stardust at a high IV Sandslash, rare in these parts, that would probably never have enough CP to be useful. I had thrown even more into a Poliwrath, Victreebell, and others only to find better stronger ones in the wild. I evolved 9 Evees into Flareons and Jolteons before I finally gave up and used "Rainer" on a low CP 93% IV Evee, only to catch a higher CP and IV the very next day.My collection, at the end of the day, was no better than my kids. His two crappy Vaporeons were still winning gyms for him just as easily as the 4 90+% IV Exeggcutors I'd evolved into lowly Seed Bombers. The only real difference, I'd come to realize, is that he was having a blast playing the game and I was obsessing over the numbers. He celebrated every catch of an uncommon. A gym takeover was, for him, like winning a championship fight.I've almost, not quite but almost, forgotten about those 400 Magikarp candy. I threw all my stardust into that Vaporeon because I wanted one, not because it was the smart thing to do. And I started to play the game--emphasis on play. Its a game. And your collection is supposed to flawed. If we all had gilded collections, this game would suck. What's fun is meeting people and asking about their buddy and their top attacker/defender and who they most like. What's fun is walking and getting into better shape, and experiencing the world around us again. What's fun is sharing tips on hidden nest locations or finding people willing to help you take down an L10 gym. What's is being the first person to shout, "Hey, there is an [insert rare Pokemon name here] over here! Hurry!"There is so much to like about this game. Stop worrying about what you don't have: A tracker, a lure in your driveway, a gym in your schoolyard, etc. Enjoy the game.TL/DR: I enjoy the game a lot more once I got over all the obsessing over CP, stardust, movesets and IVs. This game was not meant to be "won," it was meant to be "played!" via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2em3Brx