To this day, one of my all-time favourite games is Devil May Cry 3, my introduction to the series. I was around twelve or thirteen when I picked it up, and it was a very hard game for me. Clearing each level was a significant struggle, yet the style and coolness of the experience kept me in it. I remember spending hours walking around, exploring, and trying to discover places I hadn’t been before.

It’s a staple DMC trait to tease you with items in clear sight that are just out of reach. I say tease because those items are never as easy to get as they seem — and I fell for it every time. Who knows how long I’d spend trying to reach them. I remember pulling every trick I could think of — wall jumps, air attacks that pushed me a few inches higher, and farming red orbs to unlock the double jump. The limits imposed by the game felt more like a challenge than a constraint. Reluctant to accept defeat, I was set on outsmarting the developers and bending the game to my will. In reality, I was just trying to brute-force my way toward a quick reward.

That kind of item tease is common in games. Chests behind untraversable fences. Equipment visible through unbreakable windows. Consumables placed just an inch too high for your character’s jump. Out there in plain sight, tempting you into taking a small detour before continuing on your way. I was often so enticed by what looked like the path of least resistance that I’d forget my actual objective altogether. More often than not, it turned out to be either impossible or far more difficult than it first appeared.

Extrapolating that to my own life, looking online for solutions to every problem has become the norm. There’s never a shortage of options, each claiming to be the most optimized approach. There’s always a “hack” — a faster, smarter way that feels like an industry secret waiting to be uncovered. It’s no longer just about solving the problem, but about solving it in the best way, in the shortest time, with the least effort.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the number of “better” ways to do anything, but the easy path only exists in comparison. When you’re moving forward, that comparison doesn’t really matter. The more we chase better paths, the less we walk the one we’re on. I’d say the most dangerous distractions aren’t the obvious ones — they’re the ones that feel productive. Comparing approaches and optimizing before getting started materially pushes results further away.

There’s simply no shortcut that replaces moving forward.

In DMC, I’d eventually stumble upon those items I had spent so long trying to reach much the level, after I’d completely forgotten about it.

Turns out I didn’t need a shortcut.

I just needed to keep going.