Most games have some form of quantifiable measure on opportunities. In the early days of gaming you had a number of "lives" which reflected attempts to complete whatever task was set before you. Additional lives were earned by reaching a certain scoring benchmark.

Today's games (particularly MMORPG) do away with many of those conventions. However, the current limitation is time. Not necessarily that a Tekken match only lasts a specified time, or a race has some clock you need to beat, but life seems to only hold so much time for recreational endeavors. I can burn hours playing Halo 2 matches or studying Accounting for an impending final, but time is a finite measure used to uantify opportunities.

The decisions of life have of late been more pronounced, and--in all honesty--self-inflicted. Not only am I active in the Gamespot community, for all that is worth, but also active in a number of other areas. In an effort to track my time I have allocated my time to the following commitments/activities (in no particular order):
Work
MBA
Halo 2 Night
Finishing Final Fantasy II
Preparing for the advent of my first child
Attend church
Scritpure study
Date night with my wife
Sleep
Reviewing games on Gamespot
Beta Testing new games as available
Offering creative direction for a new Divided Kingdoms server
Looking for a new job (including interviewing)
Networking to improve professional contacts
Participate in Sony's Gamer Advisory Panel (GAP)
Pondering
Driving
Eating
Playing Lumines as a relaxing "chaser" for other more intense games
. . .and the list goes on.

Unfortunately some of these activities are mutually exclusive. In order to do what I want I must then sacrifice something else. The problem is that the things I need to do in order to support the things I want, or value, most are the activities I am most inclined to cast by the wayside.

What would be really beneficial would be to get extra lives to do everything I both need and want to do. Unfortunately the indicator at the top of the screen says I only have one, and that one has had more close calls than the player who made it to the end of Life Force.

Just a thought . . .or more.