By Chrissy Bernal

If your kids are like mine, they LOVE the Angry Birds game app.  (Okay, so I love it, too.)  This game is so popular that they now even have stuffed animals of the Angry Birds.

If you’re unfamiliar with Angry Birds, it’s a simplistic, cartoon game where you aim your bird and launch it from a sling shot towards the pigs that are sheltered and hiding amongst various obstacles.  There is a degree of Physics involved as you have to aim properly so that the obstacles will “domino” and get rid of the pigs.  You get points for the destruction you cause and for how many birds you have left over when you’ve managed to get rid of all the pigs.  You’re even given gold stars depending on how well you executed the level.

My daughter and I were discussing the levels we had just conquered and how we were able to earn the highly sought after 3 stars when it dawned on me that valuable life lessons could actually be taught here.

1. Sometimes you think you’re aiming spot-on.  You shoot your bird over and over and it just won’t knock down the obstacles properly.  You may knock out some of the pigs, but it’s just not doing it efficiently to clear the course.  So, you have to reevaluate.  You adjust your aim by a couple of degrees in a different direction.  You release your bird and voila! Success! 
   
   It’s sometimes that way in real life.  You’re working hard on something and it’s just not happening like it should.  What do you do?  You have to step back, take a look at the big picture, reevaluate and adjust your aim.  You’d be amazed at how adjusting your plan of action by just a smidge can bring you great results.
    
2. There are several different types of birds that you can use for your attack.  Each has their own special capability.  For instance, there are birds that are large and can be catapulted at a faster velocity for an exacting attack.  There are birds that act like dynamite.  There are birds that are simply used for gently knocking down things.  Then there are the boomerang birds.  Those are some of my favorite birds.  You shoot them out of the sling shot.  Then, at the right time, you tap the screen again and it causes the bird to reverse its direction and ram into the target.  However, sometimes, I find that it’s actually better to use the boomerang birds as simply a larger object used for ramming and knocking stuff down.
   
   It boils down to thinking out of the box.  If you’re having difficulty completing a task in life with the tools you’ve been given, you have to think out of the box and find alternative ways to use the tools you’ve been given.  Make sure you’re not limiting something’s abilities by seeing it at only its face value.

Some of life’s most valuable lessons can be learned from Angry Birds.  It’s about working smarter, not harder.  When you’re trying to cross the finish line, you must evaluate the big picture, examine the tools you’ve been given and all their possible uses and figure out the best course of action.  And if at first you don’t succeed, adjust your strategy and try, try again.