All for the sake of achievements

While playing different video games, every so often I'll get a trophy without expecting it at all. The trophies and achievements are a great concept but I think they are done terribly. Most trophies available in a game will be obtained simply by playing the game. In Metal Gear Solid 2, I got a trophy just for stuffing a body into a locker.

Some achievements are unique. In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, there is a trophy for doing 6 consecutive cqc slams (I never got it). Unfortunately, that is the most unique achievement I've received. I think the best achievements are those that ask you to do something outside the course of normal game play. In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, I was usually horrible at the police missions so I usually waited until I got the tank or helicopter to get an easy solution. However, after several years, I kind of wondered if I could pass level 12 of the police missions without the tank or helicopter. After that, I wanted to see if I could beat the police missions at the start of a new game. It is a real challenge in the beginning because you have limited access to resources so you have to remember where all the police cars spawn and where weapon pickups and armor are.

Setting this arbitrary challenge for myself gave me a good 4 weeks of replay value while I was trying my best.

A good achievement makes me wonder if I could do it. And inspiration comes in very odd unexpected places. After watching the movie "Run Fat Boy Run" I was inspired to go do some running. The premise of the movie was a man was training to run a marathon in a vain attempt to win his former love back. A marathon is 26.22 miles. Prior to watching the movie, the longest distance I ever ran was 1 mile. I didn't expect to run a marathon, but I was kind of curious about how far I could run. So, for fun, I started making my own achievements. The furthest I actually got to run was 5 miles before I lost interest in running any further. 5 miles is a long shot away from a marathon however it is 5 times more than the furthest distance I ran before watching the movie.

A few weeks back, I heard about something called the 1000 pound club. I didn't know what it was at first so I looked it up. It is 1000 pounds between your max bench press, dead lift, and squat. Before hearing about the goal, I never really did dead lifts or squat. But now that I know that the 1000 pound club is a thing, I really want to shoot for it. I know I still haven't reached my goal of the 300 pound bench press but I'll hit it along the way to this goal.

And that is the funny thing about achievements. Some of them, you want to try just because you are curious if you can. Those are the best kind of goals. It is kind of like exploring new places.

If anyone would like to give some input, is it easier to lift more weight with the dead lift or squat compared to the bench press? I ask because I've been doing the bench press for at least 9 years and deadlifts for only about a month. Max on bench is 280 and max on deadlift is 235. I can't test my max squat because I don't have a squat rack yet. I know I have to get each excercise to 333.34 pounds to hit this achievement.