 Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a little boy who loved to collect bugs. Satoshi Tajiri grew up in rural Japan where he spent his childhood exploring the long grass, finding all kinds of weird and wonderful insects. As fun as his childhood was though, Satoshi could never have dreamed of how important his bug collecting would become. One day, this lonely little boy's adventures in the long grass would go on to change the world. Not every aspect of Satoshi's youth went well. Satoshi was not exactly a model student. He found it hard to concentrate, didn't get along with his teachers, and had a difficult time remembering the lessons he'd been taught. Years later, Satoshi was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, but at the time, his teachers simply thought he was lazy. Even from a young age, Satoshi's real passion was video games. He would spend hours of his free time at the local arcades, sinking coins into the machines in a goal to be the very best at every new title. At one point to show his appreciation to Satoshi for his dedicated interest in video games, an arcade boss gave him a present, his very own space invader's cabinet. Satoshi's love of games spilled out into a desire to understand them better. At one point, just for fun, Satoshi took apart his Nintendo fan-con to learn about how it worked. He focused on his love of video games and decided that playing these games wasn't enough. He started working on his own fan-zine, sharing all the secrets and tricks he picked up over his years of gaming. Satoshi put his heart and soul into the zine. The first issue was written entirely by hand and photocopied at a local store. He named his finished product Game Freak. The magazine found its way to a lot of young people who, like Satoshi, had a real passion for video games. One of these people was Ken Sugimori, a kid around Satoshi's own age who had a passion for drawing. He contacted Satoshi, telling him how much he loved Game Freak and the two struck up a powerful friendship as they bonded over their love of gaming. Ken started helping Satoshi with the magazine, lending his artistic talents to give Game Freak a more polished feel. Slowly, the audience for the magazine grew. Gamers really enjoyed the work created by Satoshi and Ken, and other kids soon got involved as well as Game Freak expanded in size. Most excitingly of all, Satoshi got the chance to meet his hero, Shigeru Miyamoto, the man who created Donkey Kong, the Mario Brothers, and many other classic video game characters. Even with the success of Satoshi's magazine, he still wasn't content. Something was missing. Writing about games was fun, but Satoshi had bigger dreams. He wanted to create his own games. After all, with the staff of Game Freak, he had a group who were passionate about video games and understood how they worked. Ken Sugimori's artwork would look great in a game and Satoshi was sure that his team could make something really special. Game Freak set to work making the transition from games journalists to game developers. While trying to come up with new ideas for future games, Satoshi saw a couple of children playing on the new Game Boy handheld device. The pair were playing Tetris together, with a link cable connecting the two devices so that they could battle against each other. An idea sparked within Satoshi. He remembered the games he used to play as a child, collecting bugs and insects. He imagined two Game Boys connected by a link cable, with little bugs crawling down the wire. Imagine a game where players could collect and trade insects to build a digital bug collection. Excitedly, Satoshi put together a pitch for his new idea. With his excellent working relationship with Nintendo, he was sure that the company would jump at the chance to help with the development of this new title. In spite of Satoshi's enthusiasm, Nintendo bosses weren't entirely convinced. Satoshi's game sounded incredibly ambitious and the cool concept felt unfocused and confusing. One person in the pitch meeting did think the concept had promise. Satoshi's idol, Shigeru Miyamoto. Eventually, Shigeru raised his voice, suggesting that the company put their faith in Game Freak and give Satoshi a chance. Shigeru was given the task of working with Satoshi, refining his idea and creating something that would definitely work as a finished product. Unfortunately though, Nintendo's executives had been right about Satoshi's idea. The game was incredibly complex and far too ambitious for the small studio. Very quickly, the project began running into trouble. Game Freak simply didn't have the resources to create the game that Satoshi had in his mind. Without any new revenue coming in, there often wasn't even enough money for Satoshi to pay his staff all their hard work. After months and months of work, key members of the team began coming to Satoshi, announcing that they needed to leave the team. After all, they had families to feed and they couldn't keep working for months on a dead-end project without being paid for their work. Satoshi tried his best to keep the project afloat. He worked long hours into the night, trying to smooth over bugs, fix issues and build a working game. Ultimately though, Game Freak's finances dipped too low and the toll on the company was too high. Slowly, quietly, Satoshi put his masterpiece on hold. The company would have to work on smaller, less ambitious titles that were more likely to turn a quick profit. Time went on. And in spite of the failure of Satoshi's big project, Game Freak was able to bounce back. All through their development, Shigeru Miyamoto kept an eye on the company and as the years passed, he gave them opportunities to work on key Nintendo brand titles. One such game, a puzzle title named Yoshi's Egg, ended up being a huge hit. The title saw worldwide success as players in America fell in love with its addictive gameplay. The game brought in unprecedented revenue, giving Game Freak a boost of extra cash that Satoshi could invest in whatever he wanted. He knew exactly what to do with it. Excitedly, he told his team to resume work on their monster-collecting game several years after it had been put on hold. Development wasn't easy. Even with more money to spend on the project, the idea was incredibly ambitious and far more complex than anything else Game Freak had worked on. Finally though, the team patched together a finished version of the game. It wasn't particularly pretty and it had plenty of bugs and rough edges, but Satoshi loved it. Finally, after years of work, his pet project was complete. Pocket Monsters was finished. A regular manga, an animated series and an enormous wave of merchandise followed shortly after. Pocket Monsters became a cultural phenomenon. Even crossing over to the other continents as an entire generation became obsessed with trying to catch them all. Satoshi's dream had finally been realised. After decades of work, he'd not just made a successful company. He'd changed the world. If there's a moral to this story, it's this. Never give up on trying to find your place in the world. You might feel trapped in school classes or a job that aren't right for you. You might have people telling you to give up on your pet projects or trade in your passion for a simpler, easier time of things. Don't give up. Keep seeking your dream. Even if it takes years and years and years, it'll be worth it when you finally succeed. Above all, just make sure that whatever you do with your life, you spend it doing something that you love.