Challenge Accepted and Am I Manipulated?

       When I first started reading House of Danger I was very excited.  I never read a book like this before.  I took this book as a challenge and I wanted to beat it.  I then found myself dead after like the second or third decision.  All of my excitement turned to anger.  I was so frustrated because I died and was tricked by this book that was not very difficult.  I did not understand how this could happen.  I quickly went back and kept remaking my decisions, but only found myself dying again.  I then thought about the structure of the book.  It is very interesting and engaging, but once I lost I had no interest in the book.  Each time I went back to read another path I disliked the book more and more.

        After reading the blog posts from the rest of the class (I was sick for class on Tuesday) I was able to pick up a lot of points and the main ideas.  I started wondering if I have been manipulated in my life.  I realized I have been manipulated so much in my life about what success is that I have trouble finding what success might actually be.  I have been brought up in a society that wealth is a great measure of success and aimed my life towards that idea.  However I have been asking myself almost every day if I am happy.  I now believe that happiness is more important than anything and that success should be measured by how happy you are not by social status.