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MmmWatermelon

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Day 2.3

Really fun day today...spent the afternoon being productive sending some e-mails I've been meaning to send and looking at some local job positions and volunteer things I am interested in applying for. Ate soups from the fridge for all meals, predictably...chicken tortilla soup continues to be the best thing in the world pretty much! Went to the park nearby in the late afternoon to stretch a bit and read a bit of Lolita by Nabokov which I've started reading over the past few days. The writing is really good and captivating. In the evening, I met up with some folks I met at my local dance place who were all interested in joining me to go to a dance event in San Diego. It was a really fun evening and I enjoyed both the dance and connecting with these new friends in the hour long car ride there and back. Lots of giggles were had; and car games in the long line to In N Out. The guy I have been befriending for a couple of weeks also brought his girlfriend to the dance and I had a lot of fun getting to know her a bit and we both really liked talking to each other about books and cooking; looking forward to hanging out with them and doing some cooking / board games sometime in the near future, they are both really nice people. I had a lot of fun dancing with this one older very kind, rather attractive older woman at the dance; I think we danced together three times...she told me she was a dance teacher and she wanted to try out a move for a workshop she was doing tomorrow which is both people dancing on one leg and supporting each other for balance. I was glad to try this out with her as I fancy myself as having rather good balance (not sure where from but I suspect from climbing mountains and standing on the edge of a lot of abysses and cliffs...I think my balance became attuned because of this; sometimes I'm at a yoga class and I can balance much better than the instructors, though everything else I do is beginner level : D )

Grateful for:

- getting to connect with some people through conversation and dance

- eating healthy

- finding a very cool dance place that could become a regular part of my life

- being productive

- sunny afternoon

- having a comfortable bed

So I guess I am going to San Diego two days in a row since there is also a GameQuitters meetup there tomorrow, looking forward to meeting some fellow GQs!

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Day 2.4

The highlight of today was definitely attending the San Diego GQ meetup! When I think about how long games have been a part of my life and how - even though my relationship with games wasn't always filled with negativity - it has been that way for a while, I feel that getting together with a group of like-minded people who were/are striving to free themselves of the same struggle, and having an honest authentic conversation about it FOR THE FIRST TIME in my life is a really big deal! So long overdue :D. So I'm very grateful to you all who were open to listening to each other and sharing your own story, it was very inspiring. Definitely a hard thing to do, but it feels like a big relief for me personally, and hope it was as helpful for everyone else. I feel like I have a lot of stuff to process and of course the road is open ahead : ) I recommend anyone who has the opportunity in the future to go to a nearby GQ meeting to take advantage if it! And Cam is not only good looking but funnier than he even comes off in his videos :P 

It was also fun hanging out on the beach after the main meetup with @kortheo and @laney. Thanks for putting up with my harmonica skills, it makes me want to learn to play better :D 

Other than that, went to my chiropractor in the morn which was gooood. The secretary is so nice, she gave me another squeezy hug today, it always brightens my day just to see her. And I ate soup for 3 meals today which is always great in my book! My new addiction I suppose, which I don't mind

Grateful for:

- people. connecting. yay

- meeting someone famous (Cam Adair) :D

- beach towels and blankets

- taking a quick dive in the ocean for the first time this year

- being on top of doing my tai chi every day this week (off to do it for today!)

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Day 2.5

I slept in quite a bit this Sunday to make up for going to bed late after dancing and waking up early for chiropractor. I spent the afternoon reading and just relaxing out in the sun, went to the park and had a really nice and relaxing yoga session, and a short hike at sunset to a spot the co-owner of my yoga studio told me about the other week. In the evening I went to read Lolita at a coffee shop and had some tea, and found a book called Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach that I perused with interest. I read a book by him called Illusions a number of years back that I really liked so I was curious about this one, it has a lot of the same themes. Spoke to a friend on the phone and now I'm quite sleepy gonna get my Tai Chi in before bed.

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I feel that getting together with a group of like-minded people who were/are striving to free themselves of the same struggle, and having an honest authentic conversation about it FOR THE FIRST TIME in my life is a really big deal! So long overdue :D. So I'm very grateful to you all who were open to listening to each other and sharing your own story, it was very inspiring. Definitely a hard thing to do, but it feels like a big relief for me personally, and hope it was as helpful for everyone else. 

This meet was a huge deal. Not many people understand game quitting, and having that barrier gone allowed for meaningful connections and understanding about where we're at and why we're doing it. I resonate with your analogy that we're trying to free ourselves from it, that's how it feels for me.

It was also fun hanging out on the beach after the main meetup with @kortheo and @laney. Thanks for putting up with my harmonica skills, it makes me want to learn to play better :D 

You were fantastic at it! I was so stoked you had one with you. Perfect perfect time <3 across the universe will have a warm feeling behind it now. 

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Uhhhhh I really don't understand how to use the quote system properly!!!

You were fantastic at it! I was so stoked you had one with you. Perfect perfect time <3 across the universe will have a warm feeling behind it now. 

Thanks Laney, glad you also got a lot out of the meetup!, hope to see you around!

Day 2.6

I learned on Youtube yesterday how to make poached eggs and today I made my first poached eggs! They were very good and I look forward to many a poached egg breakfast. Last year was for me the year of omelettes because I was hunting a lot of chantarelles and other mushrooms in Oregon and SF Bay Area so I learned to make omelettes to eat my wild mushrooms with them; I fell for them so much I must have had maybe 50-100 omelettes last year but I've lately been getting a little tired of them finally so I guess I can switch to poached eggs when I am not eating soup or smoothies for breakfast. I feel like I've really expanded my cooking repertoire in the last year and I really don't find myself running out of ideas of things I LIKE to eat and are also healthy. I'm also a lot more confident trying out new recipes since the same principles apply to all things you cook...and exploring I've definitely found some recipe gems that I just LOVE eating. Definitely empowering feeling like I can feed myself what I like and feels healthy without needing to go to restaurants too often.

The couple I became friends with recently is having a get together this Saturday for which I might also help with cooking. They also asked me if I would want to lead a short informal Tai Chi workshop to which I said yes! I'm by no means skilled at it but I've shown some friends a thing or two in the past and usually surprised myself at how decently I could explain it...just repeating everything my own teachers have said hehe ;) I don't know how big the group would be and I feel somewhat nervous about it but the way I see it...1) I definitely could see myself teaching Tai Chi somewhere a few years down the line when I have more experience with it, I am pretty intrigued by it and wish to deepen my understanding 2) I have a few days to prepare something and actually polish it a little bit even if this is something completely informal 3) I don't suppose this would actually inspire anyone to learn Tai Chi but if it does they would actually look for a qualified instructor anyway, I just need to give a little taste 4) I'm mostly seeing this as an opportunity to challenge myself to prepare something I can present to a group and overcome doing something I'm not generally that comfortable with, so just doing it will give me some sense of accomplishment 5) the essence of Tai Chi is relaxation and an instructor really needs to embody that because maybe more is transmitted through looking at the instructor's body and movements than through the verbal instructions, so to feel kinda nervous while doing this would feel pretty funny but oh well haha :D

I went to the chiropractor early this morning and felt like a lot of deep changes were taking place in my body; it was the deepest I remember breathing in a while and some things that have felt stuck for a while are definitely loosening up; I also feel a lot more aware of what's happening in my body and therefore feel even more aware of how much tension I continue holding in my muscles and the various problems in my posture. It just takes patience...LOTS of it!

Got some groceries and spent the afternoon working on a resume and cover letter for a science instructor position at a local museum I've been looking at for a while. This felt productive and it was my main goal for the day. I had also called them a few days ago to see if the position is still open and today they called back and it is so I went over there and dropped off what I worked on, with a transparent cover sheet and everything all spit-shiny professional!  I was also going to have a tutoring session this afternoon but the kid cancelled kinda last minute, saying he already understands everything. Guess I am just so good that last week was enough for a while haha! The museum is by the local harbor so I instead spent a bit of time climbing some rocks and watching the sunset.

My mom was wanting to eat some eggs this evening after she went hiking so I taught her how to make poached eggs, fun times. I made a salad kind of thing with lentils for dinner and now I'm writing this a little early than regular, going to see if I can start working on my tai chi class in the couple hours before bed maybe with a lil inspiration from my Tai Chi book by master Cheng Man Ching : )

YAWN

Grateful for:

1. My very compassionate chiropractor

2. Having a productive day and applying for a job (actually two different ones!)

3. I had this thing super stuck in my eye or more likely growing on the inside of my eyelid for the past five days and it was really bugging me but today it spontaneously went away. I was about to call an optometrist to make an appointment but no longer needed. YESS (maybe the hot compresses I've been doing once a day helped?)

4. Beet kombucha

5. Hummus and almond butter! yum (not together, ew)

Main goal for tomorrow is to get some fresh dill, parsley plants for the kitchen and plant a few seeds to keep my growing baby avocado tree company

Edited by MmmWatermelon
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Day 2.7

I already got contacted by the museum I applied for and I have a job interview tomorrow; pretty nervous about it I guess, ayee...I'm going to buy the plants tomorrow since the nursery is around those same parts. What'd I do today? I spent a lazy hour watching Lady and the Tramp haha, went out to the park and did some yoga, and in the afternoon I had a Skype call with my GQ accountability partner which was really nice. We spent an hour or so talking and it was very cool hearing another person's story. I think it's something we are both interested in doing in the future again. I've been spending some time reading about the museum organization and the details of the position and trying to prepare for the interview. I went to the community hot tub in the evening and chatted with three young people I ran into. One of them is a neighbor I've chatted with before; we got to talking about surfing and he invited me to use one of his boards if I'd ever want to go surfing together. Yay. I've been trying not to eat sugar and I've been pretty sucessfully avoided it for the last week or so, but I was getting some cravings tonight for sure...maybe I'll come up with a reward system like evrry time I go to a yoga class I get to eat a bit of dark chocolate or something :P 

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Day 2.8

Interview went ok I guess...the two guys (maybe more one than the other) I interviewed with felt pretty somber and we didn't really laugh too much together...I think one of them seemed like he had a lot to do and had a hard time being focused with the interview, kinda annoying, but oh well. I felt like my answers were decent and I didn't feel too nervous and I did a good job asking a lot of question at the end which seemed to arouse them somewhat, so at the very least I left with a good impression. Still have to complete some paperwork to drop off tomorrow but from hearing more details about these positions they definitely both sound pretty cool. It would definitely be something that combines things I'm very interested in with things that would really challenge me so it would be great to get this...fingers crossed

I rewarded myself with a favorite kombucha for doing the interview and went to the nursery nearby to pick up some kitchen herbs (kind of a belated birthday present for my mom who's been talking about wanting something like this, but I'm definitely going to make use of them too : ) and got a yummy burrito.

I spent some of the day doing some small chores like laundry and cleaning my room which has gradually become kind of a mess; nice for things to be clean again...in the evening I went to my regular Wednesday dance group. I was very lethargic and thought I might just fall asleep on the floor and emotionally I was as well in kind of a negative place and feeling unable to connect with people (maybe my initial impression of the interview was more negative than looking back at it now :) but I'm really glad I went dancing, it totally transformed my mood and mental space. I danced with several people tonight which was really fun since folks are usually more into doing their thing in this place, but not tonight apparently. Especially fun was connecting with this one girl who's grace and dance moves I always admire when I see her (I think I mentioned her in a previous entry!). She seems somewhat badass and self-confident to the point that I was too intimidated to ever approach her, but at one time a bunch of people were twirling each other around changing partners quickly so I took advantage and swooped in there and we ended up twirling each other around a bunch. She was really into it and smiled at me very sweetly and seemed very interested in connecting, which was very surprising! So we ended up dancing together a while and having a lot of fun and smiling at each other a lot, exploring some fun arm positions, it was very nice : )

After the dance I went out for tea with a buddy from the dance; he's a bit older than me and going through a very difficult divorce so I guess dancing helps him get his mind off that. I was doing my best to be helpful because I can definitely enjoy listening to other people sometimes and probably even have the occasional helpful thing to say; I definitely start thinking about the fact that I don't know if I'm the best person to be giving somebody else advice because look how I let myself become with games, but whatever, that voice is just me being hard on myself and it feels stupid to not allow myself to be there for someone else...what it comes down to is that there are always struggles in life and if we don't allow ourselves to support others until "we've fixed ourselves" or "we're good" then we will miss out on so much connection, so go me for not giving in to that bullshit :D It's a good reminder that whatever kind of pain you might be going in through life, other people's lives aren't on pause and they might be hurting too...allowing ourselves to see that is I think a necessary step in letting go of our own pain...stopping to be so selfishly preoccupied with our own shit and convincing ourselves we are so worse off than the next guy \ gal. If there is anything more addicting than computer games it's feeling sorry for yourself ;) Anywho I'm just rambling here it's late and I better go to sleep before I write who knows what stupidity!

Grateful for:

- Having fun dancing with people and getting to dance with the "mysterious graceful girl"

- Talking with the girl who organizes the dance a little bit and getting to know her better

- Having some fun plans over the next few days to look forward to

- WATER. YUM *glug, glug, glug*

- Being this weird human thing in an earth suit body thingy

 

 

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Day 2.9

Well I didn't get the job I applied for alas, there might be a couple of reasons for this but I'm not ultimately sure why! Today I got up early to do some work at home for some clients who had contacted me, and went to the chiropractor in the afternoon then took a nap. In the evening I met up with an old high school teacher who was very influential for me and contacted me recently. We caught up over quite a bit of wine and had some good fun, came home pretty buzzed and finished part of a movie I had started the other week. Kinda bummed about not getting this job, I definitely feel like I could use something like this to fill my time with and create some structure right now, but I guess I just need to move on as this is part of looking for work. I did also apply for a volunteer position with the same organization which could potentially be fun...I think I would be basically helping sail an old replica of a 19th century schooner...so I think I will check out a volunteer training for this on Saturday morning, could be interesting!

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I've been totally playing Hearthstone for most of the last week every day...I've been kinda embarrassed about owning up to it on the forum...started out being bored at home with the flu but then I kept playing for the last few days : (  :$:$:$:$:$:$:/:/:/:/:/:/ Here's what I wrote to my accountability partner after being non communicative for the past few days. I don't know why it's so easy for me to "suspend" my determination to be working on something constantly every day.

 

"So I have been totally on tilt, on the wagon, or off the wagon, whatever it is for the last week ;(

It started when I had a bit of a flu last weekend and early in this week and I started playing lots of chess and go sitting in bed recouping and being pretty bored then after a day or two thought I'd try a bit of Hearthstone and one thing led to another...this game is totally the most addicting shit :\ Now I've been playing it for like a week every day...not sure how that even happened but I guess I told myself I was just playing while I was sick but even though I'm not too sick anymore I've been playing "just another bit of today." Sigh...I guess I should go back to doing  a daily check in, that was rather helpful :\ 

Sigh..time to get back to the detox...it was feeling really good being game free for 10 days in many ways even if life was throwing new challenges my way. Now I've totally messed up my sleep schedule staying up at odd hours too : (

Anywho, sorry to come off as so pessimistic right now, it just feels hard starting this over and over again : (

I'm trying to remind myself that I managed to go for 10 days in a row twice and it wasn't so bad, I was rather enjoying lots of other aspects of life during those days, but now this damn Hearthstone...I don't know what possessed me to play a BLIZZARD game of all things  ; ) sigh...

I think I will paste this msg in the forum too, I've been kinda embarrassed about having such a long tilt, but I guess part of it is owning up : ("

PS: Cam, thanks for the idea about the interview, I did e-mail one of the people who interviewed me to see if he might have any helpful advice!

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Day 2.18

So I guess I will continue the journal with the same numbering system even if it hasn't been game free the whole time; I totally feel some inner resistance to this because I have a tendency to be a perfectionist but exactly for this reason I am going to just try to pick off where I left off; in fact I think the whole idea of being able to start over with a "clean slate" is one of the things that attracts me to gaming in the first place, or some kind of tendency I developed through having that privilege in gaming worlds, I dunno which came first, it feels like a chicken and egg kind of situation. I'm grateful that I was able to sleep last night at a decent hour and wake up early this morning so I am going to try to get back to a more regular sleep schedule and keep doing my tai chi before bed. I still played some Hearthstone today I have to admit but less than days before, and now I uninstalled it...I guess I have gone about half no games and half with games since starting this detox and that is at least better than having gamed for the last few weeks continuously, I know I would feel like total shit if I had done that! If I can go through the rest of the 90 day detox without another relapse I will be very happy about it indeed, and after 90 days maybe a new goal could be to go for 90 consecutive days.

A couple of my goals for this week are to go to my chiropractor at the next opening, hopefully tomorrow or the next day, because I have been really missing this while being sick. Sitting around being sick definitely isn't the best, but I did do a couple of sun salutations and other stretches on many days at least and some tai chi. Today I spent some time out in the sun just feeling the sun on my skin and stretching and practicing some harmonica which I really enjoyed; my brain has been feeling so foggy lately, more of this is definitely what I need.

Another goal is to go to a couple of tutoring sessions I have lined up, tomorrow and later in the week possibly. Making a bit of money would be great!

Another work opportunity is that my old teacher I met up with the other week has some landscaping projects he needs help and offered to pay me. He lives a little ways away but I think this could be really great and I like spending time with him. It is also close to some dancing events I have heard about but haven't been to yet.

goal #4: go dancing on wednesday, missed it this week! I might have to find a second dance this week just to get my fill : )

goal #5: swimming! I think it has been finally warming up enough that swimming during the warmer days would be feasible; heck even the ocean was almost warm enough at the game quitters meeting in SD :D swimming has been one of the things that has helped me the most with my back pain over the last couple of years and I'm really excited to be able to do it regularly again.

I also have been developing a vision for a longer term goal, even if right now it feels very unrealistic. My cousin in Romania and I are both backpacking and adventuring fanatics and we've been talking for a couple of years about doing the Santiago de Compostela trail in Spain together; it has been a big, big dream of his for a couple of years and I always thought it would be the greatest thing to do it together with him. Last time I saw him about two years ago, when I visited Romania because my grandmother died, we had an amazing adventure in the Carpathians in February replete with climbing one of the highest snowy peaks in Romania, sledding on a glacier on our air mattresses, and nearly freezing our asses in a lonely cabin by a frozen lake, and drinking beers in another cabin with an old man who had spent his life skiing in the mountains and making awesome concoctions of mountain herb teas! We are both naturalists by education and it's a lot of fun learning from each other when we know about the ecosystems of such different geographical regions, we just get along really well, feels like we're brothers I guess you could say. So it would be most amazing to join him on this journey which he's undertaking after years of dreaming about it...the only thing is that my back feels so tweaked and right now it hurts to walk a couple of miles...so is it completely unrealistic to imagine walking ten miles a day for a couple of hundred miles at the beginning of the summer? I dunno! I wanna say that it isn't impossible but that it would take a lot of hard work, and lots of discipline in doing exactly what I need to do for my body to heal, and not a little faith in our ability to heal...

Part of me is I think plain afraid of setting such a lofty goal as this because for the past year or so even though I was brave to try some big moves and ideas in my life they ended up in failure in one way or another. But I suppose part of me is also somewhat proud that I at least tried and "went for it" a couple of times even if things didn't end up as the best possible case scenario. Anyway, I could go into a lot of detail about things but it is late so maybe in a future day. "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" or something somebody said once : ) I'm definitely needing to apply that to my GQ detox situation right now too :o

 

 For now I am grateful for:

- sunlight on the skin

- birds' songs

- GameQuitters community! It really feels like this whole thing is giving me a place to refocus my efforts in a way I never felt able to by myself

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Day 2.19

I had a pretty good day today...was lucky there was an opening at my chiropractor when I called in the morning and I went around noon. I enjoyed talking to the secretary while waiting, she is a really interesting and very sweet person, we've been becoming good buddies. Did some grocery shopping and played around with harmonica a bit in the afternoon and then I had a tutoring session. I don't know why but I had a bit of an anxiety attack at some point during the tutoring session, I felt like my mind just could not focus on what I was trying to do for a couple of minutes...but I guess I just focused on my belly breathing for a minute and stumbled my way through a problem or two then I felt better, mostly I really enjoy working with this particular kid who is very bright and easy to be around. And he's got a really cute dog who always likes to cuddle with you while you are working on the math, not bad : ) When I got home I was feeling still kinda out of it so I made a really good chicken soup out of stuff I bought earlier while listening to some nice music; feel a lot better after that and now I am just tired and wanting to go to bed early...almost fell asleep on the floor stretching; guess sometimes you just need a good nourishing meal to take the edge off of everything.

Tomorrow I'm also needing to get up early to go help my old teacher with some landscaping, hope  my back will be up for it! I've also got a little bit more computer work request from some folks who run a jewelry company who I worked with a bit last year, so it's nice that I have a chance of making some more moneys with this. 

Grateful for:

- nourishing chicken soup

- having a really organized room lately

- having some good work opportunities this week

- my family enjoying the music I was playing in the kitchen a lot

 

Good night to you!

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All of the little things you're doing now - chiropractor, little stretches of walking, yoga, etc - are leading to you being able to walk the trail some day. :)

Thanks for all your positive thinking Cam, definitely needing to practice more of that myself, sometimes it's way too easy for me to swing from positive to negative instead of just having positive thinking as my default mode of operation : 0

Day 2.20

I went down to Oceanside to help out my old teacher with his backyard projects. It was great hanging out with him, his two very mellow dogs, and being outside on a nice day doing some sweaty work of shoveling, laying down some gravel, and pulling out ivy, and getting paid for it! I've done some of this kind of work here and there over the years so it was definitely a gauge to show me how I am indeed more out of shape than I've been in a while, as I would have suspected! Sometimes I find it so relaxing to be working with plants, smelling the smells of the dirt and grass, and garden, very grateful to get to do this today. I was pretty out of it by the time we finished, quite tired and my head hurting slightly, but we went out for a bite afterwards and that totally brought me back to life, food always tastes so good after a good workout.

One other thing that came out of today is that my teacher invited me to go canoeing down a stretch of the Colorado river in Arizona where he likes to go a lot and take people. This would actually be a really good trip for me to get back into the outdoors as it isn't too physically demanding (it's a very mellow stretch of the river with no rapids and such) and cool little slot canyons in the sides with hot springs and petroglyphs. Sounds super amazing and I think we're gonna go for it in about two weeks! More motivation to take good care of my body and feel up for it, and I think it would be a huge confidence booster in learning to trust my body again. It's also been a small dream of mine  for a couple of years to go down a stretch of the Colorado by boat, woohoo! 

I was beat when I got home and took a long nap until the evening; I had meant to go to a tai chi class in the evening I just learned about the other day but I guess I didn't make it this time around since I slept right through the late afternoon, that's alright, I think there is one on Thursday I could go to. A friend of mine called asking me for advice on a Big Sur trail she's interested in backpacking on and I had a lot of fun catching up and chatting with her about Big Sur and some of my past trips there and getting the pulse of the Bay Area mushroom hunting season this winter from her. 

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