Jump to content

NEW VIDEO: The EASIEST Way to Stop Gaming

Day 222. My story, from faking a report card to being a responsible person


sjoti

Recommended Posts

This post, my story, is long overdue. I wanted to post something at 90 days but I glossed over it. I wanted to post something about 6 months but then I was so busy with other things in life that I didn't get the chance, until now.  Sorry not sorry for the length ;)

I'd like to take a step back first. When I was younger school was easy for me. Well above average grades with not that much effort. Gaming was an integral part of my life, I'd play on my Gameboy all day and later I moved to playing purely on PC. I'd combine playing with paying attention in school and that worked till I was about 16 years old. After that, I had to choose my major and continue in that, but in higher education, I noticed that I had to put in the effort. What the schools would give me was not enough to succeed, so my methods didn't work at all.

I didn't notice how bad my behaviour was. I'd game all day, sometimes go to school, notice that I wasn't going to make the cut so to run away I'd game and game and game. Instead of changing things up I just continued because the world of games was all I knew and everything else was boring, not as exciting and just couldn't hold my attention. With competitive games coming up it got even worse. I'd play to be the best, I'd try to join a more competitive scene which sucked up even more time and attention. In the meantime, I slowly started to notice a pattern where I ran away from anything as soon as I had to act like a responsible human being and take action. No matter how small the thing I needed to do was, whenever I had to take action I just felt like there was this sort of barrier that I couldn't get through. This caused me to not action in just about anything. Slowly this started to penetrate my social life as well. I turned to lying after some time to avoid dealing with people. If I was asked if I took care of something I'd say I sent an email but there might have been some issue with my mail client or something similar. 

It felt like the lies allowed me to continue with the bad behaviour. Play games all day, lie about shit I needed to take care of, repeat. It took me too long to realise it pushes people away. People don't want to deal with someone who points fingers all day. Someone who acts irresponsible and never takes responsibility for their actions. Someone you can't rely on. All traits of a despicable person when I look back. It gets comfortable, never having to deal with anything. And man, practice makes perfect, so constructing lies got easier and easier. This got to the point where I'd photoshop a report card so I could avoid disappointing others and fake success. Gaming allowed all of this, It allowed me to keep this up and avoid thinking about it. Gaming just lets me avoid feeling bad and often a motivation for lying would be having more game time. It was a vicious cycle that just built upon negative things and caused even more negative things. 6-14 hours a day of game time. 

I took a wrong approach. I was trying to look for the reason behind the barrier and I couldn't find it, so the barrier stuck around. I realised I needed to stop lying and that helped me a tonne. My social life slowly got better, however, I still kept fucking up my education. This should've been the first realisation that I needed to take action instead of just thinking about it.

Five years later, a year back from when in writing this, I started talking to others more. I started to listen more. People said to me that my gaming habits were unhealthy, that maybe quitting might be the right thing to do. I tried moderation, failed horribly and I got so so sick of myself and my own behaviour that I decided that a change was long overdue. 

 

20th of June 2016, I'm 21 on this point. I Quit smoking and gaming on that day. I've changed so so much for the better. I'm getting compliments from people around me, setbacks now motivate me. I've learned that life can hit me in the face and I can still continue. I'm no longer a zombie, I am now honest towards others. I must admit, over the last 7 months there have been some difficult times. I've had days where I fell back into the old behaviour of avoiding everything. I've learned that if I can remove two huge addictions in my life on the same day and keep at it for 7 months (and counting) then I can basically eliminate any other bad behaviour and keep the good stuff around. This is one of the major reasons this has been such a huge success for me. Eliminating the bad forces me to deal with myself, which in turn allows me to think and deal with bad sides. Confronting myself and being honest with myself allows me to be a better person. 

This all turned the second half of 2016 in a year where I deal with being responsible. Being responsible towards both myself and others is now something I take pride in. I no longer point fingers and blame others for my own mistakes. I confront myself with that head-on and I learn from that experience. I've been growing since day 0 and I'm still growing on day 222 and I do not plan on stopping.

Part of my growth can be attributed to this community. Thank you, Cam and everyone else, especially everyone in the Discord chat!

 

 

Edited by sjoti
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This post, my story, is long overdue. I wanted to post something at 90 days but I glossed over it. I wanted to post something about 6 months but then I was so busy with other things in life that I didn't get the chance, until now.  Sorry not sorry for the length ;)

I'd like to take a step back first. When I was younger school was easy for me. Well above average grades with not that much effort. Gaming was an integral part of my life, I'd play on my Gameboy all day and later I moved to playing purely on PC. I'd combine playing with paying attention in school and that worked till I was about 16 years old. After that, I had to choose my major and continue in that, but in higher education, I noticed that I had to put in the effort. What the schools would give me was not enough to succeed, so my methods didn't work at all.

I didn't notice how bad my behaviour was. I'd game all day, sometimes go to school, notice that I wasn't going to make the cut so to run away I'd game and game and game. Instead of changing things up I just continued because the world of games was all I knew and everything else was boring, not as exciting and just couldn't hold my attention. With competitive games coming up it got even worse. I'd play to be the best, I'd try to join a more competitive scene which sucked up even more time and attention. In the meantime, I slowly started to notice a pattern where I ran away from anything as soon as I had to act like a responsible human being and take action. No matter how small the thing I needed to do was, whenever I had to take action I just felt like there was this sort of barrier that I couldn't get through. This caused me to not action in just about anything. Slowly this started to penetrate my social life as well. I turned to lying after some time to avoid dealing with people. If I was asked if I took care of something I'd say I sent an email but there might have been some issue with my mail client or something similar. 

It felt like the lies allowed me to continue with the bad behaviour. Play games all day, lie about shit I needed to take care of, repeat. It took me too long to realise it pushes people away. People don't want to deal with someone who points fingers all day. Someone who acts irresponsible and never takes responsibility for their actions. Someone you can't rely on. All traits of a despicable person when I look back. It gets comfortable, never having to deal with anything. And man, practice makes perfect, so constructing lies got easier and easier. This got to the point where I'd photoshop a report card so I could avoid disappointing others and fake success. Gaming allowed all of this, It allowed me to keep this up and avoid thinking about it. Gaming just lets me avoid feeling bad and often a motivation for lying would be having more game time. It was a vicious cycle that just built upon negative things and caused even more negative things. 6-14 hours a day of game time. 

I took a wrong approach. I was trying to look for the reason behind the barrier and I couldn't find it, so the barrier stuck around. I realised I needed to stop lying and that helped me a tonne. My social life slowly got better, however, I still kept fucking up my education. This should've been the first realisation that I needed to take action instead of just thinking about it.

Five years later, a year back from when in writing this, I started talking to others more. I started to listen more. People said to me that my gaming habits were unhealthy, that maybe quitting might be the right thing to do. I tried moderation, failed horribly and I got so so sick of myself and my own behaviour that I decided that a change was long overdue. 

 

20th of June 2016, I'm 21 on this point. I Quit smoking and gaming on that day. I've changed so so much for the better. I'm getting compliments from people around me, setbacks now motivate me. I've learned that life can hit me in the face and I can still continue. I'm no longer a zombie, I am now honest towards others. I must admit, over the last 7 months there have been some difficult times. I've had days where I fell back into the old behaviour of avoiding everything. I've learned that if I can remove two huge addictions in my life on the same day and keep at it for 7 months (and counting) then I can basically eliminate any other bad behaviour and keep the good stuff around. This is one of the major reasons this has been such a huge success for me. Eliminating the bad forces me to deal with myself, which in turn allows me to think and deal with bad sides. Confronting myself and being honest with myself allows me to be a better person. 

This all turned the second half of 2016 in a year where I deal with being responsible. Being responsible towards both myself and others is now something I take pride in. I no longer point fingers and blame others for my own mistakes. I confront myself with that head-on and I learn from that experience. I've been growing since day 0 and I'm still growing on day 222 and I do not plan on stopping.

Part of my growth can be attributed to this community. Thank you, Cam and everyone else, especially everyone in the Discord chat!

 

 

So much respect for you! You've inspired me to start counting the good days again and bettering my life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...