giblets

29 Aug 17 Days to go: 230 So I figured it was time to come back and write an entry when a mate sent me a quick message and I responded with about 3 pages of words. I have been bottling it up lately and just channelling everything to the tasks at hand. My focus has been razor sharp and I am feeling fantastic as a result, but I have prioritised it over spending time reflecting and unravelling mind pretzels. I think I have broken the back of the latest stint of thinking about games and preoccupation. Thankfully I didn't take anything up again so the counter still stands, it was a low week of productivity. I think the catalyst really was this assignment due and basically pouring my heart out to this friend that sent me a message. I hadn't told them I had given up gaming so it was really good to get their perspective on changes and developments from a new set of eyes. Though I am not going to mention it here again in case it triggers me some more, I feel a bit bad talking on a few people's journals about games in case I have triggered them, so I will take @iamthemithras approach and not mention their names anymore! Gaming is no way part of the equation @Cam and no way will I allow it to be again. I have been invited to play some games with mates and I mentally said "go for it mate, it's just some multiplayer, no big deal, just don't get preoccupied". But ultimately I could not be bothered. They don't have the same grip over me anymore. The detox obviously worked! Mine must have taken a little longer, maybe around 100 days for it to really dig in hard and kick the habit. I wonder if it is different lengths for different people? Dependant on how long they have played or how dependant they are? So I am still battling this flu which is hard work, but I forced myself to get out and run today anyway. I didn't go for my usual 8km, I just wanted to get out there and get running, even if it was for short time or distance and it wasn't very hard. It felt good to be back out there, the first two kilometres were really hard as my throat and nose was burning, but that subsided soon enough and I soldiered on. I ended up getting my average speed in the end which I was really happy with, 6:15 minute/km. My concern now is though I need to decide to try and go for 35km this weekend and then rest for two weeks prior to the marathon, or rest my sore ankle and go 4 weeks between long runs (> 90 minutes). Part of me feels relatively confident that I can do this at my current endurance without stepping it above 30km and with a 4 week break, and part of me thinks that no matter how fit I am I won't be able to push through a bung ankle. Something to think about for the next few days. The wedding was awesome! A lot of fun. It was the first time my wife and I had baby-free so it was quite a novelty, but we burnt out pretty fast and went home before dessert was even served such party animals. Grateful corner The online debate. It is really forcing me to study and build my cognitive skills, as well as I noticed today that I am not taking criticism as personally as I usually would. Hopefully I can learn from this and implement it at work or in my personal life. Have been contemplating sending an email to my lecturer saying this but I thought it might sound too cheesy and that I was fishing for marks.

Let me know when you're settled here in Sydney and we will organise a meetup!

don't know anyone who can turn back time, so I think it's best that you just own your present and enjoy it fully.

You will be torturing yourself if you try to leave that door open to reconcile after divorce Bob. The probability or statistics of it happening are crazily low, and you will stop yourself from moving on and growing emotionally if you wait around trying to keep the door open. New opportunities await.

26 Aug 17 Days to go: 233 I have been quiet for a few days for a multitude of reasons. The first being I am trying to progress my studies, going from one week behind to submitting an assignment on Monday so I can lead the online debate and then submit my findings a week later. While it is bad I was a week behind because I wasn't allocating enough time to study (and at the wrong time of the day), its still far better than when I was gaming. I averaged about 4 weeks behind when I was gaming, which made it a bit awkward when I had to do online discussions like these. I have been using the time in the morning to read and write notes rather than do my journal as according to the Asian Efficiency Podcast that is the day where your mind is the most active and ready to go. I am back today as for some reason the notes I wrote in my office didn't sync with my home computer so I need to go into work to get them, and it's too cold out right now Another reason is technical difficulties with my computer. I upgraded to the latest and greatest software the week it was released, and boy is it buggy. My browser keeps crashing and there is delays in my network connecting. As a result I am a bit limited on what pages I can visit, and limited on my patience for it, so I have just been going to my university website and thats pretty much it. Sadly I have woken up unwell which I assume I have caught from my son who will not stop coughing. I have a sore throat and a headache. I am annoyed as it will effect my running and I am on the home stretch to the marathon now. I only have an hour run to do today so I am still going to get out there and do it but I won't get the results I need. Tomorrow is a rest day. Have wasted some time back looking at Doom mods, probably about 3 hours yesterday in total if you include the preoccupation and the lack of productivity that brings. I need to reflect on whether I am ready or want to play multiplayer with some peers. At this stage I am thinking no, I hate the preoccupation that always follows for hours. I could of used that time for studying and had my first online post ready now instead of needing to work on it this morning before going to a wedding. Alright I think I am ready to go get my notes and get on with it again. Grateful corner My parents. They have flown over to help out this weekend with my son so I can go to a mate's wedding. Didn't have to beg or plead, they organised it as soon as they found out I really wanted to go.

I haven't listened to this podcast yet, but the title looks interesting - The Inquiry - Are Video Games A Waste Of Time? Video games are a huge industry, bigger than Hollywood, and billions of people around the world play them for fun. But new economic research in the US suggests that young men are dropping out of work to play games more. This is both because some jobs are becoming harder to find and less rewarding, and because video games are becoming more and more attractive. The gamers say they are happy, but the research has sharpened long-standing concerns about video games. Will there be a 'lost generation' of young men sitting in their parents' basements, frittering their lives away on mindless games, with disastrous long-term effects for them and the economy? Are video games a waste of time?

By avoiding dealing with anxiety, it will only get worse or stagnate. I found my symptoms weren't going away and I wasn't getting better in social environments because I was escaping the problem through gaming rather than working out strategies to overcome it, which by the sounds of things is exactly what you are going through. Don't try to fight the feelings, you need to identify them for what they are, accept them, and then push forward. This is what @HappyCat is talking about. I also went to a therapist, and I think the biggest thing I took away from my sessions was identifying what the feelings were rather than me thinking I was 'broken'. The fact you are writing about it already means you have overcome that hurdle and maybe you could focus on ways that work for you on how to deal with them. Not sure if I helped much with what I wrote but it is a long journey you need to be patient with. I noticed just yesterday I was having some symptoms again after about three to four months of being anxiety-free, which I felt a little disappointing at first, but then saw as an opportunity to grind forward and work on my skills to deal with it rather than escape.

This has happened to me before with my wife @Hitaru, where she put our credit card details into a "US Visa" website which turned out to be a sham. I only picked up on it when she told me how much she had paid which was a conspicuous difference to how much it actually costs. If you used a credit card, the good news is you can get it back really quickly by cancelling the transaction. Takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to get it returned to you, but the companies definitely err in your favour. Then learn what you can from the experience and move forward! Emotions always get the better of us, especially in the heat of the moment, but they can teach us a lot about things as well, such as if there is an underlying issue that you need to confront.

22 Aug 17 Days to go: 237 Busy busy day yesterday. I have hit my threshold of when I need a break or mini-vacation, I think I determined before it is about every six weeks. I am relatively happy with my progress, but for me to stay sharp and focused at work I think I need a few days off every six weeks. I think I generate about 3 days of time off in that time so it seems like its a perfect fit. I've talked about it before in my journal so I have hit the point where I need some, now I need to put a plan into action. No gaming urges for the first day in quite some time! Maybe due to the day whizzed by and I did not have time to to think about it. Definitely need to spend more time with my office closed so I can power through the work, I achieved a good amount yesterday by dragging myself back into focus and removing all distractions, no matter how small I think they were. So I may have upgraded Raspbian too early and it's a bit buggy which is impacting what I can achieve on my computer. Until it gets rectified I think I might have to study at work after hours or somewhere else quiet like the library. Got the results back for my last assignment, 70%, which I am super happy with. Conveniently to keep me focused a new assignment is due in two weeks, so time to knuckle down and focus on that. I am up an extra hour early today to try and get a head start on it, making it the earliest I have been up in a very long time (0430). Grateful corner 1. Being able to run every day 2. Being able to study without it being a financial burden 3. Child care, which I think is really accelerating my son's growth

Welcome mate!

Day 91 will be just a blip on the radar as you go for 365 @Mettermrck

21 Aug 17 Days to go: 238 While just "less calories" @Mettermrck is a good plan, I think there are better ones! I have tried to switch to foods that I like to eat, but turn out to be a lot healthier for me. We bought a lot more fish during our grocery shopping this weekend as that is apparently a lot better for you with better almino acids, and I made sure we got the fish that I like. So no crumbs or batter, and mainly trout or salmon that I can grill with a little bit of butter. It probably helps that I was brought up on very basic foods so thats what I tend to prefer. Anyway I need to do some more research on this to get it right, maybe I will have some time today in a break at work.... yeah right highly unlikely! Yesterday was an intense day, very busy. Sadly I got very little study done except for read other people's online posts. I want to get some posts in today before I head off to work so I will see how I go. There is one online debater that is getting me emotional with their comments but I am just ignoring those. Looks like Doom is now my current vice. I keep reading a lot about the open source community. The reason I think I am doing this is I find the open source community fascinating, which began when I first discovered linux in about 2009 after I saw one of those netbooks for sale for $150. It amazes me that someone has put in so much work maintaining an old game and making it so much better, just like the open source community does with things like old hardware. You really don't have to go out every year and keep buying new things, you probably need to just look elsewhere for your software! The other reason I am probably taking the bait on wasting time on this is I read the John's (Romero & McCarmack) autobiography a few years ago about their life right up to when the company split. It was a really good read. Anyway time to re-focus. I can't let this invade my brain and undo all the work on productivity that I have achieved in the last 125 odd days. I didn't even work on any electronics this weekend as a result. I have set some new goals to help with refocusing myself, which involve doing two debate posts a day, which I think I can achieve even at work or at home, as long as I have done all the readings. Going to avoid the peanut who is making me emotional on the forums due to his incredibly low self awareness. Grateful corner 1. The opportunity to take my son to swimming lessons on the weekend so I can actually attend 2. Friends who are happy and flexible to spend time with 3. Affordable mobile (cell) phone plans to stay connected

I always wanted one of these, it looked like a lot of fun and a nice way to stay active, I guess sparked by the original NES fitness mat. I know the fitness mat got a lot of bad reviews though, so what is the soft mat like? I assume it would have the same challenges by being a bit harder to move on and not having quite the same feedback.

20 Aug 17 Days to go: 239 So I missed yesterday because I was terribly hungover. I very rarely get that bad because I get angry over how unproductive it makes me, and it sure did pretty much waste all of my morning yesterday. I didn't get out of bed until 0730, and then when I did get up I couldn't do anything. I was only angry about drinking being unproductive until I was well enough to go for my run in the afternoon. I think when I was at about kilometre number 22 when I thought to myself, I really need to get serious about my diet to try and help me with my training, and drinking is not helping at all. I have talked before about sorting out my diet and cutting out alcohol but that is all it has been so far, talk. Time to turn it into action. I have completely cut out gluten from my diet, I did do some research on paleo to try that as well but I think that would be a significant challenge to undertake that diet at the moment with my family. Since I have cut out gluten I feel great, the only times I generally don't feel great is when I have a beer, which naturally has gluten in it. Maybe this is the prodding I need to finally get rid of that too. Stop just talking giblets and take some action. It's hard when so many social events over here involve beer, or maybe it's not just over here but it's the social events that I go to. Anyway, disappointed rant over. I did finally go for my run yesterday afternoon and broke 30km, but boy oh boy was it painful. I felt really good for the first 22km and then I hit the wall, even with taking my supplements and drinking lots of water. I assume it is because I hadn't been giving my body the right food or vitamins for the last day or so. It really got me down because I felt like I took a step back from the week before, and because there is only 4 weeks until the marathon now, in fact it is exactly 4 weeks today, and I will need to do another 20km on top of that. I contemplated stopping running at the 25km mark but I wouldn't let myself to. The only one that was going to lose out if I had stopped running them was myself, as these runs are building my pain threshold and getting used to running for so long. Plus I thought if I let myself give up when it starts to get tough then there is no way I will finish the marathon. My body had to realise that even though it hurts it still needs to keep going. I pretty much walked the last 3-4km to get home, but I made sure I wasn't dragging my feet. The time I put in the first 15km made up for it though, as I still managed to maintain a pace of about 6:15m per km overall, which is 2:15min faster than I need to be to miss the slow bus. I would have been at least 30 minutes ahead of the slow bus when I felt like I needed to have a walk. Not much else has happened really. I wanted to do some electronics fiddling yesterday and some study but not achieve it. Did spend some time with my son which was a lot of fun as always and some grocery shopping. It would have been an ideal day to sit and play games so then I wouldn't have to think about how bad I was feeling but that's not going to happen anymore. Oh and my xbox sold! Very happy about that. I haven't been paid for it so I assume it is going to be a pick-up/drop off which is fine, I was a bit worried about putting it in the post. I am now running out of electronic devices in my house, that makes 4 I have sold for a nice chunk of change. The next thing to go will be my DS, I wonder how much it is worth. It amazes me how much money I had sunk into stuff like this which was now just sitting around collecting dust. Wake up man. I almost forgot to say I really enjoyed that I had to go looking my journal on the forums! It had fallen to middle of the second page, which made me smile. It means there are so many people here in our little community talking about their paths and helping each other out! Lots of respect for you all and @Cam for making it happen. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of effort he has put into this place and it has now taken a life of its own. Grateful corner I am very grateful for my parents. I do tell them sometimes but I probably do not tell them enough. Yesterday I saw a handful of people that made me think, "I wonder what your upbringing was like for you to have those values". My parents put a lot of effort into bringing me up right with the right set of values and with morals and ethics. I couldn't be the person I am today without them, warts and all. I spent some time reflecting on this last night and it really lights the fire for doing the right thing for my son, I want him to be raised even better.

Body is more efficient by being more compact?

Don't get too fixated on comparing yourself to others, because you'll never be happy and you'll never do things for yourself. What would an extra 10lbs do for you? How will it benefit you? Congrats on your 1 year! Must feel amazing. Here is to the next 5

It's a smart thing to consider Bobby boy. I found that as I began living in the moment and became more aware of my surroundings, I became very frustrated at the amount of people who are always on their phone, and 9 times out of 10, they were on facebook. I immediately deleted facebook off my phone. I found that I then switched to twitter and was still doing the same thing, so I deleted twitter as well. For browsing, I convinced myself it is a better experience to be looking at pages or reading on a big screen rather than my phone. So now when I think about browsing or want to google something, I simply send myself an email with the link or the topic. Then twice a day, at 5am and at 8pm, I check my e-mail and do all those things (or delete them for no longer being relevant). Give it a try, you will feel liberated. As for an old school alarm clock, that's a good idea too, especially when they're only $10 or less. So is getting a different or older phone like a feature phone. I don't do any of that, but what I do is make sure when I get home I put my phone by my bed and walk away. It breaks that urge to always look or check it because it means you have to walk to the bedroom, check it and see nothing is actually there, and then walk back to what you're doing. Such a time waster. I did it because I didn't want my son to see me with a phone in my hands all the time but its the same effect. I would get rid of my phone entirely if I had another way to listen to podcasts, thats the kicker for me. When I was using a feature phone I did find I was also messaging people a lot less and actually talking to them more, because it was such a chore to type on it. I found it did wonders for my relationships. And noting where you are in your detox, I think this is appropriate for you watch -

This. I always chuckle at the people I knew many years ago who said I was addicted to my computer but now won't peel themselves away from their smartphones even when you're talking to them. A specific example is my family, the same exact sibling who used to berate me for not going outside or for not getting off the nintendo now can't even have dinner with me at the table without having to check their phone 5-6 times, or simply just sit there and spend time together without wanting to be surfing the web at the same time. Makes me think we probably all have the same tendencies, we just realised ours at an earlier age and/or with a different device.

That's great you can see and experience that now. Imagine what you'll feel like, and have achieved, at day 90! You won't be able to recognise yourself. I look back to me just a 100 days ago, which is a short time in the grand scheme of things, and not be able to recognise them.

18 Aug 17 Days to go: 241 I agree @Cam, I have come a long way. I set my 'benchmark' or 'comparison point' as 4 years ago in 2013, as I had a massive epiphany on what I was doing with my life and what I wanted to achieve for the rest of it. Prior to that point, I was a jerk and I hate reflecting on how I acted and how I treated people. Fast forward to now though, and I get frustrated that I allow myself to 'relapse' so often. I get it is a slow process with speed bumps in the road, I just wish it was fast enough that it stops resulting in people avoiding me or thinking I am 'difficult'. I'll keep plugging away at it like the little engine that could. What I have been telling myself after your post is that even if I can't develop it fast enough to get to where I want to be in life, at least I can develop enough that I can have a positive impact on my son's life and put him in a good place mentally that he can make a name for himself. That's the meaning of parenthood (and/or life) right? So deep for first thing in the morning @Mettermrck it might be different in the big US of A, but there was a phase down under where it was either made illegal or discouraged to take leftovers home. This was because there was a lot of debate about allergies and/or food poisoning due to not putting any nutritional value on the box or having a mark on it to say when it was made. Either they have gone back to allowing people to do it and take the risks in their own hands in the last few years, or I have just started asking again after all this time. Either way it is awesome, and I like it. I know there was another movement to box up your leftovers and give it to homeless people, or maybe that's the movement that caused the concern. In the US surely that would be a big thing, considering your serving sizes are so massive! @BigPete247, I guess you don't get the name Big Pete if you didn't eat all of your dinner Yesterday was another challenge. Thankfully I didn't get emotional about anything, just so much going on at work I started to crack at the edges. Luckily I had my study afternoon so I was only there for half the day. I did get a few calls trying to get me to go back into work but I held my ground. I don't want to set a precedent that my study hours are not compulsory and not negotiable, and besides I was two weeks behind on what I needed to do. This morning I got up early as usual and went straight to my notes and readings rather than coming here or surfing the web. That's definitely the way to do it, early in the morning, don't touch the phone or any other websites other than the university, minimise distractions. Get that flow on. As a result I submitted my discussion points for this week, it took me until Friday but at least they are in. They aren't perfect but it should spark some discussion and I will add to it tomorrow morning before my run. I feel like gaming is starting to edge itself back in my life which I am not quite happy about. I haven't started playing games again but I have found myself doing a bit of reading about Hexen/Heretic. It's a rabbit hole, it started with me talking to colleagues about selling my xbox, which that started a debate of what would happen if we wanted to get together for a LAN or to game together online, which lead to a discussion about Doom and how it runs on anything, even a Raspberry Pi, and that it's requirements are so low it should work on crappy (phone) connections. Now that has lead to me reading about the Doom engine, the breakthroughs it made, and what other games used the engine, thus we reach our point of Hexen. I guess what is making me dwell on it is nostalgia for when I played the demo as a kid. I won't allow myself to fire it up though, as I keep thinking back to the Getting Things Done podcast by Asian efficiency. They compared Ramsey's quote of "every dollar has a job" to productivity, saying "every hour has a job". Every hour does have a job, and there is only 168 of them in every week so I need to make sure I am using them all to further what I actually want to achieve; like studying, running, and family. I don't group work in the "big 3" as it's a facilitator for those 3 right now. It will probably change in my next job where I want to impress so I can get considered for another promotion. If only I could start that job now, it would be great. Grateful corner Library services. I really think libraries are underrated, especially in 2017. They are more than just books, they are a quiet place to drown out the noise of the world, they are a place that people who don't have computers or a space to be productive can use, and importantly for me, they have 'educator' access to a lot of academic journals. I really hope they don't go by the way of the dodo and get phased out. I do need to spend more time in the one near my house if for nothing else to show my support for the service and everything they do.

17 Aug 17 Days to go: 242 So I got back on the bandwagon with running. Happy about that. Felt really good and I pushed myself further than I needed to run. There is a corner near my house which is exactly 8km away, and about 300m before I got to it the training app said to turn around, but I kept going to that corner. Going to try and aim to get there every day as a minimum, as I know when I first started the idea of that would have been insane. When I first started the half way mark used to be this foot bridge and I was always so proud to reach it that I would take a photo of myself. Now I run over the bridge and I am still warming up. Maybe that will be the same with this corner one day. I am still letting my emotions control me. While I feel I am taking a few steps forward every day with it, I also feel like I am in the "two steps forward, one step back" regime. I get the gut feeling I have left this too late to control for it to not impact my professional life, but I must keep trying. Even if only my personal life reaps the benefits, then at least it's going to be productive. Today is the third attempt at a study day, the last three weeks haven't really worked out because I have accidently planned things over the top of it, mostly meetings or travel. Not today. Today I will catch back up and get involved again in the online debate. Grateful corner Take home containers. Might sound lame but I am grateful that some restaurants let you take your leftover food home! When I am eating it the next day it brings back the memories of going out to dinner and the conversations that were had. Plus the food is always good and it makes me feel like I am being frugal

It's all about the sleep bank. As long as you keep making deposits you can overdraw on later, you will be amazed what you can achieve!

Welcome mate! You will reap massive benefits with your family on this path!

Hey mate! You have a lot going for you starting this path at 25, you still have your whole life ahead of you!

Hi @Marcus! I am in a similar position, trying to study my masters alongside my full time job and spending time with a family. I can tell you it is not easy at all! I have cut my hobbies down a lot so I can focus on the "big three" - work, study, and family. I still have a lot of hobbies that I enjoy but I am a lot more careful with my time. The biggest hobby I have is building electronics which not only takes up a lot of time but a lot of money (similar to MTG), so I allocate half a day for that on the weekend (usually Saturday afternoon). Outside of that window I try to spend about 30 minutes to an hour a day on "me" time, doing something fun. Lately this is used to run, so I am having fun, pseudo-meditating, and getting fit at the same time. A hobby like MTG is hard to fit in around your schedule because you need an opponent, which will involve travel time and a chunk of time each out of your day, which is hard to organise unless you are a regular at a local store. You're better off trying to get more out of your week days, such as studying and working as much as possible, so you can have a half or full day free on the weekend to dedicate to it, and also allow you to travel. You could alternate between MTG tournaments and attending your medieval festival. Not sure if that helped much but I find maximising what you can do during the week for work and study means you can give yourself a full day on the weekend.