seriousjay

Your situation hits home in so many ways that it hurts. I would think this way as well. "Maybe I'm just always going to be average." "Maybe it's too late for me." "Am I so knee deep in this that it's just impossible to get out?" It's so easy to allow yourself to believe these things and go back to the way things were. What it seems like you're missing is a REASON to quit. Why did you quit? For me, I want to have a family and a career that I love doing. Neither of those things are possible if I continue to game the way I used to. It also seems like you might be suffering from a severe lack of self-esteem. I actually just read a blog post about the types of day you had a while ago on this excellent blog: http://www.positivityblog.com/ Here is the excerpt: The underlying message of that passage is clear to me. If you're stuck in a pit of depression and self loathing, you've got to start finding very small things to be positive about. Over time this will create some momentum for you towards positive thinking and it will start to change the way you think about yourself. Believe me: I used to think I was worthless and deserved no happiness in life at all. If I can change, I believe you can too!!! Good luck!!

Hey Mr. B, welcome to the forums! You'll find that many of the good folks here are in the same boat as you, so you're definitely in the right place. I would recommend starting a journal as that will be the best way for people to help you and encourage you!

This is my post for yesterday. A few of the daily tasks I've committed to and the reasons I do them: - At least 10 minutes of meditation every day. I have a very active imagination and mind and I am meditating in order to reign it in. I actually think my imagination can become a huge strength for me but I'd like to be able to control it instead of getting swept up in it. - I've created something of a manifesto for my life, as follows: I repeat these words to myself, out loud, every single day. The purpose is to reinforce and remind myself why I am doing what I am doing. This really helps to ground me and help me resist temptations that come up throughout the day. - I've bought into the Earn1K program offered by Ramit Sethi and with it comes a "Top Performer's Agreement" which is essentially a bunch of commitments to being a top performer. This is mainly about completing the Earn1K course which is a course to help you make some money on the side. I repeat these commitments out loud every single day for the same reasons I repeat my life manifesto. - I didn't do it today but I also watch a short motivational video every day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26U_seo0a1g&list=PLvHL2NM0-JkJfoKsHw3UkN1MUkDRtbceL&index=7. This video specifically hits on a great deal of points that I feel are quite important to me at this time. The reason I watch it essentially is to fire me up every day. - I read and made notes on two of the e-mails I get from this positivity blog: http://www.positivityblog.com/ I do this in order to help improve my self esteem, as I feel that is one of my major weaknesses at this time. I will be doing two a day until I catch up (nearly 50 of them to catch up on). Then I will be doing them as I get them. The notes will also serve as something great to review every once in a while. Not really sure how I'll go about that, however. There are a bunch of other things I'd like to start doing on a daily basis as well, but unlike previous times, I'm not going to be hard on myself, at least not at first, if I don't get on with them quickly, or even if I miss some of the daily things I've already committed to. Until the foundation I'm laying for my road to success is very solid, I'm going to remain as kind and compassionate to myself as I can possibly be. I feel as if this will also help my self-esteem a lot. Obviously I'm going to need to ramp it up at some point but for now I'm cool with this. As long as I make even small, incremental steps towards success every single day, then it's a positive day. This process cannot be rushed. There is no short cut to the end. I've accepted where I'm at and I'm taking responsibility for what I need to do to get to where I want to be. One last thing I want to mention, and this is largely for myself: I've had times during relapse periods where I wondered how I ever was able to quit games, etc. for any period of time. At that time, it just seemed so preposterous that I could ever be that way. However, I know I can do it, but more importantly, and this is something Alex pointed out to me, I do enjoy life without them and the fantasies. I am putting this here as a reminder to myself in case things ever get to a low point again.

Alright, last week or so was spent binge gaming on Starbound. Before I started that I was feeling heavy, heavy nostalgia for several days before I finally caved. What I've come to accept is that this feeling of nostalgia and the overwhelming desire to go back to playing video games is a barrier that is always going to stand in the way of me moving on, and if I truly want to change, I'm simply going to have to overcome it. There's no real way around that fact. And it's probably going to happen again too. It's really the same way I feel about fast food as well. Ultimately to stop eating fast food, I just have to say no every time the desire comes up to indulge in that. There's just no way around it. The desire is always going to hit me at some point and the difference between success and failure is saying no to that desire. Ultimately willpower, self control and all that stuff only goes so far in helping to overcome these things. I think the most important thing when it comes to this is having a strong principle to hang on to as you get bombarded by such desires. Something that is so important to you that you can no longer afford to give in to your desires because losing those principles is unbearable. For me that's just recognizing that these things I've been doing are no longer viable with respect to building a life I can be proud of. Anyways, today I started to take some more concrete steps towards that goal: - Created a daily to do list that included some short and medium term goals. Previously I wracked my brain trying to populate such a list as much as I could but I've slowly started to appreciate that these things just can't be rushed. Do what you know to do, what you know will lead you in the right direction and trust that everything else will fall into place as long as you keep doing it. - Went through chapter 1 of Respawn again. Even though I've been through it a few times, there's still some new insights to be had, as well as the reinforcement of things I already knew. Two that stood out for me: The thing that matters most is what I do from here. The past is only relevant in terms of what I can learn from it Up to this point, every time I've tried to quit, I've been so focused on what I need to do better that I failed to stop and realize that this isn't something that can be rushed. At first, it's probably going to be slow and I won't be able to figure everything out right away. It goes back to what I mentioned a bit earlier - do what you know is right and everything else should fall into place. To that point, being kind and patient with myself is something I haven't been very good at at all and I'm going to change that. Again.. this process can't be rushed. Anyways, those are my thoughts for the day. I'm going back to daily journaling. I think it's a really important aspect that Alex has tried to reinforce for me but I've been neglecting for far too long.

OK Alex said it would be a great idea to continue journaling and I 100% agree, so here goes. This is probably.. week 2 or 3 or something of quitting video games. I'm not even keeping track anymore because I do not believe it is video games that I am/was addicted to. While a powerful medium for escape, I think the real thing that I am addicted to is trapping myself in spectacular fantasies that I am a central character in. The same effect occurs whether it's video games I am playing or whether it's simply watching a TV show that I get emotionally invested in, like Naruto, or, more recently, Star Trek: Voyager. When I latch on to something like this, my mind starts to drift off to altered versions of said medium where I am a significant part of it. It makes me feel good because even though I know it is not real, the human brain cannot tell the difference between what's real and what isn't and so I get extremely emotionally invested in these fantasies and it is very hard to break out. This describes what I experience 100%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_prone_personality The cause of this whole mess is pretty obvious: I am 30 years old and am barely ahead of where I was when I was 10. Not even really exaggerating that much. Same job, same relationship state, still living at home, still no real life friends that I have a strong connection with. The only difference is I have an education, and I am physically older. I suppose the most important difference is that I am now very much aware of what's going on in my mind and I am actively resisting against it. The solution is to go out and start re-integrating with real life, start making meaningful connections and start doing things I can take pride in. That's the part where I am stuck. And I know that if I continue to do nothing, I will eventually go back to being a slave to fantasy. I realize that it won't be easy, and it won't really be that exciting. And it won't be fast. There are no shortcuts when it comes to personal development. But I know it's something I have to get started on and commit to 100%. It's something I have to decide to do and just do it, because I know I'll never really "want" to do it. Every day that goes by, the pull to go back to my previous ways gets stronger, so I know something has to be done very soon. Well that's where I'm at right now. EDIT: Well after writing this down I thought to myself, well it's already kind of late so not much point in starting anything productive, but I realized I'm probably going to end up staying up for a little while longer, so why NOT do something productive? So I ended up working on some of the self development material I have and feel pretty good about that decision now. The key for me I find is to carry that momentum forward and not allow anything to kill it.

OK so I just want it to be known that on Jan. 1st, I will be attempting to quit video games once again. I have come to realize that as long as video games are a part of my life in any capacity, I won't be able to live the life I want to live. So this means a complete and utter quitting of video games in every capacity possible. No talking about games, thinking about games, interacting with games in any capacity, including youtube videos, game forums, etc. Basically it's a complete and utter purge of video games from my life. At some point I'm going to continue with daily journal entries but it'll be after that.. I don't necessarily have a plan in place right now for how to proceed, but at this time, as long as video games are a distraction for me I just don't think I'll be able to come up with something that works. Purge first, plan later. Maybe this doesn't make any sense, but this is what I've decided is the best course of action for me.

Hey guys, just trying to get back into this thing, here are a few things I want to be doing during the week: - go over my 5 year plan on a daily basis - set smart goals for the near future - watch Alex's game addiction video I'll be looking to check in every day to update my progress.

OK so I better put this here. The last couple of days haven't been so good. Didn't get anything done. Without being able to use gaming as a crutch, the two biggest things I feel like I'm missing right now are activities to do that don't feel like chores, and some friends to hang out with. I should probably put a priority on handling those two things. Right now I'm taking a look at how different instruments sound to see if something resonates with me. So far I'm really loving the flute, so I may look into that more.

Thanks for the encouragement guys! Right now I am just attempting to define my goals for the time being.

Day 1 Ok so today was a reasonably successful day. I'll probably organize my post similar to the way Alex does as I find that a pretty good way of doing it. In the morning I felt very sluggish. I asked my dad to buy me a coffee before he left for a doctor's appointment but he ended up forgetting. By the time I saw him again I felt I didn't really need it anymore. I'm still on the fence about coffee. I don't necessarily think coffee is bad or anything but I want to stop drinking pop. The best way I feel to do that is to stop drinking caffeinated beverages entirely. I feel like if I drink coffee it'll be easier to justify drinking pop. That being said, I ended up drinking pop today anyways. When I got home I felt pretty exhausted and I ended up ordering food even though I didn't really want to. I have to get better at simply going with how I feel instead of falling back to my habits. How I feel is that I simply don't want to order, but I do it because it feels good and familiar, although I usually end up regretting doing it after the fact. Important to note is that I did end up watching something gaming related on Youtube while I ate. I've been doing that for so long and it's mostly out of habit than anything else. It just feels weird to not watch something while eating. OK, so on to my daily things. Meditation Yep. Visualization I didn't have time to complete it this morning and it didn't seem to be going nearly as well as it did the day before either. I'll have to keep working at this. Walk After Work Yes. Just did a quick trip around the block near my house. Watch Game Quitters Video, Take Notes Yes. I watched the first video about improving your social skills. Not much surprised me in there. The main thing is that you don't need to go to night clubs or things like that to improve your social skills. The reality is that every single interaction you have with another person is an opportunity to improve them, it's just a matter of creating opportunities for yourself to interact with others and being intentional about using those opportunities to better yourself. Read Changing For Good Yes, and I am thinking of starting again from the beginning and this time actually creating an action plan from it. I want to create a skeleton which lists out all the action steps the book recommends to take and actually doing them. It would probably be good to use this approach from now on for just about any book I read. Write A Paragraph Per Day, Weekly Goals of Two Pages Yep, I wrote several paragraphs today. I kind of felt like I wanted to keep going when I stopped but I decided to put it down for the night. This is another area where I could stand to go with my feelings a little bit more. Define Goals, Write Affirmations For Goals Not yet. Pro/Con Chart for Quitting Games and Fast Food Not yet. Do The Thing Cam Suggested Not yet. Go To Gym Once This Week Not yet, probably not until Thursday I think. OK there's still a decent amount of time left until I go to bed and not sure how I'm going to use it right now. But that's it for now.

I will definitely be doing that. It sounds like it would be very useful. Just letting everyone know that after my talk with my accountability partner tonight, I will be re-committing to the 90 day detox. As part of that I will go through Respawn again as well. After watching the 90 day detox video a couple of things resonated with me. First, the idea that my brain wants to game as opposed to me wanting to game. That definitely feels like where I'm at right now, as I've installed and deleted Fallout 4 something like 5 or 6 times in the past week. I would play for a bit, and then get bored or frustrated and eventually end up wondering why I'm even playing it, knowing that it isn't what I want to be doing and then delete it. The other thing thing is that I definitely find non-gaming activities much more boring in comparison. That'll be something to work on for sure. One thing that I've been struggling with, and this happened every single time upon deleting my game, was that I kept thinking about reasons to play or not to play. I kept struggling with whatever or not I should go back into it. Upon re-committing to the 90 day detox, I have felt that struggle disappear. Exactly. One thing I notice every time I'm at the gym and I'm doing core exercises, is that when I'm halfway through it always gets tougher because it's testing my commitment, but as soon as I commit in my mind that I'm going to finish and keep going no matter what, then the pain goes away and it's easier. Yeah working out is one of those things where you've got to keep reminding yourself why you're doing it and that it is good for you, because the workout itself tends not to be too fun for most people. That is the same with everything in life. You have to remind yourself why you're doing it and that it is good for you. Fair enough!

I will definitely be doing that. It sounds like it would be very useful. Just letting everyone know that after my talk with my accountability partner tonight, I will be re-committing to the 90 day detox. As part of that I will go through Respawn again as well. After watching the 90 day detox video a couple of things resonated with me. First, the idea that my brain wants to game as opposed to me wanting to game. That definitely feels like where I'm at right now, as I've installed and deleted Fallout 4 something like 5 or 6 times in the past week. I would play for a bit, and then get bored or frustrated and eventually end up wondering why I'm even playing it, knowing that it isn't what I want to be doing and then delete it. The other thing thing is that I definitely find non-gaming activities much more boring in comparison. That'll be something to work on for sure. One thing that I've been struggling with, and this happened every single time upon deleting my game, was that I kept thinking about reasons to play or not to play. I kept struggling with whatever or not I should go back into it. Upon re-committing to the 90 day detox, I have felt that struggle disappear. Exactly. One thing I notice every time I'm at the gym and I'm doing core exercises, is that when I'm halfway through it always gets tougher because it's testing my commitment, but as soon as I commit in my mind that I'm going to finish and keep going no matter what, then the pain goes away and it's easier. Yeah working out is one of those things where you've got to keep reminding yourself why you're doing it and that it is good for you, because the workout itself tends not to be too fun for most people.

I will definitely be doing that. It sounds like it would be very useful. Just letting everyone know that after my talk with my accountability partner tonight, I will be re-committing to the 90 day detox. As part of that I will go through Respawn again as well. After watching the 90 day detox video a couple of things resonated with me. First, the idea that my brain wants to game as opposed to me wanting to game. That definitely feels like where I'm at right now, as I've installed and deleted Fallout 4 something like 5 or 6 times in the past week. I would play for a bit, and then get bored or frustrated and eventually end up wondering why I'm even playing it, knowing that it isn't what I want to be doing and then delete it. The other thing thing is that I definitely find non-gaming activities much more boring in comparison. That'll be something to work on for sure. One thing that I've been struggling with, and this happened every single time upon deleting my game, was that I kept thinking about reasons to play or not to play. I kept struggling with whatever or not I should go back into it. Upon re-committing to the 90 day detox, I have felt that struggle disappear.

I will definitely be doing that. It sounds like it would be very useful. Just letting everyone know that after my talk with my accountability partner tonight, I will be re-committing to the 90 day detox. As part of that I will go through Respawn again as well.

Just wanna get this down here before I forget. My dad and I had a conversation about where I'm at right now in my life and he challenged me to think about the good things that happened to me basically before about 4 or 5 years ago. I drew a blank. I could only think of the bad things. I told him when a kid goes to school and gets bullied every day, then goes to a house where the parents are arguing more than anything else, what do you expect is going to happen? That being said, it's something to think about.. I thought I was well past all the crap that happened to me before but it seems I'm not. It isn't as bad as it was before but there's still some lingering bitterness it seems. To be honest I'm not sure what to do about this. Any thoughts? He also mentioned that if he wanted to do something, he'd decide to do it, go for it and not let anything get in his way. He told me that he felt the reason I'm not the same way is because I'm weak. Maybe he's right. I feel like all those years of being made to feel worthless was responsible for that.

Yes increased awareness is something I am being purposeful about acquiring. I don't really have any plans at this point on how to improve my health habits. Maybe that's something I need to address, to actually have a plan of action instead of just taking it day by day and hope things work out. At this point I am just focusing on the consciousness raising change process to become more aware of what my habits are doing to me and finding motivation to change through that. That being said, getting healthier has been important to me for quite some time. I've just been living unhealthily for so long that it's taking a while to change.

OK so yesterday I made a conscious decision to not do anything due to the physically demanding week that I've had. I wanted to just relax for one evening and not have to worry about anything. I don't know if this was a good idea or bad one, but the hope was to have more energy during the weekend to do what I wanted to do. I also re-installed Fallout 4 last night again. I had been contemplating whether or not I should play it for like 2 weeks now, and seeing it installed on my computer immediately gave me a sense of relief about that. I don't know what it is about this game, honestly. Do I feel like I have unfinished business? Is the character development system that I mentioned that I enjoyed before just too attractive to me? I have put aside playing it until later today but I notice some impatience now because I'm currently sitting down to make up for what I didn't do yesterday, which is not surprising. I'm not making any judgments about the situation right now, just putting down my thoughts. --- So I watched Cam's videos on the sunk cost fallacy and delaying gratification. I believe I had watched the sunk cost fallacy video before and obviously it makes a lot of sense. We put a lot of time and energy into developing our characters in these games and it is a "material" thing we can cling on to and we end up with a fear of losing it. I think the most effective strategy is to delete our progress so we can move on. As Cam said, we don't have to forget about it or how it made us feel, but we can give ourselves permission to move on from it and start a new chapter. The delayed gratification video also made a lot of sense. I am not surprised to find that people who put off gratification in the marshmallow test went on to generally have more successful lives. I do wonder about potential biases in that test, specifically, many of those kids were probably predisposed to either decision based on their lifestyle up to that point, but that's not terribly important. The important part is that, as Cam mentioned, delaying gratification is a muscle and we need to work on improving it as just about anything worth having forces you to delay that gratification. I definitely believe that most of anything that gives instant gratification is generally not good for you. I read to the end of the contemplation stage chapter in Changing For Good and the rest of the chapter simply reinforced the importance of the chart I talked about in my last post. Specifically, the chart is about listing the pros and cons of your problem behaviour, and being very honest with yourself about them. If the pros of getting rid of your behaviour outweigh the cons, then you are probably ready to move to the preparation stage. If not, you need to apply some of the other changes processes to get to that point. Part of that may also involve changing your desired outcomes. In the specific example in the book, an overweight woman despaired that her pros of losing weight were greatly outweighed by her cons. Part of her solution was to make her goal to live a healthier life and not worry about losing weight. She told herself that losing weight would be a natural part of making better decisions about food and exercise. When she created the pros and cons chart again, it was flipped over. There were way more pros than cons, and she was able to move on. I think this will be important to do for me and I will make it a goal for next week. Read two articles about what drinking a can of pop a day does to you, and it isn't good. I've read about it before but it always hits me hard when I do. It's honestly amazing how resilient our bodies are to abuse. Particularly interesting was the second article pointing out that even diet pop isn't good for you at all. It's potentially worse. I've read an article before about how a woman exhibiting symptoms of multiple sclerosis found out it was the artificial sweeteners in diet coke causing those symptoms to appear. I don't know if it was true or not (indeed, a friend of mine attempted to debunk it), but that isn't important. The point is that there is no version of pop available that is good for you in any way. It is completely empty calories that is increasing your chances for all sorts of very serious problems. And I read my positivity newsletter that detailed 7 tips to spreading the optimism around. Simple things like giving someone a smile or a hug. I think it's easy to underestimate the effect that these types of actions can have, Alright that's it for now! I have to get ready for a blood test I have at 7 AM.

Alrighty, so today went much better and I even doubled down on my daily things to make up for yesterday! I watched Cam's videos on dealing with stress without gaming and talking to "normal" people about your problem. I find I pretty much already do just about everything in the stress video. Mainly, I tend not to dwell on anything that I can't control. I think this is one of the biggest stress factors at this time. We just don't want to feel like we aren't in total control of everything going on around us, but the reality is, we just don't. We can't control probably 90-95% of the things going on around us, but we can absolutely control our reactions to those things. As far as the other video, the tips made a lot sense. The most important thing I think is to not give the impression that you're judging games or people who play them. Instead, just come at it from a stance of just sharing facts about gaming addiction. In Changing For Good, it talked about the self re-evaluation change process. This is the act of intentionally questioning why you do what you do, how it makes you feel, what would improve if your life if you got rid of your problem behaviour, etc. They went as far as to provide a chart to fill out weighing the pros and cons of eliminating your problem behaviour. Their research suggests that if the pros of changing do not outweigh the cons, then your probability of successfully changing is very small. This makes a lot of sense. If the cons outweigh the pros, then you clearly value your problem behaviour more than you want to get rid of it. They made the point NOT to ignore the benefits of your behaviour - you wouldn't be doing it if there weren't benefits, regardless of whether or not those benefits are good for you. Gaming, for example, makes you feel good, relieves stress, etc. I took a different approach today with consciousness raising about my eating problem and decided to look at the positive benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Lots of great benefits, nothing really surprised me, but it was nice to go at it from a different angle. The positivity newsletters talked about dealing with nervousness before some event, as well as getting back in shape. The main point of dealing with nervousness was attempting to eliminate all expectations of the outcome of the event. If you're going to do some kind of speech in public, for example, simply eliminate all your expectations of how you think it'll go. This can help you to eliminate the scenarios that you're likely creating in your head of everything that can go wrong, which we often do when nervous. The one about getting back in shape offered simple tips. Start small, don't ramp up too much too soon or you'll burn out, try to eat more slowly in order to give your brain enough time to tell you when you're full, and try to do physical activity that you enjoy. Pretty basic. OK that's all for today!

I actually do have some ideas about why it happened. In the morning I ended up procrastinating out of bed for the second day in a row. Not as bad yesterday, as I stayed in bed for only half an hour longer instead of almost an hour, but maybe the effect became cumulative. It's weird though because the rest of my morning was just fine. I think the real trouble started near the end of work. Specifically, when a customer came in I just kept doing what I was doing instead of helping him unload his car and that weighed on me a bit because I really should have helped him out. Also, on my way home from work, I didn't have to pick up my dad from the airport as I learned earlier so I suddenly had a whole evening to do whatever I wanted and I immediately thought I should go on the Wednesday hike. I decided not to go and perhaps that contributed to it as well. The reason I decided not to go was because I didn't want to miss the baseball game, which obviously isn't a very good reason as watching TV isn't any less of a waste of time than playing video games. I think it just comes down to making better decisions during the day as well as starting off strong in the morning. I'm pretty optimistic about today however as I managed to force myself to get up from bed right when I woke up around 5 AM and I even had a cool (not cold) shower to try to help wake me up as well. I feel pretty good right now so looking forward to the rest of the day!

Bleh. Today was a really lazy day. I had no motivation or energy to do much of anything. So I didn't do anything I wanted to do today. Looking forward to a better day tomorrow!

Great job Alex keep it up!

I've read that one before. I might have to go over it again! --- So today feels like a bit of a slog right now. I managed to do all the things I wanted to do but I didn't really feel like it, that's for sure. I bet a lot of this had to do with procrastinating getting out of bed this morning. I woke up at 5 AM but didn't get up until almost 6. I did meditation in the morning and it went as well as could be expected given it was my first time in quite a while. Also did my visualization when I got home from work, found myself getting distracted but I managed to stay focused for a few minutes. Watched Cam's video on making your summer break awesome. A lot of it had to do with simply adding structure to your life. This makes a lot of sense and things like having a schedule can really help you focus throughout the day and set you on the correct path. I did the minimum reading of Changing For Good and it wasn't all that useful. It was simply a small blurb about a man who began to realize that his drinking problem was of his own doing, along with the other issues in his life that he kept blaming other people for. This honestly makes a lot of sense - many of our problems have nothing to do with others and we only have ourselves to blame, yet blaming other people is probably one of the most common defense mechanisms people use to justify their behaviour. I read the wikipedia page about diabetes. Scary stuff. Preventing specifically type 2 diabetes is nothing complicated, but if you ever protract it, man, watch out. Just reinforces how important it is to live a healthy lifestyle. It might seem like it's doing no harm now but you can easily be paying for your choices for a very long time down the road. Henrik's positivity newsletter that I read was about avoiding perfectionism. It actually makes a lot of sense because perfectionism can easily lead you to never getting anything done or never even getting started because your standards are simply too unrealistic. Today is a perfect example for me. I could get down on myself that I didn't have great motivation to do what I wanted to do but at the same time, these days will happen, it probably won't be the last, and it's good enough just to have finished what I set out to do, even if my performance wasn't the best. --- On another note, I went to Shopper's Drug Mart today and ended up buying those cupcakes I denied myself last week or whenever it was. I had a craving for fast food and I justified buying them by saying that it at least isn't fast food and I can use these to reward myself for getting things done. I have mixed feelings about this. I'm not sure it's any better than fast food as cupcakes aren't exactly the healthiest thing around. It didn't help that I got tempted into buying additionally these sugar glazed donuts as well which was completely unnecessary. Regardless, what's done is done.

Check out @kortheo's journal and how he's trying to bring more awareness to ways he can contribute and help out more, or as he said "be less selfish." It's a muscle like anything else, so if you want to build it, bringing more awareness to it is one of the first steps. Thanks Cam! I'm not really sure that I'm concerned that I'm too selfish or something like that. Different people have different values regarding selflessness and I think that's OK. I believe it's important to not get caught in the trap of saying things like "That person is so nice/generous/whatever, I wish I could be like them!" and then going out of your to try to do that. If you don't believe in the core of your being that being less selfish or whatever is really important to you, I think trying to become that will be very obvious and some people will probably be able to see right through it. I think the best way to go about this is to engage in personal development, and the positive things that ARE important to you will naturally come out and develop themselves as you engage in the process. That, I believe, is the best way of becoming the best possible version of yourself. --- OK, so my post for today: After work I spent most of the evening at my aunt's home, which was very nice and relaxing. The mood was much better than yesterday, that's for sure. I am confident that our family will be able to move on past our loss quite quickly. I watched Cam's video on what to do during the summer and I found the message quite powerful. The two main pieces that stood out to me were the ideas of viewing your time as something to invest as opposed to kill, as well as the fact that if you really want to change and you want something better for yourself, you've got to be the one to do it. Nobody is going to change your life for you. Where you are isn't because of fate or whatever, but it the culmination of every single choice you have made in your life. So from this day forward, strive to make the choices that will move you towards where you want to be. Changing For Good was also quite good reading. The idea of monitoring the antecedents (preceding thoughts and feelings) as well as consequences of engaging in your problem behaviour was discussed and it really reinforced the importance of monitoring your progress. If you write everything down and time stamp it, you can get a really good idea of how things are going and track your progress well. With respect to your problem behaviours, you can also get a sense of what triggers you as well and what your thoughts and feelings are leading up to engaging in your behaviour as well as immediately after. On the positivity blog, Henrik talks about breaking our of procrastination and his advice is honestly excellent. If you see a huge daunting task in front of you, just tell yourself you'll work on it for a few minutes and then you'll be done. Often what ends up happening is that you'll start spending even more time as you gain momentum from doing that task that not so long ago you didn't even want to start. I feel that way with myself - it takes a lot to get me going, but I usually end up doing a whole lot more than I expected and most of the time I'll even enjoy it as well. That's really part of the point with these weekly commitments - just to build that momentum. I wasn't sure what to do for consciousness raising of my eating problem so I just checked out the recommended daily calorie intake as well as recommendations for healthy eating. It wasn't stuff I didn't really know but I took some notes anyways.

Just a random thought for today. During the funeral and the proceeding reception, I noticed a lot of people in tears, including some that I'd never thought I'd ever see crying. I mean, this is obviously understandable, but I haven't really felt the same way at all. Some people seem like it'll take them weeks to finally get things to some semblance of normal, but I feel like I'm mostly already there. I'm not THAT bothered about this, as everyone has their own ways of dealing with loss and everyone has their own pace at which they will recover, but I did find it interesting (maybe not the best word but I got nothing else). Probably has a lot to do with my mindset regarding this whole situation. What concerns me more is that I heard one of the guys who was supposed to be on vacation for a week and a half worked all weekend, and another guy came in and worked another day for free. This kind of stuff just never even comes to mind. I don't know if it's good or bad or what. I want to help where I can but a lot of these types of things just don't even occur to me. What are your guys' thoughts on this?

OK.. today is my cousin's visitation and funeral and all that so I'm going to make my post early just so it's done with. My visualization went better than the last two days but could still be even better. I watched Cam's video on relapse. I don't really have a whole lot to say about it other than I agree with all the points. The main reason for me to keep gaming is due to boredom at this time. I suppose this is a good time to point out that I started installing Fallout 4 last night - again. It got about halfway done when I just deleted it once again and gave the password to that Steam account back to my brother. I'm still feeling nostalgic towards it but I know that any time I spend there is a complete waste that won't help me progress in life. When I went through Changing For Good today, it talked a lot about monitoring your progress with respect to the changes you want to make in your life. I just don't do that.. at all, for the most part. It'll probably be quite important for me to begin tracking my progress towards my goals. In fact, I should probably just start taking notes on everything I read. I find what I read sinks in better if I rewrite it in my own words. I also read an article about the risks of obesity and being overweight. It was quite eye opening to simply have it spelled out for me. Something as seemingly innocuous as being overweight can lead to a ridiculous amount of health complications - some of which, if developed, will hound you for the rest of your life, even if you get back to being otherwise healthy. OK that's all for now!