NEW VIDEO: I Quit MMOs and THIS Happened
Wigger
-
Posts
19 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Wigger
-
-
On 15-11-2017 at 11:47 AM, taichi said:
The struggle to rest is a difficult one to focus on. Meditation I think is a great place to start. Good luck & keep yourself comfy
Thank you for the tips. I've been thinking about the airplane for the past couple of days. It seems to fit all too well. Its just that i love the flying feeling so much that i have difficulty living without it. On the other side, if i were to find that same feeling in useful things that could become a huge advantage for me.
Thank you
-
1
-
-
On 13-11-2017 at 2:06 AM, taichi said:
Are you a slight perfectionist? Quitting games is a task in itself. Improving productivity is another. I feel like you are attempting two at once.
The high standards that a perfectionist requires for him/herself can cause them to need an escape from that reality. Does that ring a bell for you?
My former psychiatrist told me this: "A perfectionist is like a plane with no landing wheels. He/she must keep flying forever, in order to avoid hurting themselves. Of course it is important that you can fly. But you will need wheels, to land and refill your fuel."
Much love & respect to you. Take care
Well darn, that is actually quite an observation. I think you are pretty right here. To be honest, i do feel the need to keep flying and relaxing is not that easy for me. I do meditation once a while and that helps. Im not sure where to go from here, haha. I like life the most when im working and see progress and growth in what i do
-
1
-
-
Facebook has also shown to have a negative effect on the self-confidence of people. This is due to people mostly posting the positive (perfect) pictures, thus giving a wrong view of reality, making other people feel like their life sucks. Also, the whole thumb up system is a dangerous one because it gives a sense of measurement about someone's pictures/actions etc.
Its probably best to ask ourselves personally whether we can handle all this
-
1
-
-
Do you ever feel like trying in life is not worth the effort?
Do you ever feel restricted by circumstances that keep you beat down?Like you dont have a choice but to endure an awfully unpleasant and unfullfilling routine?
You find yourself in such a situation tangled in bullshit ,having to talk to people you dont like, doing things you dont like , every day of your life till you are so empty that you have to indugle in any form of addiction to fill the void. Games, gambling,porn , alchool, whatever to just feel the void.
At one point you become aware of the fact that your addiction no longer helps , but actually makes you worse, you seek help, you research, you find people who have been through this before , they tell their story and you can relate, they tell you you can do it and encourage you to break out of the addiction circle,they give you tips and support to make it out.
You now know how your body, brain and emotion works, you know what you have to do, what you must do to reach your goal.You start doing all the right things , you are in the "control phase",you force yourself to fight your fears and expand your comfort zone, and for a while you make it.
You eventually beat your affliction( or so you think), and with a spark of life within you start a new journey, only this time wiser and stronger.Your ego feeds on the accomplishment and you fly high.You start noticing certain common behaviours among all people, same fears, same insecurities same things that make us tick and you start to understand both yourself and other people at a really high level.You start noticing the social constructs and the set of beliefs that lead to these limiting beliefs that cause so much unhapiness and distress to people who have them.
Your focus shifts from your addiction and your problems to the outside world,you start to notice the delusion, the fear, the unfairness of it all. Self righteous riligious people, activists,feminists,right wing, left wing, racists,lobbyists,climate change denyers,climate change activists and all kinds of other ideological groups and you think to yourself, why do they even bother?
You look all around and all you see is vanity and people chasing ghosts.They all have this deep wants and needs that most of them are not even aware of, They go about chasing this needs in the most perculiar , misled and ridicolous ways.
Some guys invest 10 years on becoming succesfull empty suit type of people because they think the girl of their dreams wont look at them unless they have wealth and are succesfull in society first.
Some girls will never enjoy themsleves sexually cause they think that indulging in sexual intercourse outside marriage is sinfull.
Couples will marry someone they dont particularly love and they will stay in the relationship unhappy for years or their entire life, untill one of them dies and the other is left on a deathbed regretting all the risks he didnt took and how fast lived past him by.
Parents will "stay in it for the kids", exposing their children to a hostile and unloving environment where no affection whatsover is shown. They will rationalize that it is best for the kids , while they are only doing it for themselves as they are afraid to break up even though the marriage sucks.
You still have people (particularly from western world countries) who invade middle east countries and steal their resources, and then claim it's defence against terrorism and the general public genuinely believes that. What is more sad is that there are soldiers that are so brainwashed that they think they are doing their country a great favour by their sacrifice , they call them heroes, indeed they are by slaughtering other people and stealing their resources the average western man (myself included) can live a life of luxury.
People will be lead by populists politicians believing that somehow a change is politics is what they are waiting, or that the main problem in the life and the reason they are not doing that wll is the goverment
One could go on FOREVER, and I mean a FOREVER with listing examples of people's faults , contradictions, bigotry and psychopathy.But what is the point,I'm sure anyone can add fresh ideas and observations to this depressive list.
The logical conclusions once you have trully realised all these are:
Option 1. change your mindset to all good , focusing on the brightside, optimistic life kind of bullshit and surround yourself with other dreamers untill you forget the bad stuff
Option 2.Just keep doing what you and everyone else is doing, it's how it has been and how it will be.
Option 3.Become distnat, depressed and completely fucked up, indulge in addictions and genrally become a shade of yourself waiting to die, behind a computer screen or at the bottom of an emty bottle.
Opion 4.Exploit this phychopathy's this inherent biases, flaws and the general egotism,self righteousness , and idiocy of people to make profit .Use this knowledge to your benefit .
After you have made profit you can either decide to help solve the problems by hitting the root of the issue with your new acquired resources , or you can just sit back and exploit your loot, maybe write a self help book about how other people can make it.People will think you are somekind of a hero, a new Trump or a new Richard Branson, doesnt matter how many people you trumpled over to get to where you are,doesnt matter if you sold false promises or some new technological bullshit gadget, all the matters is that people believe that you offer them value, even if you do absolutely do not offer them anything but take up their time and money.
Life goes on , and self proclaimed "good people" will keep doing what their doing wether good or bad they will rationalise that it is actually good so they can feel better about themselves.
One has to wonder, perhaps indulging into addiction , like video games is not that bad afterall, assuming you can provide for yourself and do not have people depending on you .
Oh i love a cynic. Cynics are very important to have in the world.
But may i ask, have you always felt like a cynic, or just for some time?
-
We are different people in different contexts, but we still have characteristics that are rather stable during our lifetime. Although we can be ourself, the way we conduct ourselves can be very different and develop over time.
For example, someone can have anger issues. As a child this is shown by throwing a tantrum, a 14 year old might fight, a 22 year old might give someone a firm talk, a 40 year old can use it in a constructive way and calmly explain things to someone.
Maybe being ourself is not as much the problem as they way we bring our characteristics to the outside world
-
So my whole life I have had this 'thing' (and I use the term thing as I am not ascertained as to what it is exactly just yet). I am always finding myself in social situations that I have a notion of pissing the other party off.
Lately I have noticed my social habits have changed. This 'thing' is popping up again. To hypothesise, I have started giving less shits about the way I act and have become more animated by my will. Therefore my rather expressive behaviours may be too much to handle for some people and my intuition has picked up on it. Or, I still bear relics of my social paranoia. Or, I'm just a cunt and people cant stand me. Whether it's the former or the latter; I would benefit from some advice on how to be more charismatic and socially pleasant in general.
You guys know a lot of stuff so I would be grateful to hear from you. Am I a twat? Do you notice any dickish behaviour coming from me? Please tell em if so. I am not easily offended; especially in this context.
When you talk about how to be more charismatic and socially pleasant it seems a bit like you are searching the solution in making yourself better. What could help more though, is trying to lay the focus on other people. When you try to take an interest in other people and ask how they are doing (doing your best to make them feel at ease), you might just find doing the same for you
-
Research has shown that people really enjoy conversations in which they themselves talk about 80%. This makes the solution for social skills very easy. Ask questions and take interest in other peoples lives, ask how things are going and follow up on them later. When you try to make other people feel good by listening to them, you'll often see it being returned.
However, if it it very one-sided it is often a sign that you should move on to someone else.
Source: Psychology University bachelor
-
Stress relievers: Chinese tea, comfort cooking, talk with family. Guitar, singing, reading, walk in the park, squats. That kind of stuff I guess.
What I find is that acting on my tasks is the most relaxing thing to do. All I need is the courage to start moving. Thanks for this thread of thought.
Good luck my friend, and welcome to the forum! Keep strong, stay on course!
-
Day 19
Hell has officially begun. Let me try to find the words to explain what is going on.
When i was gaming the world went very fast. I got a lot of rewards and that gave me the high's i needed. I felt like i had a goal and was always enthusiastically working towards that. The goal gave me direction in life and made me feel like it is worth living.
Right now i feel like i have no direction. I don't get any (quick) rewards and therefore i get no high's, and its driving me crazy. I feel like i've been dropped in the darkness and there is no way to go, there is nothing to see anywhere. Life seems to have lost its color and it is making me depressed. Now i truly feel like an addict.
For me, this is the hardest part of the detox. I don't like gaming anymore, but i feel like i need it even though it won't get me pleasure (my brain is trying to convince me otherwise though). Last time i tried to stop, i failed during this chapter of the detox. I am most afraid for this part. The foresight of feeling like this for a few weeks sucks. Lets see if it builds character.
I will not game.
-
Hey buddy! havent heard from you in a long time, are you doing alright?
-
seems like im at day 15 already.
It has been going enormously fast, mostly due to the amount of studying i have been doing. For almost 2 weeks i've done about 6 hours of studying a day. The most difficult parts are the end of the days when its about 20:00 and i just feel tired. Those are the moments that i'd like to game. But the urges are pretty much under control now and only creep up a few times a day. Tomorrow i got my 2 exams and i feel very nervous. They are part of my premaster and therefore required if i want to do my master next year.
Im the most scared for after these two exams. I will have a lot of time after them (1 course during the next 8 weeks) and im afraid this will make it much more difficult to keep myself from gaming. Therefore i have decided i want to do a few days of iceland to clear my mind and come up with a list to work on. My days have been so very productive that im thinking about keeping up this pace.
So far i got on my list:
- fixing a website to sell educational toys via my own website (and not some intermediate (they squeeze out all the profit -_-))
- Studying Adwords
- Doing PR for my student association
- Learning Chinese (i started once but stopped again)
- Fixing my knee injury by doing my exercises
- Maybe get a part time job as an internetmarketeer
-
Day 6
Today is already day 6. Its been going quite well but i feel like i have cheated. I played hearthstone on my iPhone. While it is technically on the iPhone it is a computer game and a game altogether. Therefore, i will be starting over tomorrow (and of course remove the game right now together with clash of clans). I also have been watching too a few episodes of family guy today. This weekend i did a lot of useful stuff though. I helped my girlfriend move to her new apartment and helped her build an IKEA bed. Don't tell anyone, but we had to take the whole bed apart like 2 times because of errors me made, we ended up spending 2 days putting a simple bed together
. The bed was pretty nice though
On the plus side, i started doing planking exercises today. Also, im almost completely caught up with my studies, so thats good. Social interaction seems to be going a lot better as well. All together, im quite happy with not gaming, even though its pretty hard to go through this detox.
-
Day 3
I forgot to do this yesterday
I found it very hard to concentrate. The night before i had watched a movie in bed and did some reading on my phone. I woke up with my eye's hurting. It the sort of day that i would normally spend gaming. Being tired, not really wanting to do anything. Just hard to focus myself. It was actually pretty hard to keep myself from it, so i decided to not make a study day, but do other useful stuff. So i went cleaning and visiting other people (this actually helped a lot).
I must say, this detox is still going pretty well. I suspect it is because i have already sort of detoxed. I don't like gaming anymore, however, i feel like i still need it. And that distinction is an important one. I feel like i can consciously fight the urges that come from the heart. The hard part is the emptiness that this detox is making me feel. Life is starting to lose its edge and becomes less exciting. I feel like i have less to live for and less goals to work towards, and i think that is the real difficult part. Therefore i have decided to really look for other activities. My girlfriend suggested to start learning chinese again, which i think is a really good suggestion already. Also, i think i would like to learn how to invest.
I just hope these activities will fill the void enough to keep me from gaming
-
Day 2
Today was a good day. I had one of the best nights sleep in a few months. I still can't believe that days are this long, its absolutely ridiculous. Got about 6 hours of studying done today, which is pretty needed considering how much i still have to do. Only 3 weeks till the exams!
I found myself in the need for breaks, but im not sure how to relax now that i don't do gaming anymore (and neither watch series). Although, to be honest, i did watch 2 episodes today during food breaks (breakfast and lunch). After some time my head was quite full and i couldn't really force myself to continue, so i put on good rock music as loud as i could and just kept walking through the room while saying whatever came into my head. It worked like a charm. It seems that if i force my mind too much into a position it will wear out, after that i need to let it do whatever it wants for a bit. Looking forward to further testing this (it helped a lot because when i get tired and bored i get urges to game, i feel that this keeps it under control better).
I actually got all the tasks i had planned for today done, including working a bit on the website. Tomorrow is a long schoolday though, i feel the lectures are very inefficient. Im a bit afraid it is going to cause me want to start gaming again.
Till this point its going pretty well because i can keep myself busy, life seems to be clearer, better and longer. Cant complain!
-
day 17 already, wow congratulations! You already got very far in this detox!
If you don't believe that you can one day go back to gaming on your own terms, then why keep the PS4? buying a new one would be a huge barrier for you to start again
Keep it up Rbarton! looking forward to your next entry
-
Day 1
Today was very silent. I had to wake up early to go to university and everything just felt calm. In the train however i started feeling urges to game that were stronger then usual, and they kept being there until class finished and i wandered the town with my girlfriend. Seems like severe boredom triggers me
I also feel that now that i have made a decision against it, the urges are either stronger or more conscious. Either way, its a bit harder. On the plus-side, i got my girlfriend to do this detox with me, which makes me very happy. A big trigger removed for me + hopefully it has a big positive effect on her life as well!At home i felt very bored again, there was nothing to do. Normally if i couldn't/wouldn't game i would start watching series. But i have recognized it as a substitute and therefore refused to watch those as well. After lying on the bed for a bit i went to procrastinate by listening to music. I felt too tired to start studying (short night) but couldn't find a good way to really relax. After a while i just started fixing some stuff i still had to do and then went on to studying and didnt stop until now (over 3 hour session). Although im happy i did a lot of studying, i know i won't endure like this. Tomorrow i must do something meaningful. I want to continue building a website.
I realized that my gaming habits have severely disrupted my sleeping habits. The past weeks i've been going to sleep between 1 and 3 AM. This makes it so that i wake up very tired because of a short night OR i make a long night and wake up very tired with half my day gone. Basically, my energy and therefore production during the day gets cut by quite large amounts.
Another thing i wish to remind myself of is that gaming totally screwed up my dopamine-reward system in my brain (realized this some years ago while studying psychology). As i am used to quick and low energy cost rewards, i find it very hard to work longer periods without big rewards. This makes things like studying more difficult for me. Delaying gratification is one of the things i must relearn in order to balance my reward system, this might actually be the biggest and hardest part of the detox.
Basically, its only 10 PM and im pretty much done with today. Time for sleep and some light reading.
P.S. Thanks for the welcoming words everyone, i really appreciate it!
-
1
-
-
Thank you very much, Hitaru
I feel like this will help a lot and i'll remember your advice. Last time i fell in sort of a black hole. I spend all my time studying and life became very dull. To be honest, i was looking for a reason to start gaming again. This time however, i want to do some courses in google analytics and finish a small website i've been building.Thank you for having me, Cam Adair.
And of course, if you ever have the chance, do visit the Netherlands!EDIT: just found out how to quote people ><
-
1
-
-
Hello everyone, seems its my time to stop as well.
I have stopped before for about 2 months, but then my girlfriend went studying in Korea for half a year and i picked up the habit again. Truth be told i tried many times and i feel its time to make this the final one. That is why this time im keeping this journal (something i've never done before). Not only do i plan stopping with gaming, but also watching series
I don't know if i can quit, but i have to. Life has so much to offer, and most importantly, i don't want to pass this on to my children (when i have them somewhere in the mid distant future). I was actually clean for almost 2 weeks when i got dragged into it by my brother. We had bought a game together and i felt bad about not playing anymore so it seems like i have to tell him earnestly this time
Tomorrow is officially day 1 of the ∞ day detox. Its probably best to stop Pokemon Go as well. I already removed all games from my mac including my windows partition.
Wish me the best!
Wigger's journal
in Daily Journals
Posted · Edited by Hitaru
Day 39
Hahaha, i didn't know it had been this long already. Life is incredible, truly beautiful.
For the past 3 weeks i have worked hard to open my own web shop. Its a dutch webshop for educative toys, which links nicely to my bachelor in psychology! Its truly been a blessing, and very soon i will have my stock and start selling! Life feels much better these days, life is good.
Im getting further and further and lately i have been thinking of doing some exams for becoming a realtor. Just on the side for fun.
I would advise everyone to stop gaming. But not just gaming, whatever you are addicted to. Free yourself, free your time and make your own life. It will be hard work, but the rewards will make you happy. It will make you feel good about yourself. It will allow you to stand straight and be a man. I was once such an idiot. I only spend my time gaming and effectively ruined my life and myself. It was time to grow up. I am happy i decided to grow up and be a man.
Thank you all for helping me, i am thankful