dirac

Thats a great statement I have to say, I can really relate to that. Its very true, reading for understanding does take a lot of effort and I catch myself all the time just skimming through articles or even scrolling down real quick to check how long it is before even starting to read it. I never really broke down reading like this. This is a very good point, that its not only producing less dopamine but that we also have to put in an effort into it. I think I will also try having this screen curfew, I have always been a bit confused when to read. Should I do it before gaming, instead of gaming, in the morning, before going to bed? What I tried last was to tell myself to read 1 chapter and then I can game, but this just made the reading rather stressful because I just wanted to be done with it so I could game. I never really tried reading in the 1-2 hours before sleeping because I only read non fiction and I am "scared" it might prevent me from sleeping or I might just be too tired for it. But I guess in combination with the screen curfew this might be worth a try.

Why is gaming a reward and reading not? Yesterday was also quite a good day. I was very productive during the day, even went for a run in between. Something interesting happened at night though. Because I know that a certain degree of balance is important to be able to keep productivity up in the long term, I decided to have about 60 minutes for myself every night where I can basically do whatever I want to wind dow (also gaming), because otherwise I have trouble falling asleep. Yesterday I wanted to finish my day off with reading a chapter from a book but I only read half the chapter and stopped because I wanted to game a little. This was fine in theory because it was those 60 minutes I wanted for myself. But the gaming actually didnt really gave me that much and I wish I had just finished the chapter instead. This made me think a little about why we seem to value things like gaming so much and kind of elevate the pleasure we get from them in our minds. Why arent we doing this with reading or something? I genuinely enjoyed the reading more than the gaming last night but in my mind I feel like the gaming is more of a reward and the reading more of a task that I have to do. I wonder if I could find a way to actually turn reading into some sort of a reward for my brain. Maybe by not putting it into my to do list and changing the way I think about reading consciously, by telling myself stuff like "if you finish all those chores you can read tonight" or "you can only read if you do x and y". Maybe sweets and gaming and all that stuff are just so pulling because we treat them as such. Maybe the hierarchy in our minds does not come from dopamine only but also from how we view those things.

@WorkInProgress Hey thanks for the input! Sleep and healthy eating is something I always priortize because I know what happens if I dont. I tend to workout between 3-5 times a week and I make sure to get about 8 hours of sleep per night. I feel like its less about pushing through when feeling bad but just accepting that I feel bad and doing things anyways. Im not seeing myself as a super athlete who feels bad but still motivates himself to do the workout but more like a mother that has to take care of her child even if she would rather watch television. Because its something I have been struggling with all my life, that as soon as I dont feel "perfect" (mentally and physically healthy) I would drop everything or push things ahead and tell myself stuff like "ah I cant really concentrate anyways I will just do it when I feel better" or "its ok to play dota all day today because I was productive yesterday". My posts might seem a bit like I want to drill sergeant myself into productivity but its not at all like that. Its more that I finally understood that to grow (up) as a person I need to be able to deal better with discomfort and be more consistent in my efforts. So far I oscillated between being productive and playing dota for half a day and doing the absolute minimum. This semester the big goal is consistency. To specify a time and place for my summaries I would need to get a bit of an Idea how my timetable will look like because there are many uncertainties at the moment. Especially because my presentation in early may is the main focus now, for now I will do it either friday or saturday where I dont have any lectures or seminars (yet). Today was great, I had my first astro particle physics lecture and the professor seems pretty nice. I also read papers for my presentation the entire day and I feel like I read more in the past 3 days than in the past semester. Im gonna make sure to get the best possible start this semester, so tomorrow I will finish reading up on the literature for my presentation. Im also excited for my first statistics lecture and I might even be able to sneak in a bit of work for my research job. The weather is not looking too good but I might go for a jog or a homeworkout tomorrow. I also cant wait for my book to arrive so I can finally start reading it.

Today was really nice. My girlfriend and I decided that it might be necessary to have one uni free day per week and that sunday makes sense. So I did the bare minimum (read two short papers) and had a nice workout. So half the day I still spend productively and the rest I was just doing what I felt like. This recharged me quite a lot I have to say. Tomorrow will be the first day of the new semester. Its my last semester ever where I will be attending courses. Its my highest priority to give it all I have one last time for the next 3-4 months. I will lay out some ground rules and make a plan tomorrow night that will govern the next semester. Some of them I already made up my mind about. For example I will adopt the mantra that I mentioned yesterday: do everything as soon as you can as quickly as you can and as good as you can. I will also say goodbye to my entitlement to pleasure. Life isnt supposed to be easy and suffering will be part of this semester. There will be many days where I wake up feeling bad and/or unmotivated but I will still push through. If I rely on motivation to do well it will be just as much of disaster as last semester because it doesnt matter how much you enjoy stuff its always gonna be hard to do the right things (and not play games all day instead). Dealing with feelings of discomfort will be a major theme. I will also make sure to summarize every lecture right away and will make sure to study those summaries regularly during the semester. I will make those summaries even if the script is good and even if I feel like "its unnecessary". As I previously mentioned I will adopt sunday as a free day from now on so I will make sure to work extra hard on all the other days so I can afford it. Cant wait to get up tomorrow 🙂

Today was really great. I didnt waste any time on nonsense and did basically everything I wanted to do. Except of getting those books at university because due to covid the library is not open on saturdays. Well I guess I will just get them next week when I have time. But again today was really great. I finished reading a paper which took me till 10:15pm and I usually never do productive stuff this late. But I told myself I will finish it today and I commited to it. I also did a nice workout at home und did some work. Today I thougt a lot about something a friend said to me a couple of days ago. We talked about motivation and usefulness of the courses we are taking at the moment and he said that I cant just choose and value everything depending on how useful I consider it to be for me later in life. And I think hes completely right. This is a bad metric to adopt because it kind of means you are living in the future instead of the present. I also came to the conclusion that to lead a somewhat sucessful life you need to focus on what you are doing right now, on the roles you have to play right now and not worry too much about later. I mean I dont really know what I want to do later anyways and how would I. I never worked in robotics or had my own company or was the ceo of a bank or whatever. How on earth would I know what I like to do without ever having worked. Of course I want a good life later and success in many areas but there are many ways to get there and I think the best thing I can do is to do what is on my plate one day at a time. And if I do well at what I do, opportunities will come. I lately watched a video of someone saying to be successful you have to do everthing as good as you can, as quickly as you can and as soon as you can. I think that is a very powerful mindset that I am adopting right now. Tomorrow I will workout again, do some more work for my job and read some more papers on dark matter for my presentation. I will also have a chill morning with my girlfriend and some nice breakfast because its sunday 🙂

Today I felt much better. I was very productive. I just kept on working on things I had on my list and didnt waste basically any time. I realised that I can still get the perfect grade master if I completely ace this semester and get a perfect grade in every course and I will do everything in my power to do so. This is the last semester ever where I have courses. After this I will write my thesis so Im gonna give it my all one last time. This semester will decide whether or not I will fulfill my goal of a perfect master and I believe I can do it. I will work harder than I ever did before. I will do it. I will make up for the sorry excuse of workethic in the past months and go all in. Im really excited but not in a quick burst of motivation way that usually decays in a couple of days. What I am feeling right now seems to be deeper, more like a fully accepted commitment. I will go to university tomorrow and get a book for every course that I can read as additional material. I will also work 2-3 hours on my job as a research assitant, finish a paper that I started reading yesterday and read a new one. I will also workout tomorrow.

Day one of not gaming Last night I had quite some trouble sleeping because I was still so upset about everything. I was close to getting a panic attack but I managed to calm myself down and eventualy was able to sleep. Im beginning to accept that this situation is just harder for me than for some of my friends. Tonight I talked with some of my friends about this and I realized that the physics master is really not made for me. There arent really any courses that I am very interested in. I just pick the ones that seem a little bit interesting but I would rather not take any more physics courses. But well what can you do. One of my friends did his bachelor thesis in statistical physics and our university has so many master courses for that but I genuinely hate it. He can basically do his whole master in statistical physics and he loves it so much. Im really happy for him that he found his nieche but Im also a little bit sad and hopeless at the moment about my own "place" in physics. Its hard for me to accept that my friends will all obtain a better master than me and it will take me some time to process it but thats just the way it is. I was better in the bachelor because the system just fit me much better. I will still try my best and this semester I will give it 100% because its the last semester that I have courses and exams anyways. After that I will write my master thesis which takes 1 year. To that I am actually slightly looking forward because I can chose a project that is more focused on other things than phyics (hardware or programming for example). I think the biggest factor for me is also that competition is my primary motivation to study and if I am taking a course alone I just dont really develope the motivation I need to push through long studying sessions. When I study with friends I could probably study for a whole night because it just provides me with so much energy and motivation. I also am just more motivated to perform well when I take a course with friends. Thats why Iam making sure to not be alone in any of my courses so I can make the best of this semester. I mean I really dont care too much about the courses so this seems like a good choice. Its also such a weird feeling when you have had a goal for over a year that you were planning and preparing for and that motivated you and now you know its basically impossible to reach. My self esteem just feels completely crushed. I feel so worthless and the moment and I still dont know what to do about that. Because if I am truly honest with myself I am completely responsible for that. I didnt study enough my systems proved to be weak and I completely underestimated the amount of stress that came from the project I did with a friend of mine. We later found out that you are not supposed to do those during the semester but then it was already too late. But too be honest I feel like I am also just very unlucky. Because the project we did turned out to be one of the hardest and longest by far while the one that my friends did took them like 2 weeks we were working on ours for about 2-3 months and in the end our grade was worse than theirs even though we sacrificed so much more and put so much more time and energy in to it. I am also feeling like I am becoming a bit of bitter person. I will watch my mental health in the next two weeks and if I feel like its declining any further I will probably go a therapist. I do think that I will recover though once I got my shit together. I really feel like I am benefitting from posting here though. Even if its not about gaming its kind of nice to just get those thougts and feelings out of my system. I know life will get better if I put in the work. I will get some wins here and there and will find a way to get back on top. I am not gonna let this phase get me down. I am stronger than that. And if I am not stronger than I will get stronger.

Oh glorious failure. The exam went horrible and I felt severely depressed afterwards. It was my second oral theoretical physics exam ever. And in the last one I focussed too much on concepts and didnt really look at the derivations, so this time I looked very carefully at all the derivations and a little bit less at the concepts and oh wonder the professor didnt care about the derivations because she considers them "too difficult". I had the best possible grade in my three previous theoretical physics exams which were all written exams but those oral exams and the studying from home really kills me. I never enjoyed studying and university less than in the past few months. I feel so much worse because all my friends seem to be doing much better in those exams and with this lockdown situation than I am, even though I was always the best in the written exams. I feel like such a failure. By now its highly likely that they will get better master grades than I will and I just cant deal with it. It depresses the shit out of me. I honestly dont know what to do. The social part of university was always my biggest motivation and energy source and having this taken away just makes me so miserable. I dont think there was ever a time in my life were I felt more like a loser than now, even when I quit my previous bachelors degree a couple of years ago I didnt feel that bad. I had this huge goal for over a year now that I wanted a perfect score masters degree but by now its almost unatainable. And I just have such a strong urge to quit because I feel like its not worth it if I cant get the perfect score. I know this is whining on an extremely high level but I just dont know what to do anymore. Its such a horrible feeling to see everyone who was worse than you run past you and even if I only compare me to my older self I still lose the comparison. But of course the failure lies with me. This semester was also by far my most stressful semester ever and there was a time around christmas were I thougt I might get burnout or something. I basically spend half my christmas holidays in bed because I was so stressed and felt so bad because of it. However I do know that I didnt give 100% this semester. If I am honest I might have given it about 70% max. And by now I know how those oral exams work. So the next semester which starts on monday (yey almost 1 week of holidays) will be different. I will focuss right on the beginning on consistent studying. I will summarize every lecture and I will go through those summaries regularly. If I can keep this up I will have a much easier time studying in the exam period. I know it might not be enough for the 1.0 masters degree but I will still do everything I can to get close. If its a 1.1 I might have failed my goal but atleast its still a good grade. I also want to add that I just played dota all day because I didnt know any other way to cope with how I felt. I thougt about just getting drunk but thats a door I dont want to open ever. I believe its also time for me to grow up, to stop wasting all my time. I watched a lot of jordan peterson videos today and yesterday and it really motivated me to get my shit together. I will stop chosing instant gratification over longterm gains because to be honest I dont think true happiness is achievable for me as long as I dont become a person I can respect. One of the biggest things holding me back from no gaming and a better life is that I quit as soon as I become unhappy. Then the monolog in my brain always comes up with stuff like "well I dont feel good, I felt much better while I was still gaming, I should go back to gaming" or "ah man I am to miserable to be productive I will just play dota". But I decided for myself I will rather be miserable and productive than happy in gaming. Because its not real happiness its fake. Real happiness will appear along the correct path. One of self respect, sacrifice and growth. And I am willing to accept that it will not be right there from the start but it will become more and more as long as I stay consistent in my approach. A big part of this is also that I always felt "entitled to pleasure". Kind of how some parents teach their children that they can eat candy once they ate their broccoli. Like that I deserve to play dota in the evening because I was "so productive". The big problem with this is that I created a sort of anchor for myself. I connect playing dota with feeling good because its a reward for good behaviour. But for the same reason a woman that just got left by her boyfriend sits on the couch drinks wine and eats ice cream I stare on my screen and play games when I feel down. So gaming is my go to activity when bored, as a reward and when I feel bad. Basically not many other reasons left to do something. But this will change now. I am not entitled to pleasure, happiness or gaming. Tomorrow is the first day of getting my shit together, I will clean up my desk area, attend two meetings, workout, shop and cook and read. I will not game!

Today marks a funny day. Its the first time in ages I want to quit gaming again. I have been feeling miserable since yesterday already because I am so stressed about my exam tomorrow. Its kind of my ritual to always spend the whole day gaming before an exam, I do it because I can afford it as I start early enough with the studying and I get so tensed up the day prior to an exam that it would be pointless to study either way. However I have been feeling like I have been performing completely beneath my capabilities during the last semester. Not only at university but in general. I played a lot of video games, watched lots of youtube and netflix and barely had any consistency in my life altogether. I keep on planning cool projects that I want to do, then I get excited about them and completely stop after a week or two. This applies to hobbies, uni, working out and many other areas. But I feel like the spring is also lifting up my mood a lot and like I am feeling a bit better and more clear in general. So starting from today I will not play video games alone anymore. I will occasionally play a round of minecraft with my best friend who lives far away but this is usually 1-2 evenings per week. This time never felt wasted to me and I enjoy it everytime. But the gaming by myself I regret most of the time and its just wasted time I could be doing something else. And I dont want that anymore. I am almost twenty seven and there is so much stuff I havent done yet that. So much that I could have accomplished by now if I were a little more consistent and wouldnt bounce back to gaming everytime I feel bad or am just too bored. Today is obviously day number 0 but I am uninstalling steam and my games as the first step. Lets do it

The last days went by pretty smoothly. I studied well but not hard but its what I need right now. I also figured that I rather finish my master with the second or third best grade and have a life and not get burned out. I feel like I focuss way too much on grades and its making me miserable. The last time I got the second best possible grade I felt like a complete and utter failure for a couple of days. Even though I basically put my entire private life on hold while studying. Its just not worth it. Gaming hasnt really been a problem in the last days. But I had a minore breakdown because I felt like the studying wasnt going as well as I had hoped but it turned out today that its actually going really well. I cant wait to have this exam on wednesday behind me. Then I will have a couple of free days before the next semester starts. I also bought the audiobook "the subtle art of not giving a fck" and its amazing. Most of the issues he addresses are real problem areas for me, especially entitlement. Hes also talking about the metrics and values one has and this really got me thinking because I think my metrics are really sh*t especially when it comes to university. As previously mentioned I feel like a complete loser if I dont get a perfect grade or if one of my friends is better than me. This has to stop somehow. The next two days I will just be studying more and also get some work done for my job.

Today was a solid day . I studied well and had a nice workout. However I am in a process of changing my evening routine, because lately I have been playing dota on the evenings again and I dont even enjoy it most of the time. Its just the easiest and most obvious thing to do for me and I want to change that. I would like to spend my evenings differently, I would like to develop a reading habit. Even though its almost bedtime for me I will read a little now, just to get this started. My plan for the year was to read 12 books and I havent even read 1 yet..... so I better pick up the pace. I tried reading in the morning a couple of times which is nice but I always feel stressed because I should be studying instead. Well well lets see how it goes

@WorkInProgress thanks! I will make sure to check out his blog

@WhoCares ah I see. If its standardized can you get old tests with the solutions? I always found this to be by far the best way to prepare for an exam, to study with previous exams. Good luck !

So today went pretty well for me, I studied quite a bit and it was productive. I also felt good in general. I went to workout with a friend and for the first time in months I felt really good and happy. I think I was a little bit depressed for the past two or three months and I am know starting to feel better. I feel way less angry and happier in general. I guess it might just have been due to the dark and cold winter months coupled with the lockdown and online classes due to covid. I am also enjoying studying again, the previous weeks it was always just such a drag.... So tomorrow more studying and a workout!

@WhoCares Hm could you specify high school level a bit more? Like which branches of physics do you need to learn, and how deep of an understanding do you need ? Is it more about solving problems or understanding concepts ? The most general book that I know and also used myself is Phyics from Douglas C. Giancoli but its quite expensive and sadly I dont have it as a pdf. It covers basically every aspect of experimental phyics for undergrads (so its a little above high school I guess). Its about 1000 pages and also contains lots of problems. To be honest I didnt have physics in high school, I just kind of decided to get a degree in it and had to study like crazy the first couple of semesters because I had no background at all. So I kind of skipped the high school part. You could also check out some online learning platforms like khan academy, this is also a very good way to study. Do you need to study for some kind of test or are you just preparing for university ?

@WorkInProgress I have to admit I didnt know Mark before but I had heard of his book. Since the podcast I really consider reading it. Have you read it?

Sadly I forgot to post yesterday. However it was a really great day I have to say. I was working well in the morning and then studied productively in the afternoon. I also worked out in the evening and played some minecraft with my best friend at night. So this morning I am skipping a meeting because at the moment I have enough on my mind with my exam next week and my job. I feel a bit bad about it but the meeting is optional anyways and the last couple of times I havent gotten anything from it. Today I will focuss on studying as much as I can and do some chores like grocery shopping and cooking. I will later meet with a friend to workout a little.

@WhoCares haha thats a funny coincidence! Dont forget not to be too hard on yourself, every step counts and even if you oscillate like an investment stock, your overall trajectory is what counts and the fact that you are still active on this forum is already a big win. I am mostly back for the journaling... at the moment I feel like gaming is less of a problem for me than reddit netflix and youtube but I guess in the end its all the same.

Today was a good day. This might have been my most productive day in a week or so, even though I woke up late and had a chill breakfast with my girlfriend, maybe thats even the reason why today went so well. Usuayll I spend my morning eating breakfast alone and watching a show called modern family on netflix but I decided that my mornings are better spend in the living room breakfasting with my significant other. I also didnt eat lunch in front of my pc, so my lunch break was shorter and more recovering than usual. I went for a run in the late afternoon and listened to a podcast with Jordan Peterson and Mark Manson who is the Author of "the subtle art of not giving a f*ck" . I didnt read the book but the conversation they had was very inspiring. If anyone is interested here is the link: I felt much more calm today and was able to concentrate quite well while studying. Maybe this is simply coming from not spending every free minute watching nonsense. Tomorrow I am planning to be productive as well. I have two meetings around midday. In the morning I will mostly work and maybe get a bit of studying in, in the afternoon I will study and a little later I will work out. The two most important things for me tomorrow will be not watching anything during the breakfast and lunch and second to have a productive afternoon after those meetings.

So been quite some time since my last post. For the majority of the last months I was doing pretty well so I didnt really feel like posting anymore but lately it hasnt been too good. I have a long exam period since february and I am just so exhausted with studying that I turn to gaming all the time because I just want to procrastinate so bad. I just dont want to study anymore, and if I dont game I just watch youtube or netflix instead... So this is what lead me to post again. I am unsatisfied with my gaming and watching habits and I felt like journaling could help me deal with it a little better. There is so much on my mind right now, also how I am really starting to suffer from this constant lockdown situation, not being able to see my friends regurlarly, having all university and work related things online and on my computer and then also spending most of my free time on the computer... But I have been thinking a lot lately about this whole situation and I want to make some changes. I will stop spending my free time on the computer because its just too much in combination with everything else. I also want to stop eating my meals in front of my computer because my lunch breaks always stretch out unnecessary long and I lose so much time because of that. I will not go fully no gaming though, because the two evenings a week where I play minecraft with my best friend are basically the highlights of my week and I honestly believe that this has a positive impact on my life right now. I also want to wake up earlier. Not sure yet if I wanna make it 8 or 7... @BornAgain40 yes exactly its yami 🙂 I also love that anime sooo much! I find it very inspiring @WhoCares glad to hear my posts mattered to people 🙂 how have you been? I will check out your journal in the next days when I have time!

Day 13 -> success Today was a bit difficult because I was so incredibly tired I was basically useless. But I managed so I guess its fine.

Day 12 -> success I wasnt as productive as I wanted to be because I felt quite bad, like I slept bad or smth. But I actually ended up being way more productive than I usually was on days like that. While I was still gaming I would have seen this as an excuse to slack off and just game all day but instead I just did as much as I could. So huge win for no gaming 🙂 I will go to bed early tonight so I can start working early in the morning

Day 11 -> success Good day, went to the gym was productive for uni. I started they day severly questioning whether no gaming will do anything for me and ended up being more sure than ever that no game will improve my life a lot! Dont have that much to say as I already posted two times today. Tomorrow I am gonna have a productive day again!

@Amphibian220 Yeah I agree I guess it all comes down to distracting yourself somehow. I dont know what my grandparents did to distract themselves I just know that my parents watch tv and I guess thats a generational thing. I hardly know anyone my age who watches tv. Our digital generation watches netflix or youtube or porn or plays games. I guess this is kind of the problem also. The fact that you find it hard to find people to just chat with is probably also because many people just wanna get home and watch netflix. All this internet/gaming/netflix stuff is so new that most people are very unaware of the effects. @Bird By Bird "They didn't. Passive distractions are unique to our era." man thats a very true statement. Never really thougt about it like that. But its definitely true. "What you feel now is the normal level of stimulation that everyone has felt for thousands of years of human history as we have lived our lives on this Earth." You are dropping some solid truth bombs here 😄 . I actually thougt about that this morning while I was reading something for uni. I always have this picture in my mind that I am insanely motivated for uni but if I actually observe it more closely it happens quite often that I am not really motivated. I also dont despise it because I enjoy it but its not like I can hardly sit still because I want to read that paper about dark matter detection experiments. But I still do it. And maybe thats just the way its supposed to be. Maybe I dont have to wait till motivation knocks me off my feet to start coding or reading. Maybe I should just do it. Just get up take the book and sit down with it. But thats where I believe the no gaming might come in very handy. Because if you dont have cravings and arent super excited to game , those "mundane" activities like reading or spending time with a friend will not have to compete with the thrill of gaming anymore.

Is no game really the cure? I feel a bit disillusioned into the whole no gaming thing right now. I didnt experience any cravings since day 3 and so far its actually been rather easy to stay off games. However the only reason why I started no gaming in the first place was because I wanted to use my private time more productively but so far I havent done so at all. I was hoping to get motivated and excited for other stuff again but its not happening. I feel basically exactly the same as when I was gaming just that I am more aware of things like this. I am gonna stick to the no gaming atleast till the holidays are over which is about two weeks and see how its going till then. I am not saying that no game is pointless or anything but I am starting to realise that it might not be the answer to all my problems. Removing a bad thing from your life does not necessary mean it will automatically be exchanged for something good. I suppose I have to put more work into that myself. Like finding out what I want to do with my time. And from experience I also know that motivation does not precede actions but comes from them.