Avnat Netzer

Hey @Big Adam great job on deactivating your PSN account and finding a potential seller for your PS4! You deserve a lot of credit for being able to do that and my hope for you is that it will give you resolve and piece of mind to continue.

2019-11-20: day 20 90 day detox: | #####~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | 22.2% Complete Today: went to sleep ~1.30am read lord of the rings woke up ~10.00am brush teeth, breakfast, tea worked from home Activities: prayed practice typing 34 word per min side project game draw Another night of low quality sleep. I have this cold that doesn't seem to want to go away. Ended up waking up in the middle of the night, took a shower and read lord of the rings to try and put myself back to sleep. I'm halfway into the two towers and Frodo and Sam have been following Gollum through Ilthilien to Minas Morgul. I relate to Frodo because he's exhausted and his only goal for the entire book is to just keep going no matter what the odds are. I slept for most of the morning trying to recover lost sleep and I worked from home because I just can hardly even think about public transit let alone go outside in the cold. When trying to quit gaming it would be nice if I could actually feel well rested, healthy and motivated all the time. It would help but I guess not a guaranteed. Around lunch I took a break and practiced some typing. I'm using keybr.com and am enjoying it. I'm pretty slow especially on my right hand which is weird because that's my dominant hand. After work I spent some more time working on my side project. I didn't end up going to a networking event I planned to. Would have been nice to be social today but I enjoyed the time alone. Time to be by myself and relax. Sadly no Scala today though it was part of my plan. My fiance is working late tonight so I have the whole night to myself. A couple of times my mind started thinking about turning on a game. I miss crusader kings 2. But it passed and I was able to sit down and draw for the first time in a very long time. I poured 2 hours into it and it felt good. I used to draw a lot in high school. I would often idly scratch something into my notebook during class. At one point I wanted to be able to draw actual characters so I drilled for at least 10 minutes a day sketching character poses and portraits. Was around the time I fell in love with anime and decided I wanted to create my own manga. I haven't done much of that since college but maybe now I'll have more time to spend on still-lifes. If I ever get a drawing tablet I would like to get into digital art. Not feeling the best so I may work from home again and I'm definitely not even going to try waking up early tomorrow morning. My plan for tomorrow: Tomorrow: wake up 8.00am morning routine learn Scala work from home (probably) go to sleep by 12am read Lord of the Rings before bed Activities: Learn Scala pray work on video game a bit at night typing Call a vendor for wedding

@Kona450 wish you best of luck and lots of strength. Amazing that you've been able to get control over gambling and seeing a counselor. Sounds like you have a lot of awareness and understanding of yourself. I'm sure you will be able to overcome gaming as well!

No worries @Big Adam ! Yeah taking those steps and getting rid of access to your PS4 may go a long way for you.

2019-11-19: day 19 90 day detox: | #####~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | 21.1% Complete Today: went to sleep ~1.00am read lord of the rings woke up 6.50am brush teeth, breakfast, tea worked from home Activities: prayed wedding planning cooked dinner practice typing 38 word per min Didn't sleep the greatest last night so I worked from home instead. Kept dreaming about writing unit tests for my game. I'm now transitioning from my previous project to a new one which can be hard for me sometimes if I'm not sure where to start. This time I am since it's just an extension of a previous task I've worked on. I haven't spent any time on Scala or my side project today which is disappointing. Instead filled a lot of whatever time I had with either Youtube or netflix. I have a setting on my phone that deactivates either app once I've gone over my "budget" with them. Was watching some more history related stuff on YT about Italy. When I ran out of that I switched to netflix and burned down my hour long budget for it. I know I should be avoiding this kind of behavior. My mind is looking for ways to distract itself when I should be putting my energy towards my goals. I decided it's about time I become better at typing. I have a kind of bastardized form of touch typing where I don't really need to look at the keyboard but I'm really only using like the same 3 fingers at most and my hand is flying all over the keyboard. Right now looks like my speed is up to about 38 words per minute which is probably only slightly above average. I would like to be at 75 which is very fast. My job requires enough typing where by now this is a skill I really should have mastered. I've just convinced myself I don't need to since I can more or less type. Tonight I cooked which is great. I usually don't stockpile ingredients I would need to cook since I can never be sure when I'll actually do it. I worked from home today so I went to the store picked up stuff and made lentil soup. Second time so far and my fiance really appreciated it. It was really nice to eat something fresh and home made for once. We were both in a good mood for the rest of the evening. Amazing what home cooking can do. My plan for tomorrow: Tomorrow: wake up 6.30am morning routine learn Scala go to work go to sleep by 12am read Lord of the Rings before bed Activities: Learn Scala pray work on video game a bit at night go to a networking event

Good thinking. I hope you find a way to make games a healthy part of your life. I still have my steam account that I don't have the heart to delete just yet. I'm hoping I can one day bring games back into my day to day but I'm hesitant.

I've also thought about deleting my steam account. There's a short gif on one of the pinned comments in r/stopgamming showing how to delete a steam account. It's actually scary for me to look at. Give it time I guess. You're best off deleting it since it will remove the temptation but yeah, that's not easy.

2019-11-18: day 18 90 day detox: | ####~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | 20.0% Complete Today: went to sleep ~12.30am read lord of the rings woke up 7.50am brush teeth went to work ~8.30am Activities: prayed Called florists today Still simmering from yesterday. I felt kind of tired and numb the whole day. Managed to finish up last parts to a project at work and now moving on to the next. I haven't had any time to focus on learning Scala which has been kind of frustrating. No time spent on my side project, the game. I've been using youtube as a handy substitute for gaming to keep my frustration at bay. I did manage to speak to a couple of florists today for the wedding and schedule appointments with them. Hopefully we can find someone soon. I'm getting anxious as the weeks go by and we haven't locked down any one of our vendors. Tonight both my fiance and I came home tired and couldn't muster any energy to put towards wedding planning. Hoping tomorrow to feel better My plan for tomorrow: Tomorrow: wake up 6.30am morning routine learn Scala go to work go to sleep by 12am read Lord of the Rings before bed Activities: Learn Scala pray cook work on video game a bit at night

Caught a cold also a couple of days ago. It's tough being sick, tired, and sick of public transit and then on top of that have to find ways to take up my time that aren't the vices I've previously relied on. Good you took the time to relax!

2019-11-17: day 17 90 day detox: | ####~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | 18.9% Complete Today: went to sleep ~12.30am woke up 8.30am brush teeth, breakfast, tea Wedding Planning Activities: breakfast and tea prayed Called vendors Went to networking event Today was tough. We spent most of the day working on parts of the wedding that need to come together. All of the vendors are still a question for us. We do the research but then find ourselves choosing between the cheaper option and the better option which means adjusting our budget. The thing about a budget is if you add money somewhere you need to take it from somewhere else. On top of that my fiance and I got into a fight over something really didn't need to turn into an argument. I got very upset and went for a walk where we talked on the phone still arguing. I came back, we hugged each other and cried for a bit. The issue itself is still unresolved for me. I really wanted to end the conversation and just switch on a game and switch off. I guess the one victory here for me is I didn't My plan for tomorrow: Tomorrow: wake up 6.30am morning routine learn Scala go to work go to sleep by 12am read Lord of the Rings before bed Activities: Learn Scala pray cook work on video game a bit at night

2019-11-16: day 16 90 day detox: | ####~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | 17.8% Complete Today: went to sleep ~11.30pm (perfect) woke up 8.20am brush teeth, breakfast, tea read two books (Scala, Rich Dad Poor Dad) Hung out with friends Activities: breakfast and tea prayed studied a bit of Scala Had a birthday movie night for a friend Here's my placeholder for now. It's late and I need to sleep but will fill in the rest tomorrow morning. UPDATE: Not much done on Friday like I thought though in the morning I was able to figure out what was wrong with my IDE for writing unit tests in the Game Library I'm using. Something about Gradle that I don't fully get... but it works now! It was my friend's birthday this weekend so me and a bunch of others planned a whole thing. I helped out with some of the cooking and setting stuff up in the evening for the party. Was really nice and I felt part of the group. It's something I've really only had the chance of experiencing the past two years. All my years struggling through college were spent alone. I had few friends and those I had I receded from completely to hide from my issues and play games instead. Now I have a group of friends I hang out with but I still have trouble watering that garden. It's difficult for me to stay in touch with people unless I see them face to face regularly. It's lost me a good number of my friends in the past and video gaming made it even worse. Saturday was just relaxing. I woke up around 8.30am which is before my fiance wakes up and I had a couple of hours to myself. Sat down with a handbook on Scala reading more on handling state transitions in a purely functional way. It's a paradigm that I'm realizing is going to take me a while to get used to. The other book I'm currently working through is a basic book on personal finance called Rich Dad Poor Dad. It's a very easy read. The first few chapters are him talking about growing up and how he first learned about money. It hooked me in easily. The rest so far has him bashing the middle class understanding of finance and how they trap themselves in debt and things they think are assets but really are just draining them of money. It described my dad so well that is kind of scary. This part of the book feels more like a prophecy of what's going to happen to me. The rest of the day went as I expected it. Nice and slow. We had lunch and a few of us stayed in my apartment and hung out talking. That night I picked up the pizza and we had a "birthday" movie night for our friend. Was really just an excuse to eat junk food and watch a late nineties movie. My plan for tomorrow: Tomorrow: wake up 7.30am morning routine learn Scala do some wedding planning go to sleep by 12am read Lord of the Rings before bed Activities: Learn Scala pray cook call a vendor for the wedding

2019-11-14: day 14 90 day detox: | ####~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | 15.6% Complete Today: went to sleep ~1.30am read about a page of Lord of the Rings woke up 7.35am brush teeth, breakfast, no tea ? went to work ~8.30am Activities: breakfast but no tea ? prayed spoke to my mom about family emails figured out thanksgiving plans worked on Scala after work Went to sleep late last night so in the morning I woke up an hour later than I like to and was drowsy most of the morning. Drank tea once I got to work. Turned on my computer and got cracking. Was actually very focused on work and the project I'm currently on. I still feel kind of insecure about my position within my team and I've been there over a year at this point. I managed to practice some Scala after work. Up to week 3 and it's all about handling stateful programs functionally which should prove actually useful for me. After work my fiance and I took a break from wedding planning and went out to eat. Was pricey but very good. Once we got home my fiance sat down to write a couple messages to family members. I looked at my newsfeed and saw a kotaku article on a game called Unity of Command 2. It's WWII strategy game and it looked interesting from the review. I've also watched a bunch of youtube videos on the eastern front of the war and am kind of itching now to try and play out the logistics and supply war but in a game. It makes me sad because I so wish I could enjoy something like that but I know what it's going to turn into for me. I wish I could rather make something as cool as that rather then be tempted by it. Tomorrow won't be so productive because it's Friday: Tomorrow: wake up 6.30am morning routine learn Scala work from home cook for the weekend go to sleep by 12am read Lord of the Rings before bed Activities: Learn Scala pray cook all the food call a vendor for the wedding

Yeah you are! keep it up man I'm routing for you!

Thanks for sharing this. It's very interesting. I think I've heard something like this before from other sources I would like to build in more habits in my life.

2019-11-13: day 13 90 day detox: | ###~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | 14.4% Complete Today: went to sleep ~12.30am (hurray) read a book (Lord of the Rings) woke up 6.30am (2x hurray) morning routine worked on video game a bit went to work ~8.30am Activities: had tea and breakfast prayed worked on the video game wedding planning spoke to 2 vendors today Today I actually woke up around the time I wanted to but my morning wasn't so productive. I managed to make tea and breakfast for myself, brush my teeth, put on clothes and I sat down to work on one of my goals. Debated whether or not I get started on week 3 of the Scala course early or if I switch to working on my video game. The video game has been fun. I like putting together the hex map framework and it is giving me a chance to write a stateful program but in an immutable and pure functional way. Doing my best to try and take what I'm learning into daily practice. I chose to work on the game but got bogged down in an issue with my dev environment and didn't end up making much progress. Eventually the clock struck 8.15 and it was time to pack it up and go. Got to work at a decent time. Sat down with my phone for a bit while brooding over the work that I'm a little behind in. I'm constantly worried about my performance and I'm not sure whether or not I'm really hitting the "bar" for my team. Today we had a meeting about a recent project my team completed together. There was some feedback that we got that was related to the parts I was mostly responsible for. It made me question myself again and I'm always wondering whether or not I'm fully qualified to succeed in this field. I love programming which is what frustrates me at my job that this love doesn't immediately translate to success. So much of what I do depends on delivering a working and profitable project within a limited time frame. The quality and precise nature of the code is barely even tertiary to that. My plan for tomorrow: Tomorrow: wake up 6.30am morning routine learn Scala go to work cook go to sleep by 12am read a book (currently Lord of the Rings) Activities: Learn Scala pray more wedding planning. Probably talk to more vendors need to find more photographers for comparison need to call my mom to get family emails figure out my plans for thanksgiving

yeah I totally get it. I get like that also. I get aggravated when I don't feel as productive as I would like. For me I think it's born out a perfectionist nature

@DaBest good night! Sleep well

2019-11-12: day 12 90 day detox: | ###~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | 13.3% Complete Today: went to sleep ~1.30am read a book (Lord of the Rings) woke up 7.45am Day off (this time for real) Activities: had tea and breakfast prayed watched a lot of youtube practiced Scala worked a little bit on Video Game wedding planning spoke to another vendor (photographer) left a message with a florist tweaked the guest list So today was actually my day off. I asked my boss if I could take the day since yesterday was kind of a bust for me and I actually wanted to accomplish some personal items. He said yes which was great. I stayed home. Most of the morning was cold and rainy. I was really drowsy the whole day. Went to sleep latish last night again and it was tough to wake up in the morning. I didn't end up having as much motivation today as yesterday. Ended up sitting on youtube a while watching world war 2 videos about the eastern front. Very dramatic stuff and I love watching videos on military tactics and troop deployments. It's similar to watching replay of a strategy game except these are events that actually happened. The day kind of went by like a thick soup. No particular moments stand out and the rest I just remember with a sort of blurry fatigue. I did manage to work on Scala for the afternoon. I finished the assignment for this week of the course. It was a puzzle solver performing state transitions but with immutable data and pure functions. Cool stuff. Not sure how I would use that in my actual job but it's fascinating. I really enjoy functional programming and it makes me feel cool. I'm all about feeling cool. Also took some time to work a bit on a video game. Want to make a 2d hex grid as a map. Following this guide --> https://www.redblobgames.com/grids/hexagons/ . It's super comprehensive and even has a basic blue print for how to design the grid in code. My fiance came home from work a little on the later side (7pm) and she was fuming. We got straight to working on wedding planning but she was aggravated and I got aggravated also. The planning itself is tough and she has a demanding job and I'm also anxious about doing well at my job. All in all we didn't get as much done. We had leftovers for dinner and just sat and relaxed on the couch for a bit. I felt very tired. My plan for tomorrow: Tomorrow: wake up 6.30am morning routine learn Scala go to work cook go to sleep by 12am read a book (currently Lord of the Rings) Activities: Learn Scala pray cook more wedding planning. Probably talk to more vendors get people's emails for a save the date GN fellow game quitters...

That's tough but you're back now and that's what matters. Sending you love and comfort over this digital bridge that separates us. Your strength is going to renew and it's going to guide you to the place you want to be.

That's great. I'm glad your parents were able to express that to you even though it might have been hard for both you and them. I hope they learn to see the ways you do love them and that they find ways to give you love and support when you need it. It may be hard for them but maybe more conversations like that is what they need to hear.

That's amazing man! good luck with the rest of filming! Hey I appreciate you have "Make the bed" as a daily priority. I also try and make the bed every morning no matter what and I find it helps start my day right. I just need to keep the rest of my room organized also.

Hey if you consider yourself an introvert type consider reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by: Susan Cain Not sure if it comes in other translations other than English but I found it immensely helpful in understanding my own introverted nature Yeah we're kind of disadvantaged when it comes to making new friends and in a world that worships extroversion being an introvert tends to be painful. But we actually have a lot of abilities that a pure extrovert lacks one of them being the ability to have deeper, richer relationships with the few people we do connect with.

Way to go man! I'mlooking to fix my sleep schedule also with not much success. When I actually figure it out I'm sure it will be one of the best changes I can make to my daily schedule

The earlier you start to take care of a problem the easier it will be to manage in the long term. Best of luck!

Yeah I agree with you. Setting unrealistic goals and then not achieving them can be pretty demotivating. I guess, the way I see it, if you set a goal and don't reach it, yeah you may have to adjust the bar a little lower but at least that means you attempted something significantly difficult for yourself.