wheatbiscuit

This rings true for my first 3 weeks (I read the Harry Potter books again during them). It also reminds me of the flip-side, when I tried my best and put in 3 hours a night to learn for Maths homework. When periods of hard work like that were over (as a teenager mostly, but a few times including my last gaming session this May), I would actually say 'it's time to make the next year count - by gaming'. lol There's no easy way to find balance (without thinking and reflecting a lot), but it's better overall not neglecting keeping a literally clean body, mind and living space for screen-gazing, right? --- You've got a great list of goals! I would put them on 3-4 bits of coloured cardboard paper, categorised, and stick them on the wall, too. 😛 ~ Matt

There might be some low-carb, high-protein bread available at some of your supermarkets (like eating meat, but with fibre - a newish product) that I have definitely counted as the last meal for the day before. Day-dreaming (as opposed to ruminating) still sounds pretty healthy post-gaming, especially if you're taking in a lot of information. I sort of know meditation in a nice outdoor setting to be similar. I also get lazy with any second bouts of brushing - going out anywhere where I or others have duties and might end up smiling a lot is a good daily reminder. The other is, forgive me, the idea that a me and a miscellaneous member of the public might wind up lip-locked while out for a walk or something!

That was part of the social allure of gaming. When online playing them, we all had bird's eye views of each other and it felt easy (at least for me) to work out who else was feeling what by observing their avatar's movements or what they typed. This apparently only contrasts to the physical world because so many of the people I've met feel so compelled to keep 'busy' or 'moving 'forward'', so that simple answers are either heavily laden with other meanings or hard to receive/accept at all. Online, if in doubt, some of us would invite others to PvP (clicking contests - almost guaranteed to be engaging) - whereas offline, there are usually an all-manner of avoidant behaviours at play. Of course, my old game is a bit dated now anyway, so the behaviours of most hangers-on got a bit extreme - one of the ringing bells as to why I gave it up. That, and ignoring brain messages of physical and psychological energy supply. The enduring replacement? A real sense of humour, perhaps. lol

I was in my previous and first job for 9.5 years, and you're right - I took a year learning for 8 years of that passion - but my pressures built up and I figured that I should give up the thing I was basically only still doing on autopilot, aside from customer interaction. Finding a new passion somewhere unthought of would be great. 😛 My family has been trying to make me something I can't be yet, so my interest in weights training and seeing other people succeed in it as well seemed like the healthiest transition. The last random job I almost got was making broth in another kitchen! I'm still open to that!

September 22-25 Gratitude: ~ I attended the first social event of a young men's group on Sunday, and enjoyed and felt secure during it ~ I was able to trust my gut and not make too big a deal of some issues ~ Another shoutout to the local supermarket across the road and the better employees ~ After what felt like much longer than a few days off the forum, you're all still posting ❤️ Summary: Sunday was the big and mostly successful day for me - a bowling/arcade session with a bunch of like-minded folk, then a museum visit followed by dinner at my ex-boss' wife's restaurant by surprise. I didn't have the heart to talk about work or anything, just how we all were. Yesterday, Monday, was a little messed up. My dad seems to handle disappointment better than I do, so perhaps I should have kept to my own plans and kept those plans to myself for the day, and made amends afterward. I wasn't to know the effects of what did happen until later, but I woke up with too much energy and should have worked it off alone. That's all I really have to say for that. Thursday - Saturday were neutral enough that I can barely remember them. __________ Gaming; why most of us are here, after all. I've steered clear of everything including solitaire, but it looks like the arcading I did on Sunday prodded that beast with a stick, or something (but it was in the physical presence of other available people to turn to, so I'm not counting it). Since yesterday, I've wondered how it would be if I went back to my old job (evening shifts in a pizza shop, now far away) AND my old gaming ways, seeing as that job in fitness remains a fantasy, and my parents, whilst having some nice ideas, aren't really able to help me along with them. A personal thing - I've been waiting on unemployment benefits, even though most people would say that I don't need them, for almost 2 months (probably owing to my current assets). I slowly sold my life away, piece by piece, keeping that job and gaming to cope with it though, so I didn't think applying for them was too much to ask. Anyway, my boss became difficult for me to deal with, and I wouldn't fight for that job again unless I had to - so I'm hanging on an appointment this Thursday at an employment agency for now, which looks like a long 2 days away. I'm coming to grips with the probable fact that the only person in my exact position is me, and though I can be my own best friend, I can't entirely do away with bad feelings on my own - even a smart-alecky (yet understanding) homie would do right now. Over and out. Peace, ~ Matt

Weightlifting might compare - you've either got the strength to move a specific weight, or you don't; if you do, try the same movement a few more times and then go from 4 to 8/12/16 times (I say in fours because you can keep a rhythm to music easily that way)! I'm sorry to pounce like that - I'm truly a resistance training advocate :3

Good day, Dufresne! It is an important decision that you want to re-order your passions, especially replacing video games with another language. You made it sound like learning and being skilled at video games has been a part of who you are, which I can understand. So, I had 2 ideas: 1: Is your partner interested in improving in English too? If yes, maybe watching movies or tv shows in English about things you both enjoy learning about, during your spare time. Have conversations about them too! 2: Artisan pizzas! Are they a kind of business for you? Being able to explain or even sell your methods in English to people who ask could be very useful! Otherwise, reading old, well-known fantasy stories which often use good English - like Frankenstein, or Lord of the Rings, for example - could be of use. P.S. - Are you familiar with Shawshank Redemption? That is a short to medium length story you can read too - 'Dufresne' is the surname of the main character. 😛 ~ Matt

Isolation exercises for me are ones that only target one muscle well instead of 2 or more - e.g. front raises (anterior deltoid) and skull-crushers (triceps), as opposed to bench press (chest, triceps and some deltoid - a 'compound' exercise?). My main/local gym can often be crowded/uncomfortable enough to not make me want to add a bunch of isolation exercises, after usually 1 full hour of compound exercises (my favourite being squats). I enjoy getting there and trying hard for awhile, but I haven't been maximising my time in that gym - another one in the city however, I've spent 2-3 hours in happily a few times. I think my 2017 to mid-2022 medication helped me ignore/focus better for that momentum in the gym - since then I feel a lot more socially concerned. lol For fuel, I didn't even consider water as I kind drink it almost compulsively at the gym - but I meant glucose/electrolytes/simple carbs (a powerlifting friend of mine actually brought waffles), 'peri-workout nutrition'. Same story here with medication, during covid I exercised until I thought I'd pass out, always 2+ hours. That was back in a very nice gym.

It's tough to be the person who calls out wrongdoing all the time. People chatting on my online game used to tell me 'don't be that guy' at the same time as saying 'nobody cares'; it was quite sad. Reputations for that are salvageable though, and if you're doing a lot of quieter, hands-on work at the same time, you'll probably find the majority of people think pretty well of you - enough to manage the fact that a few might not. 2 cents 😛

September 16-21 (~4 months away from gaming) Summary: Gym visits have been good, and walking mostly good - haven't done decent cardio this week. I've bumped into a peculiar high school classmate twice on the street while out walking, and he and other friends and family have been making me feel like I shouldn't just rush home to 'stew' as I usually have in the past. I watched Cam's new Youtube video from the Game Quitters channel today - 20 minutes, this one! The part that truly reached me was the story of the 13 year old whose life was destroyed within 1 year of being hooked on gaming. At that age, I remember making the choice to game instead of wholly facing life and its opportunities (being out with schoolmates and developing useful skills in and out of school). I am only thankful that it allowed me a kind of peace and physical security it did in order to simply survive adolescence, or else I would have done it differently, knowing a little bit better now. Gratitude: ~ the temperature was 30-35 degrees celsius for 5 days straight in Spring, something I can't remember happening before, and it was lived-through! (by those I know :X) ~ my classmate actually called one of his friends asking if I could train up under his occupation, but a drivers license is kind of essential for their work - in other news, I mustered up courage and sent another text to my interviewer of last week, and will call once Friday arrives again before I keep job-hunting ~ water - it was very necessary this past week ~ my family: while often it seems they want to drop me in the deep end, they've still been there for me. I've signed up to a social group and am going to my first event of theirs on Sunday - room to grow alongside people at a more modest pace, I hope Peace, ~ Matt

Wow - my longest workout ever was 3.5 hours with almost half of them isolation exercises. And today my chest and back workout was just 6 working sets of rows and incline press each lol. Nice work 👏 Any kind of extra fuel in the middle?

I think frictionless and momentum-building are two great classifications. I suppose throwing time-scheduling into the mix might complicate things - @Yan is good there. Heh, but really, it's pretty clever to define the feelings of activities up-front as much as their approximate value to everyone else. We're having a Spring heatwave too in Australia at the moment, which has almost completely knocked outdoor activities on their heads since the weekend. Over!

Good advice Yan, cheers.

Long walks, sometimes jogs are my antidote to stress. My family is caring for our second pet dog of 9 years, and I definitely took the first one's health for granted. Probably not so, this time. Gotta love invalidated emotions, hey? At least there was context. 😛 I briefly got to talking about church/practising religion with someone from high school this morning, and how maybe there were more moral lessons to be learnt there growing up rather than from movies. He said 'we've gone from discipline to achievement focus' in society, leading to 'burnout'. It left me wondering what's next to return to or adopt. 😮

One of the tasks that used to regularly defeat me while gaming were the dishes. After committing to a 90 day, no-gaming detox like several people here, I recalled one speech from YouTube (Alan Watts, if you're ever looking for calming content to listen to) mentioning to just wash them one piece at a time. It can even be enjoyable that way! College, yeah, from big fish-small pond to small fish-big pond. I think that's supposed to be the first taste of being your own global citizen. Heh - but you graduated! Maybe in the meantime, you would benefit from community activities - like markets/church/sports where your mere participation is appreciated. Hey, start a journal here! That's a significant time period, graduation to age-thirty three - there's probably a lot of stuff to say for your part, especially if you read a bunch of others' posts there. Welcome!