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Jazz2022's Journal


Jazz2022

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This is my nth attempt at quitting video games. I wrote a post on r/StopGaming. I noticed the suggestion about keeping track of a journal so here I am. I will repost of my post here. I didn't think of choosing the same username here and on reddit. 

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This is my second day without playing video games. I should’ve recorded my first 24 hours, but the idea of recording my journey didn’t come up until now. Do I feel any different than a few days ago? Not really. The biggest difference is that I feel a lightness in my chest knowing that I will not have to worry about wasting time on gaming in the future. I also feel relieved that I no longer have to worry about replacing my aging gaming laptop.

This is my nth attempt at quitting video games. I will try to log my progress at each meaningful interval. The last time I played a video game was the morning of March 19th. I am 31, and I will try again to quit play video games. My son had his first birthday a few months ago and I don’t want to trade spending time with him with video games and other digital distractions.

A bit of my gaming history:

·         I’ve only played games on the PC, Android, and iOS. I’ve never had a console of any kind.

·         I started playing video games in elementary school. I wouldn’t say I had much of an “addiction” back then. However, gaming would affect me socially since I didn’t know how to “hang out” with other kids outside of gaming. Being an immigrant probably exacerbated my gaming problems.

·         I played more games in high school due to having a faster desktop PC and access to torrenting. My first exposure to multiplayer gaming was through Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. That game was truly addictive for me. I played other games throughout that period as well including Red Alert 2, Guild Wars, Command & Conquer: Generals, Fable, Homeworld, and Hearts of Iron II.

·         My gaming “addiction” really ramped up during college. My social anxiety got worse. My academic skills failed to keep up with the demands of college. I also began to play games that were much more addictive than any of the games I’d played before. Warcraft III was insanely addictive due to being able to easily access custom maps on Battle.net. DotA was obviously the most addictive of the bunch. I also loved Castle Fight. I also played a bit of League of Legends. I actually participated in the beta, and I think I got a custom skin for the helicopter champion for doing so. The worst “addiction” that I had during that time was with StarCraft II. It was the first time that I became obsessed climbing the “ladder”. I wasn’t that good at the game though, so I peaked at Gold / Platinum.

·         I ended up failing out of college and became a NEET throughout my twenties. I really tried to quit gaming soon after I got addicted to StarCraft II. I actually sold my Battle.net account twice as a way to quit. Unfortunately, by 2013… you guys would all know which game I’d get addicted to next.

·         Dota 2! Yup, many of my friends played it and I just couldn’t help myself. Once I got into the game, I was hooked. The most addictive part about Dota 2 was how easy it was to learn compared to the original game. Using QWER to cast spells was much easier to memorizing different hot keys for each hero. There was also an abundance of casters on YouTube and Twitch who really explained every possible way to improve your game.

·         I eventually got addicted to watching Dota 2 tournaments as well. I think I watched every TI live from since 2013. Throughout that time, I played a bunch of other games as well including Hearthstone.

·         By 2019, I’d gotten sick of Dota 2 after eventually accumulating over 1,600 hours playing the game alone. I estimate now that I’d probably spent another 1,000 hours watching videos on the game as well. I played my last Dota 2 match in October of 2019.

·         Unfortunately, instead of quitting video games all together, I decided that maybe playing other games wouldn’t be as addictive. Although I wouldn’t say that I played a game that’s more addictive than Dota 2, I still wasted a lot of time.

·         For example, since 2020, I’ve spent over 300 hours on War Thunder.

I was a bit light on how gaming affected me during those years since I wanted to focus more on the specific games that I played then. I’ll try to add more details to my background in future posts. Feel free to ask any questions.

Thank you for reading and I hope you got something out of this post!

 

  I'll try to update this journal on a regular basis though I'm not sure if I can commit to doing it once a day! 

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My first formal journal entry: 

Gratitude

·         I got the teen burger today at A&W. It was on sale, so I took advantage of the opportunity.

·         I am glad that my wife is sleeping with my son right now. This gives me the chance to write this journal.

·         Thank you, Game Quitters, for inspiring me to write this journal.

Good

I did well by not wasting time on video games, social media, and YouTube.

Bad

I wish I was less distracted tonight when I was writing this journal. I got into a small and pointless argument on Facebook Messenger with a friend. I shouldn’t have bothered to check Messenger if I had planned to focus on writing this journal.

Insight

I’ve never been someone who was into writing journals. However, looking back, I wish I knew what I was thinking the night before I installed StarCraft II. I wish I knew what I was thinking on those days when I skipped classes. I think if I had more insight into my life much earlier, then I could have worked on my problems instead of hiding away from them.

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Goals

·         Reddit: Passed! Another day without mindlessly browsing reddit.

·         Facebook: Passed! Avoided Facebook again.

·         Instagram: Passed! Barely used IG today.

·         Browsing: Passed! Even though I did waste some time on Wikipedia, I feel that I basically avoided browsing mindlessly today.

·         Gaming: Passed! No games today! 100%

Gratitude

·         I’m glad that I have such a great partner who’s willing to tolerate my flaws.

·         I’m grateful that I have enough time and energy to really examine what’s going on with my life.

Actions

·         I published a post on reddit called “5 Ways to Sabotage Your Journey to Quit Gaming”. It is a collection of my lessons from over a decade of trying to quit playing video games. It felt good to share those lessons to others.

·         I listened to StarCraft II: Original Soundtrack on Spotify.

·         I read parts of Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West on Google Play Books.

·         I watched a couple of episodes of Chicago Med with my partner.

·         I watched a few episodes of Servant of the People while cooking dinner.

·         I wasted a bit of time on Wikipedia looking up information about Volodymyr Zelensky and his friends.

·         I tried to plan my future, but I didn’t have enough time to figure out how I should replace the time I spent gaming.

·         I made some small talk with a cashier at Metro today. I’m did that as part of the “Pathway to Happiness” program from UC Berkeley.

Insights

·         I’m really sick of reading articles and publications on self-help, but not changing my life at all. Why didn’t my past attempts at improving my life work? One hypothesis is that I only focused on the things that I shouldn’t do rather than things that I could be doing instead. There’s not much happiness by just avoiding vices. I should focus on new passions as well. It seems like in the past, when I stopped gaming, I’d just replace the time I spent on gaming with YouTube or Twitch.

·         I need to replace video games (and other digital distractions) with other forms of “flow”. What’s a good candidate for that?

·         “We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behaviour and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviours flow.” What does this mean? What’s a paradigm?

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Goals

·         Reddit: Passed! Barely used reddit today.

·         Facebook: Passed! Didn’t go on Facebook at all today.

·         Instagram: Passed! Barely used IG today.

·         Browsing: Passed! Barely browsed much today.

·         Gaming: Passed! Didn’t play any video games today.

Gratitude

·         I’m grateful that I had the willpower to complete this journal tonight.

Actions

·         I watched Ilo Ilo with S while eating hot pot.

·         I watched several episodes of Chicago Med with S.

·         I’m going to sleep around 10:50 PM tonight.

Insights

·         It’s getting harder and harder to motivate myself to complete Personal History as well as this journal each night without getting distracted.

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On 3/23/2022 at 9:52 PM, Jazz2022 said:

  It’s getting harder and harder to motivate myself to complete Personal History as well as this journal each night without getting distracted.

journaling once or twice per week is still a great support, I get burned out writing entries every day myself.

 

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