Revit weekly log - challenges, thoughts and other stuff

[Cam Adair]

@kortheo might have some good dating advice. He's been having some success lately with online dating.

Also, a study showed that for those who are able to delay gratification, they will be more successful than those who do not. I share a bit more in this video about that. 

[Revit]

Week 7, day 56.

I am a freaking monk, almost a saint. I don't have sex don't game, don't smoke and I even deleted my dealer's contact. Next time I am smoking weed is only when it is available in a store or when I get my permanent residence. I also rarely drink alcohol, I eat well and exercise regularly. I am cutting the hours I spend on the other entertainments such as youtube, 9gag and TV shows. I about to quit coffee No, this isn't happening.

Sometimes I look on my reflection in the mirror and I think I can see a strange circle of light over my head. This is not the first time I tried to follow these well-known healthy routines, but this is the first time I feel that I can go on and on. What's changed? Now I not only know that this is the right thing to do. Now I feel this way. Also I need to channel my atomic energy since I don't game. 

So, what do I do with all my free time? A lot and not that much at the same time. I am catching up on all the things I made a mental note about. I am developing better habits and routines. One of my little projects is to change the music I am used to listen to. When you listen to such things as Funeral Doom Metal, it affects you in a particular way... So far I discovered that I like Funk, Soul, Jazz and Blues. I still have no luck with Latin music though. 

However I still find reasons to avoid socializing. I swear, all my reasons are valid! I have to get prepared for the CELPIP test I am taking in July and I also have to keep up with my new routines. Getting out to deliberately look for socializing opportunities is a lot of work and I am simply not ready for even a small failure. Frustration is something that I try to avoid, because I am still vulnerable in a sense of relapse. I used to avoid anxiety about missing out on socializing and dating by gaming all the day long. Now I am doing the same by getting myself busy with something else. Eventually I will run out of things to do and I will have to go out and be ready to whatever is out there. 

The last thought for tonight is... I will definitely play games after the detox. But only when I really have nothing better to do. My be in winter. May be next year. I don't know. I just like to think that I can get back whenever I want, rather than toss away even a possibility to enjoy one of the greatest mediums out there. 

Edited May 22, 2016 by Revit

[Cam Adair]

However I still find reasons to avoid socializing. I swear, all my reasons are valid! I have to get prepared for the CELPIP test I am taking in July and I also have to keep up with my new routines. Getting out to deliberately look for socializing opportunities is a lot of work and I am simply not ready for even a small failure. Frustration is something that I try to avoid, because I am still vulnerable in a sense of relapse. I used to avoid anxiety about missing out on socializing and dating by gaming all the day long. Now I am doing the same by getting myself busy with something else. Eventually I will run out of things to do and I will have to go out and be ready to whatever is out there. 

Start with one small thing. One event every week like a meetup group that you can go to which will help you build some more momentum.

[Revit]

@Cam Adair

Agreed. A big journey starts with a small step. 

I am reading a bunch of personal development books about dating, socializing&making friends. I've been working on the very first advice - change yourself first - for quite some time. And I am actually ready to put myself on the dating and the friendship "market". The problem is the advertising and the product support  I have also read about different rationalization techniques that socially anxious people develop. And how to overcome them. Speaking of this, it's the time check out the counter techniques. I almost forgot about these. BTW, in case someone is reading my thread, the book is called "Succeed socially". This is a very good (text)book with advises and exercises.  

Edited May 17, 2016 by Revit

[Revit]

Week 8, day 62

Wow, I can't believe that two months past already. One more to go. It feels that I haven't played forever! To be honest this week I had cravings like during the first couple weeks. Either that is because I got very tired this week, or because I talked to my gaming buddy about games, his experience of Dark Souls and why he doesn't play Awesomenauts anymore. He said that it is not fun playing without me. We actually talk less since I quit. We were trying to get together for beer or movies, but he has a crazy schedule and I was busy with stuff lately. 

I am embarrassed and also excited to admit that I am looking towards the end of my detox, because I can game "legally". I even started to plan what games to buy and what should I beat first... On the other hand I try to keep in mind that I am 26 years old and many of my high school friends are married, having kids and I am sorta lagging behind. I have an unpleasant feeling that I gotta do something about it. At the same time I should not rush, because I have a grand idea that I have to better myself before making such an important step as marriage. Even though my childhood and my relationships with my parents are not that bad as some people on this forum have, I still believe that these could have been better and now I am in a search of healthy relationships and myself. Also one of my few buddies from back home sent me a couple of pics of him having a good time with some chick, who lives at his place in exchange for sex. He even said that he did it to make me envy... fucking bitard. But it didn't feel envy, I just felt betrayed and frustrated about it. Good thing that I got myself out of this vicious circle of toxic relationships which I had almost all my life back home. I don't give a crap that the number of people I consider as friends is getting lower and lower. I have been on my own for quite some time already and these people are just ballast in my life. 

The frustration and pressure are getting to me from time to time, making the idea of gaming warm and fuzzy. I really want to be positive and fun, but there are just a lot of shit going on that I happen to care too much about and I don't have energy to put a smile on my face.

Edited May 22, 2016 by Revit

[Cam Adair]

Remember that this journey isn't about games or no games, it's about self-improvement and really coming into the person you want to be. The detox is just the initial excuse to start that journey and take it seriously.

What goals do you have outside of not gaming for 90 days? Anything else on the horizon?

[Revit]

@Cam Adair

I don't have any specific goals, besides getting high scores on the English test and applying for the immigration. This is my only project for this summer. 

 

[Cam Adair]

Ok great. Do you know the steps you need to take to apply for immigration?

[Revit]

@Cam Adair

Oh yeah, for sure. I am waiting for my degree to be evaluated. Meanwhile I am brushing up on my English to get high scores on the test.  I am going to apply in August.

But besides that this is how my life looks like without games... work, gym a couple days per week, test preparation on the other days. Weekends are busy with errands and grocery shopping with occasional movie and beer outings. Rinse and repeat. 

But the detox helped me to realise how little time I have for the things I have to do. In order to have time to game, I used to skip on these things. Also it messes up the sleep routine, it has a negative impact on eyes and the overall health, because it is a sedentary activity. 

Edited May 25, 2016 by Revit

[Cam Adair]

Awesome. Do you have any goals around the gym right now? 

[Revit]

@Cam Adair

They are quite humble, because the gym is not my priority right now. The goal here is to be more consistent with exercising. This sometimes interferes with my job and the aforementioned English test preparation. I am not trying to get buff, I just want to stay healthy. The other goal is to try out every interesting group program at my gym and may be stick to one or two. 

[Cam Adair]

Awesome.

[Revit]

Week 9

Day 70

Nitimur in vetitum, semper cupimusque negata.

[Cam Adair]

70 days, woot! 

[Jeremias]

You've got a really good journal Revit! Good luck with the immigration test

[Revit]

You've got a really good journal Revit! Good luck with the immigration test

Thanks man!

70 days, woot! 

haha... well, not really

Week 8

Day 78

I relapsed. Actually, I prefer to say that I moved to the next stage. My problem with gaming was that it consumed more time out of my life than I could afford to spend on it. Ideally I wanted to learn how to balance things I have to do with things I want to do. The detox helped me realize how little time I have for this hobby. Also it cleansed my mind and helped to reevaluate my priorities in life. 

I will skip the details of the ecstatic indulging into tasting the forbidden fruit my experience and just say that balancing is very hard. Every time I am about to start playing, I have to ask myself, if there is anything else better to do right now. And if there isn't, for how long I am going to play? I don't feel ashamed that I play again. I feel ashamed when I suppress this inner voice and end up skipping on the planned routine. Yes, this happened a couple times already and it resulted in lack of sleep on the next day, because I had to catch up on what I skipped. 

Anyway, I am going to continue with this experiment to see how it goes. By the way, I found a private tutor to get some professional help with the English test. The next two month are going to be quite heavy... I also became more or less consistent with the gym. At first I tried to go 3 times per week. This didn't work out, because my body could not recover with this frequency. Now I go every 2 days. Two days is enough for me to fully recover and enjoy the workout. Right, I actually enjoy the workout! Partially because I found the same things I enjoy in gaming in workouts. I am talking about constant and measurable progress  I hated to go to gym, because I didn't know how to measure my progress and git gut. For the same I don't like to jog outside and love to do that on a treadmill, because I can see the speed and I can see the progress. Don't get me wrong, I've been lifting on and off since the age of 16, I had a workout log, etc. But I didn't like it much because I used to set unrealistic goals and couldn't be consistent for various reasons. Now I use an app and record all my workouts, weight and fat percentage. Which is way more convenient than a notepad and gives you a nice graph of your progress!  At this point I am establishing a base line and slowly pushing my results forward. I also try out new exercises and add them into my routine when I feel that I need something to freshen thing up. I read articles and websites about working out and watch videos. Ha ha I do the same stuff I do when I play video games. 

Edited June 6, 2016 by Revit

[Cam Adair]

Consider adding yoga on some days in between your workouts because it can help your recovery as well.

[Revit]

@Cam Adair

I really want to try it out, just for the sake of the stretching exercises. But yoga classes are hold only two days per week at my location and at inconvenient time for me. I hope in August my schedule will allow to at least to check it out. 

[Cam Adair]

@Cam Adair

I really want to try it out, just for the sake of the stretching exercises. But yoga classes are hold only two days per week at my location and at inconvenient time for me. I hope in August my schedule will allow to at least to check it out. 

If classes aren't an option, YouTube videos are a great alternative.

[Revit]

Entry # whatever

This didn't work out well. I haven't managed to get the full satisfaction from balancing gaming with other activities. The honeymoon was alright, but now I want a divorce. I tried different things and learned something. At first I didn't buy any games and played only from my friends' libraries. This idea sucked because since I don't own the games, I was looking to play them at any moment the libraries were free to use. So I cut these games out and left with whatever I bought on sale. Also multiplayer games make me totally forget about time, so I cut those out too. It helped. Meanwhile, I started to perform worse in other aspects of my life. Mainly, because of accumulated sleep deprivation. I decided to stop playing for "fun" or for "relaxation" and play only when I have nothing to do. Whenever I had 20-60 min to kill, I played. And it usually results into more than 20 minutes, which sucks. So my next step was to uninstall all the games, but have the Steam installed. In this case, I would spend these 20-60 minutes to download the game instead of playing. This trick made "gaming to kill time" impossible.

This worked for me for a some time, until I started to realize that I still spend more time on gaming that I would ideally want. I thought about lots of things, until I figured that I have to quit. You see, Steam tracks how much time you spend on games. I didn't like the numbers I saw one month after I started to game...  I also compared my state of mind during the detox with the state of mind while gaming. I would compare the emotional experience of gaming with peeing in your pants during the winter while outside. It feels good at first, but then you are in trouble. I also tried to recall all the good memories about gaming when I was 18 and I didn't find any. While I still remember the warm fuzzy feeling of the first dates and kisses and touches. 

I will not call this "quitting", because, somehow, on the mental level, it makes the detox worse. I am calling it "taking a break". 

 

 

[lilX]

Entry # whatever

This didn't work out well. I haven't managed to get the full satisfaction from balancing gaming with other activities. The honeymoon was alright, but now I want a divorce. I tried different things and learned something. At first I didn't buy any games and played only from my friends' libraries. This idea sucked because since I don't own the games, I was looking to play them at any moment the libraries were free to use. So I cut these games out and left with whatever I bought on sale. Also multiplayer games make me totally forget about time, so I cut those out too. It helped. Meanwhile, I started to perform worse in other aspects of my life. Mainly, because of accumulated sleep deprivation. I decided to stop playing for "fun" or for "relaxation" and play only when I have nothing to do. Whenever I had 20-60 min to kill, I played. And it usually results into more than 20 minutes, which sucks. So my next step was to uninstall all the games, but have the Steam installed. In this case, I would spend these 20-60 minutes to download the game instead of playing. This trick made "gaming to kill time" impossible.

This worked for me for a some time, until I started to realize that I still spend more time on gaming that I would ideally want. I thought about lots of things, until I figured that I have to quit. You see, Steam tracks how much time you spend on games. I didn't like the numbers I saw one month after I started to game...  I also compared my state of mind during the detox with the state of mind while gaming. I would compare the emotional experience of gaming with peeing in your pants during the winter while outside. It feels good at first, but then you are in trouble. I also tried to recall all the good memories about gaming when I was 18 and I didn't find any. While I still remember the warm fuzzy feeling of the first dates and kisses and touches. 

I will not call this "quitting", because, somehow, on the mental level, it makes the detox worse. I am calling it "taking a break". 

 

 

Whatever works for you man! 

Personally I am aiming to detox for an indefinite period of time, but maybe in the future, I may do some very light gaming like playing wii dance dance revolution in a party or playing a game of rock paper scissors. 

Looking forward to new posts. 

[Piotr]

Most people get this feeling of trying gaming in moderation, or in free time, but if you read other journals this almost never works out. That's why I advise to quit gaming forever. As always, it depends on person, but if you see that gaming doesn't work out for you, there is no other better proof to prove that you should quit forever. 

Greetings, Piotr.

[Revit]

@LilChenChen

Yeah thinking that I will never game again makes me miss gaming and fixates my thoughts on it. Weird, I know. 

@Piotr

Right, it all began with the tricky thought that I can control myself. Bit by bit I started to fall into this trap, until I realized that I game 10+ hours per week. 

[Cam Adair]

@LilChenChen

Yeah thinking that I will never game again makes me miss gaming and fixates my thoughts on it. Weird, I know. 

This is a good opportunity to learn more about letting go and embracing the impermanence of life. Check out the work of Tara Brach and Radical Acceptance if you're interested.