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Jay's Epic Journey


seriousjay

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If you're waking up groggy in the morning, two things to think about: 1) Go to bed before 11pm. 2) Wake up and drink three glasses of water (or 1 BIG one). Have this next to your bed when you wake up and slam it.

Awesome to hear about the volunteering. :)

Well the time I am GOING to bed certainly isn't an issue for me. The time I actually end up falling asleep, however.. I still don't know how my brother is able to fall asleep almost instantly upon hitting the sack!

Whatever, it'll work itself out in time!

I'll post a full journal entry about today, tomorrow.

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I have found that getting to bed earlier is much better for getting to sleep. Not only does it allow you to get more sleep time, but it won't disturb your 'body clock' like getting up later would. Getting up later can be a nastyĀ cycle: get up later to get more sleep, go to be later because you're not tired. Get up even later, go to sleep even later. Get the picture?

I'm wanting to do volunteering too! I'll sign up for an event on about the 26th. If you don't see it in my journal tomorrow, give me a swift kick and reminder!

Since you're reading, I'd assume that you read in bed already. If not, reading in bed can help you get sleepier before falling to sleep, so it might be a good idea to allocate some time for that if you would like better sleep and aren't doing this already.

Congrats on getting more than 1/6 of the way! I believe I'mĀ on day 15 now.

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I have found that getting to bed earlier is much better for getting to sleep. Not only does it allow you to get more sleep time, but it won't disturb your 'body clock' like getting up later would. Getting up later can be a nastyĀ cycle: get up later to get more sleep, go to be later because you're not tired. Get up even later, go to sleep even later. Get the picture?

I'm wanting to do volunteering too! I'll sign up for an event on about the 26th. If you don't see it in my journal tomorrow, give me a swift kick and reminder!

Since you're reading, I'd assume that you read in bed already. If not, reading in bed can help you get sleepier before falling to sleep, so it might be a good idea to allocate some time for that if you would like better sleep and aren't doing this already.

Congrats on getting more than 1/6 of the way! I believe I'mĀ on day 15 now.

Yep you've hit the nail squarely on the head. I do not currently read in bed, though. Maybe that's something I'll try.

Ok, so the last couple of days..

Day 17

I didn't quite have the time to post about this day so I intended to post about it yesterday. Obviously, that didn't happen. Regardless, day 17 was pretty good. Not much to be said about it, I got in just about everything I wanted to do. I went on a rather challenging hike in very hilly terrain which tired me out quite a bit. Ended up hiking for 3.5 hours. Afterwards, I went to a board game meetup and played two games of Settlers of Catan. One of the other players seemed to actually take it quite seriously which I thought may have triggered my competitiveness but it was actually fine. That's a step forward compared to what happened at the euchre night a while ago!

Things I was grateful for:

  • My stamina. That hike was quite challenging and I was quite happy to have made it all the way.
  • My friend Lara. She kind of brought up the rear with me during the hike and we had a really great conversation the whole way. :)
  • Settlers of Catan. Probably my favorite board game ever.

7 disciplines:

  • For health, I did the usual walk and 11 pushups.
  • For happiness, I'm still not sure yet what to do here.
  • For relationships, I had some good conversations with a couple people I didn't know during Catan.
  • For personal development, I actually got up at 7:30, yay!
  • For finances, I paid my credit card debt.
  • For my career, I might change this so I'll keep this open for now.
  • For my impact on the world, I remember posting in someone else's journal. I think Alex's. :)

Day 18

OK.. so this one was a mixed bag. I woke up at 6:30 AM for work and the day started off with a headache, and when I got to work, I was freezing my butt off for the first few hours. Not so good. I did manage to get my morning meditation in before work, so that was quite good, and work itself wasn't terrible either. The problem came near the end where I got the cravings for fast food again, though it wasn't as intense. I convinced myself, however, that I was going to order chicken wings again last night, largely out of fatigue, which I ended up doing. When I got home, I forced myself to do my walk (though I forgot about the pushups) and my daily reading, so I was quite happy about that, but I ended up ordering the chicken wings anyways, which seemed to cause a bit of a downward spiral. The rest of the night was very unproductive and I ended up watching a hockey game (3 hours long) and then 2 hours of a video game stream. Didn't get to bed until nearly 1:00 AM.

So it was kind of a tossup, I did get in some of the stuff I wanted but I also slacked off on quite a few other things. I'm just going to chalk this one up to one of those inevitable "blah" kind of days and just reset myself for today. Worth noting is that my cravings to play video games are starting to get a little more intense. Just gonna have to ride them out. I'm catching myself with the thoughts of "just one more game", but the problem with that is, just one more game often turns into "and the next game after that". It's got to end somewhere.

Things I was grateful for:

  • The fact that I wasn't feeling too bad physically after the intense hike the day before.
  • Oatmeal. A quick and easy breakfast.
  • My car. Life would be so much harder without a means of transportation.

7 disciplines:

  • For health, I did the walk and forgot the pushups.
  • For happiness, didn't think about it at all.
  • For relationships, got nothing done.
  • For personal development, I got up at 6:30.
  • For finances, I forgot to pay yesterday.
  • For my career, I actually started thinking of some ideas to make a business out of.
  • For my impact on the world, I got nothing done.

I'll post tomorrow about today.

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That's completely normal, I stumble all the time myself.Ā It's still really amazing to see what you've achievedĀ in 18Ā days. Hope you have a better day tomorrow!Ā Also OatmealĀ :xĀ 

Yeah, oatmeal is pretty good, haha!

Unfortunately, I have, in fact, relapsed. I knew it was coming based on how things were going lately so I decided I'm just going to get it over with. I'll maintain as much as I can of everything I've been doing so far so the game won't consume everything entirely.

Fortunately, I gave away pretty much everything I own and the cravings were really for a game that I was planning on playing before I re-committed to quitting. I really have no idea what else is out there and I'd prefer to keep it that way.

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Good luck with your relapse! Let us know how it goes limiting your game time.

My advice is that you keep track of a few characteristics that matter to you and that you know your gaming habit can affect. Mine were: self-worth/shame, efficiency/procrastination, joyfulness/crankiness, altruism/egoism.

Remember that in our case, either we are in controlĀ or we aren't. Watch out for the avalanche effect of "one more game" turning into "until I win", "until I get a 3 winĀ streak", "until I dominate the server"... That's not the kind of progress you want to be making in your life ;)

Not being judgmental here. If you can stick to your self-imposed limits I'm happy for you.Ā However, reading this sentence...

I'll maintain as much as I can of everything I've been doing so far so the game won't consume everything entirely.

...it sound like you are giving up!

I wouldn't worry for you if I readĀ something where your willpower shines through. Something like:Ā "I'll maintain my 7 disciplines. I will play for 30 minutes each day."

What are your thoughts?Ā Am I making any sense?

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Good luck with your relapse! Let us know how it goes limiting your game time.

My advice is that you keep track of a few characteristics that matter to you and that you know your gaming habit can affect. Mine were: self-worth/shame, efficiency/procrastination, joyfulness/crankiness, altruism/egoism.

Remember that in our case, either we are in controlĀ or we aren't. Watch out for the avalanche effect of "one more game" turning into "until I win", "until I get a 3 winĀ streak", "until I dominate the server"... That's not the kind of progress you want to be making in your life ;)

Not being judgmental here. If you can stick to your self-imposed limits I'm happy for you.Ā However, reading this sentence...

I'll maintain as much as I can of everything I've been doing so far so the game won't consume everything entirely.

...it sound like you are giving up!

I wouldn't worry for you if I readĀ something where your willpower shines through. Something like:Ā "I'll maintain my 7 disciplines. I will play for 30 minutes each day."

What are your thoughts?Ā Am I making any sense?

Hey Tom! Sorry for the late reply.

To be honest this relapsing has happened to me about 4 or 5 times now over the course of about a year and 1/3rd, to varying degrees of severity, so I'm not worried about it. Sooner or later I'll recommit to quitting. This time might happen much sooner, as I played about 5 or 6 hours of Fallout 4 yesterday and at no point playing it did I ever feel satisfied or like I was having any fun. Today I find myself not caring about it at all. Makes me wonder why I go back to the games at all..

Sigh. I fucking hate video games!

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Hi Jay,

I'm sad to hear of your relapse, you were the one who gave me the most inspiration along my journey. Strangely you relapsed just a couple of days before I did, but at least you let the community know as soon as it happened.

I still have cravings, but I know I will feel guilty if I give in to gaming, much like you may feel now. I'd recommend you take not of how you feel before, during, and after gaming to get a better idea of what you're getting yourself into.

Don't give up in quitting games altogether! Resolving to "I'm not worried about it. Sooner or later I'l recommit to gaming." just leaves the door open to future procrastination, game addiction,Ā and guilt. If you feel at all inclined to quit again, just do it. Even if you're just doing it to ameliorate your guilt.

I hope the best for you and that you can just control the amount of time you spend gaming. The least you could do is spend 5 minutes on making a post here daily on how you're doing so that you can mentally check in with yourself on if things are going for the better or worse, and perhaps it could motivate you to do something better with your time.

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Hi Jay,

I'm sad to hear of your relapse, you were the one who gave me the most inspiration along my journey. Strangely you relapsed just a couple of days before I did, but at least you let the community know as soon as it happened.

I still have cravings, but I know I will feel guilty if I give in to gaming, much like you may feel now. I'd recommend you take not of how you feel before, during, and after gaming to get a better idea of what you're getting yourself into.

Don't give up in quitting games altogether! Resolving to "I'm not worried about it. Sooner or later I'l recommit to gaming." just leaves the door open to future procrastination, game addiction,Ā and guilt. If you feel at all inclined to quit again, just do it. Even if you're just doing it to ameliorate your guilt.

I hope the best for you and that you can just control the amount of time you spend gaming. The least you could do is spend 5 minutes on making a post here daily on how you're doing so that you can mentally check in with yourself on if things are going for the better or worse, and perhaps it could motivate you to do something better with your time.

Alex you make many good points here. I am also quite pleased to hear that I was able to help you along. :)

To be honest, I think I've changed enough during this process that I've sort of moved on from games emotionally. I start playing them and just get absolutely no enjoyment. Within a couple hours, at most, I get bored out of my mind. Yet there seems to be a nearly dead part of me, clinging to life support, that is desperately trying to hold on to the video games. I keep convincing myself that the next one will be so good, but it always ends up the same, I get bored very quickly.

This is just one of those times where I really wish I had someone in real life I could trust enough to talk to about this. Argh!

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You have us to talk with! :)

I think I may have linked this before, but if I was to guess, theĀ part of youĀ clinging on is the gamer part of your identity.

Whatever it is I wish it would just go away.

Cam, you're right that I have you guys here, and I do appreciate that immensely. It just would be nice if I had someone I could interact with in real life regarding this stuff. Nothing really can replace in person interaction.

EDIT: Huh.. interesting article that really flies in the face of virtually every personal development book. Might be worth a shot just to get started anyways.

Edited by jaylajkosz
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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi Jay, I was just wondering how you're going.

You were a true motivator in the early stages of my journey and helped me after my relapse, so I was wondering how you're going with or without games. Perhaps I could return the favor some if you made an appearance on these forums again.

Thank you for helping me through my journey and I hope to hear from you again!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi Jay, I was just wondering how you're going.

You were a true motivator in the early stages of my journey and helped me after my relapse, so I was wondering how you're going with or without games. Perhaps I could return the favor some if you made an appearance on these forums again.

Thank you for helping me through my journey and I hope to hear from you again!

Hey Alex, thanks for the kind words. They do mean a lot.

I just wanted to give a quick update that I'm not completely over my relapse, but I'm getting there. I have not given up on this and will not give up, no matter how hard it gets.

I have decided that I am going to go back to school for a program that focuses on renewable energy. Making a difference in the world is important to me, and I have always been a proponent of sustainable practices, so this seems like a good fit.

The issue that comes up for me is all those stupid fears that are so familiar. What if I don't finish it? What if I get bored? What if I find out I'm in over my head? Etc. It's especially stupid because I KNOW that anything that I commit to 100%, I can be very successful at. That being said, I'm tired of just sitting around doing nothing. If I continue to let my fears rule me, I'm going to end up getting nothing done, and that's the worst possible outcome. So, I'm going to go ahead with this despite my fears and see what happens.

Thanks again guys for all the support.

EDIT: I have also torn up my credit card and am giving my debit card to my mom. I don't know if it's going to make a difference long-term, but I need to do something to control my unsustainable financial habits. My hope is that forcing myself to live in the kind of situation where I am forced to go to the bank if I need money for something makes me more responsible financially. We'll see how it goes. This is a situation where my generally lazy nature might work to my advantage.

Edited by jaylajkosz
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Awesome to hear you're going back to school. Life isn't about avoiding our fears but embracing them and moving forward anyways. That's COURAGE.

The only way forward is through. :)

Definitely. I really believe the most successful people in this world (whatever success means to you) are the ones that keep going despite all the doubts and fears. The longer you stay the course, the more successful you're likely to be. If you give up, you'll end up having to deal with the most painful thing of all: regret.

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Welcome back! I'm glad to hear from you again.

I also had a relapse whilst you were inactive here, but it only lasted a couple of days. Like Cam said, embracing and conquering your fears is what drives you forward, as it means getting out of your comfort zone to in turn expand your comfort zone so that you can more easily do a wide range of helpful activities.

Keep us posted on how you're going and we'll help you out!

All the best for your renewable energy course and improving your life!

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Welcome back! I'm glad to hear from you again.

I also had a relapse whilst you were inactive here, but it only lasted a couple of days. Like Cam said, embracing and conquering your fears is what drives you forward, as it means getting out of your comfort zone to in turn expand your comfort zone so that you can more easily do a wide range of helpful activities.

Keep us posted on how you're going and we'll help you out!

All the best for your renewable energy course and improving your life!

Thanks Alex I'm feeling those positive vibes already! :)

Sad to hear about your relapse but also great to hear that you conquered it so quickly!

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  • 2 months later...

Alrighty..

I guess this is Day 0. I have once again deleted every single game I own and going to give this another shot.

I think I'm going to try to take on less at a time this time. Probably what happened before is that I simply took on too much at once and got burnt out. I'm also on the fence about scheduling things right now.. it just felt extremely restricting to have to do thing x, y and z before doing a, b and c, etc.. what are everyone else's thoughts on this?

Anyways, currently I'm actually working full time at my dad's company doing my brother's job (he's went to the Ukraine with my dad), and that's going to last until at least the end of April. This is positive for me. We'll see what happens after he comes back but I'm not even going to look ahead that far.

I'm still going to run into the problem of being bored. I just don't find myself getting excited about ANYTHING else.. and I have no idea why. I can force myself to do other things and I may even enjoy it at first, but I always find myself quickly getting bored. Even while I was playing video games, I get bored within 1-2 weeks and have to find another one. I really have no idea what the solution to this is.

Anyways, those are my thoughts for now.

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Hi welcome back. I have problems with scheduling my day too. It seems so external the next day if I "have to" follow my schedule. This leads to me igoring the schedule or move it around. I think you have to realizee that the things you planned are things you want to do. If i schedule studying this isn't because someone told me studiyng is a good idea. I do it because i know I want to know more about this subject and want to be good at the exam. It isn't enjoyable to study but i want to do it anyway. I think as soon you have the mindset that all the things you scheduled are things you want to do( even the not enoyable ones) it is just a helpfull tool. Not as i am there yet but maybe with thsis realisation it works out for me.

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Good to have you back with us bro. Scheduling is more about setting an intention. If you have structure that can help you follow through. It doesn't mean you can't change your plans - but you are setting what youĀ wantĀ to do ahead of time. That way, you aren't making "mood based decisions" which are essentially when you will just want to sit around, browse the net, game, etc.

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Hmm, never thought of it that way. Just have a "to do" list. Doesn't necessarily have to get done in any particular order. I particularly like what you said, Cam, about the idea that scheduling something implies it's something you want to do. I like that. I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

Anyways.. I'm having morning after regrets already. I can't really go back though because I deleted all my save files.

Some things I want to get started on again:

- Going on those hikes again. I did enjoy those, I just won't do them as often as I did last time. Once a week should be good enough, for now.
- Renewing my gym membership and committing to going at least once a week. My doctor told me it would be good for me because of my back so it makes sense.
- Thinking about working 7 days a week for the foreseeable future just to keep myself occupied. The work isn't too difficult and at least I'll get paid for it.
- In the medium term, looking for a place to live either on my own or with my brother. It'll make things more expensive of course but I think the change of scenery will do a lot of good for me. Still undecided on this one for now but I strongly believe it would be a positive step if I did it.

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I'm pretty new to the detox, I haven't really been scheduling myself as much as I have just setting daily goals for myself. Little stuff that I can easily accomplish in a days time. I'm not setting long term goals just yet, but perhaps those will come. For now I just set an outline for the following day as I finish my daily journal, and then do my best to complete them.

That's just what I do to motivate myself.

Best of luck to you friend! We're here for you.

Edited by Merdoc_Rowboat
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Yeah that seems reasonable. I have read things like actually setting short, mid and long term goals and writing them down and looking at them every day begins to rewire your brain towards the accomplishment of those goals. You start to think about ways to go about making those things happen. I think that's the general idea anyways.

For me, I just think it really gives you focus and something to work towards. I like the idea of goals, I'm just not a big fan of the strict daily schedule.

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