Kingstravy's journal

[kingstravy]

Hi!
 

Welcome to my journal and here I'll talk you about my personal experience for quitting gaming. What were my previous errors, why quitting gaming and others questions will find an answer in this journal sooner or later.

My paragraph was so big that I split it into parts, for easier reading .

Let's begin.

• 1. Introduction

Before, my life at school wasn't going very well I couldn't focus, even when I wanted to. I was thinking about games at school instead of listening to the teacher...etc When going back home I eventually did my homework (because sometimes this wasn't the case) and I went gaming. Each time I had free time, I gamed. I had played a lot of differents games. At the beginning it was gameboyadvance games (with emulator), nintendo 64 (emulator too) and PC games.

• 2. League Of Legends

In the PC games I played League Of Legends. At the beginning, I played just a bit and found it fun. While going multiplayer after I played with my brother and his friends. We played together (2 in the same lane) and I got stomped, almost humiliated. After these games (around ~5 games, I haven't played LoL a lot, yet) I was frustrated, ALMOST wanted to quit.

• 3. The Return & how I improved

My brother proposed me to play in 1v1s custom room so I could train calmly and slowly to be better. I accepted it, I improved at the game, but I couldn't beat him. We played a lot of games and I couldn't beat him ! So, I trained to play LoL in private custom games with (or without) bots to train some essentials aspects of the game (peripheral vision, timing...etc). I did. Then 1v1ed him again for a couple games (~15 games+) and still couldn't beat him (not even once). I said to myself, What the fuck ? This guy is so strong... Then, we played a bit of games together : my brother, me and with some random guys (matchmaking). We didn't played on the same lane these times but the game was fucking easier for me. My opponent on the lane against me got totally stomped. I destroyed him. I got so satisfied, even if he wasn't that strong ! So we played together until I hit level 30. After that, I wanted to beat him again in a 1v1. Maybe I improved enough ? So we did a multiple 1v1s. Couldn't beat him. Frustrating isn't it ? I trained a lot again, failed again against him. Then we did 3 ranked matches together. One was a lose, even if the game was almost won, because of an afk at the 10 mins mark. The second one was a win, one guy in the ennemy team dc'ed. In the third game we lost, no afk this time. So we played, again a bit, but I discovered another game called osu! .

• 3.osu!, The game where the problems has begun

And that was the beginning of the mess (because before I wasn't working that much at school but my grades were still okay). In osu!, the rhythm game, you have to click circles according to the rhythm of the music. How can I be addicted to this, will you ask me. The game can be god damn fast after you learnt the basics. I played a lot, I even used to play 8 hours+ a day during holidays. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be so strong that even the 1st guy ranked would stand no chance against me. Even though my "high" playcount, I discovered that most of the guys ranked better than me have like 10* my playcount. They were in an "okay rank". I said to myself oh god, even If my playcount wasn't that high, my level sucks for my playcount. So I quitted, begun to learn some programmation language and life was slowly beginning to be back to normal. I still gamed some games there and there but this wasn't disrupting me at all. Later, when I changed computer I saw a reddit post on osu! or something related to osu! in youtube.

• 4.My return in osu!

I re-installed-it, but I used a complete different mindset. I had real fun for learning to get better. I was thinking of the best ways to improve while I was on the train, school breaks...etc On the internet people don't say how to improve. Sometimes I could find some things interesting but for the most part I had searched for myself. I used my cellphone's 3G outside of the school anywhere to do my searches. I found out my way on how to improve. So I did the training and it was effective. I really improved a lot in a small amount of time and I almost doubled my old level with "small" playcount compared to before. For some reason, I found less time to play. Playing was also frowned upon by my parents so I had to hide myself a bit to play. I used a lot of different strategies, Sometimes, I pretended studying with my headphones, but I watched streams, listened to the music rhythm to remember better the rhythm...etc For some reasons when I wanted to do my homework one day I couldn't, I wanted to play and I was disrupted. So I googled "How to quit video games for study only" and things like that.

• 4.My first adventures in the forums

I fell in this website. First, I didn't wanted to listen to Cam, I don't know why. I wanted to have a reply to my question and when I have I wasn't happy. ~2,3 days later I decided to say to myself "Well that's enough, I won't stop completely playing videos games, but I'll stop all distractions for 100 days". This was in my old post here, before I asked Cam to delete my account. I was wrong, I didn't realised what was really happening. So, I begun the detox, but for some reasons, I asked Cam to delete my account. Around 3 days after my account got deleted I relapsed. I said to myself "Fuck this challenge, this is pointless and useless". I played Cultris II for ~20 mins then got back to what I used to do. To keep myself from distraction, I have decided to turn off the game's music and to use inaudible effect sounds (the sounds while dropping the pieces). The addiction as disappeared, I could play with moderation if I wanted to, I was "happy".

• 5.Comparing the past to the present

Some days later, when waking up, I was thinking of my childhood. When I was a child, I was very curious and creative. I remember the good times when I created "games" with only paper and pen. I was having real fun, even more than when I game. At school, I was curious, I even WANTED to go at school. I woke up early and was impatient to wait for the lesson to begin. I was a small anger... When comparing this to now, I was saying, "Hmm, how the fuck can I move from an awesome child with really great marks to someone, who hate the school and struggle to it ?).

• 6.My final decisions

So I said stop, I'll stop playing these games, forever. I remember that it is the thing that destroyed my curiosity and some others skills really slowly. When I notice it, It's almost too late. The good news is that it's never too late to recover something. I started gaming when I was 8, it did destroyed really slowly my skills, but it wasn't noticeable. When I was 10, it wasted my time I had lost some parts of skill, but these skills were so strong that I didn't really minded/haven't noticed. When I was 13+ it finished the job and destroyed a lot of the remaining leftovers. Now, I have to recover that. I don't know if the road will be easy or not... But I MUST recover all of this. Programming, one of my passion isn't as passionate as before, fortunately it still seem interesting but not as much as before. 

I am writing this journal to give my personal feelings, emotions and exeperiences.

I hope this will help anyone and hope to gain some help too !

[Schwing]

Hi @kingstravy

You said you are not as passionate about programming as before.

I feel the same way about art- one of my passions. But looking into my past, my desire to pursue certain hobbies has shifted very sporadically. Some days I think "I AM GOING TO BE THE BEST DRUMMER EVER!!!" and other days I think "I WILL BE THE BEST CLIMBER EVER!!!". I have decided I will pick a certain skillset and do my best in it and never be phased by any feeling to stop. I think there is more meaning in this than being propelled by fanciful instances of whim only to fall back down. Make sure you keep track of your hobbies and that you are measuring them. I have made this mistake and I am only just learning from it now.

[kingstravy]

Hi @kingstravy

You said you are not as passionate about programming as before.

I feel the same way about art- one of my passions. But looking into my past, my desire to pursue certain hobbies has shifted very sporadically. Some days I think "I AM GOING TO BE THE BEST DRUMMER EVER!!!" and other days I think "I WILL BE THE BEST CLIMBER EVER!!!". I have decided I will pick a certain skillset and do my best in it and never be phased by any feeling to stop. I think there is more meaning in this than being propelled by fanciful instances of whim only to fall back down. Make sure you keep track of your hobbies and that you are measuring them. I have made this mistake and I am only just learning from it now.

So true. Strangely, for gaming it wasn't really the case. At the beginning, I wasn't competitive and at the end I was a (too much) competitive. When I was competitive I stuck to a game and never ended playing it. When I try to do the same thing in life it isn't that easy. You get bored a lot easier, it can be discouraging, really easy...etc

But for programming, it wasn't really that. It's just that now, I lost a lot of the fun when learning programming than before.

 

Now, I don't know what is fun. I begin to find fun to do weird things. For example, I had fun when deleting my gaming account (really weird, I know). I hope I'll not be addicted to delete accounts, lol.

When I deleted my account, I realised one thing : it's easier to come in than to go out. When trying to delete your accounts, it can be a pain for some sites. Sometimes, they ask you for your driver's license or things like that ! The only way to delete my osu! account is to get ban. So I downloaded a cheat in a forum and my account is only restricted now (not even banned, such a failure ). I remember a meme in a reddit post. He posted "Don't forget that once you're here,forever" and that was true, I was there forever, until now  .

Edited January 8, 2017 by kingstravy

[kingstravy]

Day 1

Here we go, That's not the first day of my "no-gaming life" but I'll start anyway by the first day. I'll try to make this journal daily.
Things went really well in my life, since I stopped gaming, I discovered so many things and I'm happy with that. I also leveled up my grades, which is a great thing.
The things bothering me is that I have the impression to revive all the old "good times" I had while gaming. In my head, some thoughts about gaming came (for ~10/18 seconds) and get away. Fortunately, this doesn't happen when I'm busy, but It's kind of annoying.

[Cam Adair]

Daily journal will help a lot. Good job on improving your grades. For nostalgia watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBJeuyo8p_s

[kingstravy]

Day 2
 

Today, I woke up late. 5:30am, I guess...
I also learnt how to better manage my energy, knowing the limit and how big it was. I think I can always improve my energy management, I guess.

My time management system is getting better and better, I'm more organized than before.

I read some books, books are interesting to read for me, right now.
Quitting gaming was a great decision that I'm proud of now. I discovered so many things I've never seen before.

[WorkInProgress]

Hey and welcome to the forum. Nice that you started a Journal. It helped me a lot

[Wildee]

Good luck on your journey!  You'll start to be more passionate about things you feel you aren't passionate about now. It just takes time

[Kevin]

I am interested in your how strongly you suddenly opposed gaming. I admire how you seem to be improving rapidly, it is really inspiring.

[Cam Adair]

Quitting gaming was a great decision that I'm proud of now. I discovered so many things I've never seen before.

Proud of you dude!

[kingstravy]

Day 2

Here we go, I'm a cheater because I'm late by one day, but I woke up early, I don't know if this will be spotted or not  . Yesterday, we did some sport in the cold. I know how bad it feels to be frozen, know. I hate cold, know because of that  . Next time, I'll wear better clothes . I decided to follow what you said on 2 of your videos. The first one is about gaming nostalgia. The "stop comparing" point is a strong point, I must admit. The second one is about consuming content. This one is maybe the hardest, but the most rewarding one. It isn't easy to stop consuming content, because it was one of my bad habits. For example, on youtube when I wanted to watch only 1 video, I ended to watch ~5+  .
The fix I found was to install this extension. It really makes youtube minimalist and that's better now. But I haven't finished yet, I also cleaned my computer. I use differents accounts for differents activities, for example, you can see my desktop for my gamequitter account. This helps a lot and it kills procastination, completely. You can see below my desktop screenshot for my gamequitter account (very minimalist, I know  ).

I also took some habits, like meditating the morning and it feels great.

My friday day at school was fine, the time passes very fast at school now  .

 

Edited January 14, 2017 by kingstravy

[Stevec2283]

Each day will have its own challenges but stick with it and it will get better. Keep up the good work!!!

[kingstravy]

Day 4

The second day 2 was day 3, sorry about my mistake  .

I am speaking about yesterday (I haven't spoken yesterday), now.

Yesterday, was a rest day. I haven't worked a lot, but still accomplished some objectives  . It feels a little wasted for me... .

 

[kingstravy]

Day 5

Today, I closed a chapter, this time, I really did it. I summarized my old life (while gaming), now I closed once for all this gaming chapter. Now, I forgot what nostalgia means : This is a new chapter each has his advantages and disadvantages : I am building the present, right now. I am playing the best video game ever, right now : In real life. I am playing the best MMORPG or the best adventure game, right now. Now let's face what I have to do, now.

Btw: I don't get why but my desktop picture is appearing at the end of each of my messages, that's a bit annoying.
If you could fix that and edit the number of days in my other message, you'll be helpful, Cam. Thanks! 

 

 

[kingstravy]

Day 6

Nice day. I've studied in starbucks : starbucks is a cool place to study  . I'm at home, now. I'll study soon.

[Cam Adair]

How are you doing?

[kingstravy]

How are you doing?

Fine, but I've turned videos games in my favor. I use my old videos games memories with association to remember easily things. My time wasn't THAT wasted. I don't think to go back gaming, I just find fun to use what dropped me to rise again  .