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My diary - 90 Days' Challenge


Revu

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Hi. I'm 21 and I am playing about 1-2 hours every day. Maybe it's not too much, but I need to quit gaming and get back that time. I come back home at 18:00 after work and after using these 2 hours for gaming I don't have much time for coding, cleaning the house and preparing the meal for work. I usually cut back on time that would be spent on coding which is not good for my future career plans.

Here I'm going to write my thoughts and emotions accompaning the cravings to play games while trying to complete the 90 Days' Challenge. Afterwards I hope to feel more pleasure in other activities and feel the sense of purpose in life. I suppose the most important thing will be to fill the empty space the gaming was filling before - I will need to manage the newly acquired free time and look for the activities that will let me feel the sense of development and growth the games provided before.

Let's get started.

 

Day 1

 

It's easy to not play games when you have no time for it. Today I had university classes from 10:00 to 19:00 and afterwards went to supermarket and then to the gym. I know it's the first day, but I am happy about the low amount of cravings I had. However, I had been thinking about a game. 

Edited by Revu
I noticed that I made a mistake with one sencence
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Day 2

 

Today I went to my friends' home. We were playing video games, but I don't count that as a failed challenge since the meeting was not mainly about playing games, but about interaction and having fun together. I have thoughts about gaming from time to time, but that does not make me crave to play. I am strong.

Tomorrow will be hard. Usually I am tired after work and the main way of relaxing is to play games. The plan is:

- after coming back home, I will make some tea and start reading a book.

- then I will continue learning to code with my Udemy course.

It is important to stay away from Games folder or the challenge will be failed.

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On 12/14/2019 at 5:58 PM, Revu said:

It's easy to not play games when you have no time for it.

I guess so. Playing 1-2 hours a day is normal when it comes to moderation. But anything more than that and pretty soon you're wasting time gaming excessively (for example, someone games all night and sleeps throughout the day - that is not healthy for an individual). Me? I sometimes waste days being idle in my life. As a kid, I just wasted my potential to do homework watching too much television and doing other sedentary activities at the least growing up despite having constant ABA therapy with adults who are 20-35 years older than me two to three times a week. Fast forward over a government school life later, I am a part of the GQ community for seven and a half months now. I know what it means to survive a changing world since I was a youngster. I didn't stay up too late much often, but I am a normal person when it comes to the waking hours of the day and snoozes at night.

What book are you reading? Mine is Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder which is 10 pages away to the 3/4 mark. I will consider choosing what to read next afterwards. It should be something I wanted to read because of Tumblr. Guess what? It is...

15765229804741947755002.jpg

Good luck on your 90 day detox challenge.

Edited by Natalie
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2 hours ago, Natalie said:

As a kid, I just wasted my potential to do homework watching too much television and doing other sedentary activities 

Yeah, I was almost the same. I just switched TV for computer, and gaming was a problem for sure. After school, on the weekends it was No.1 activity. But grades were good, so nobody was actually trying to convince me to stop. And now, as a result, I am uncomfortable with people, but at least addiction is gone.

Why are you on GQ in the first place? You didn't mention any gaming problem.

I am reading Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" as I heard it is a great book. I admit that it contains some wisdom, but it is also hard to read (and finish).

Thank you for support ?

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I have to go back to night of day 2 and admit that thoughts will be hard to get rid of. Maybe it was only a game session with a friend, but it got into my mind heavily, probably because it was great fun.

 

Day 3

 

Thoughts appeared during work. I wanted to watch a video of a game on YouTube, but I didn't give in.

I observed that going back from work automatically turns on my gaming thoughts like it is a habit (and most probably is).

I have to fight with myself to not to open any game, which is somewhat exhausting. 1-2 hours of gaming every day is also dangerous as one can see.

I need to think about whether watching games on YouTube is counting as a failed challenge. I guess it is, since I have so many other things to do, or even watch, so I don't really need it and it would have negative impact on my cravings.

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2 hours ago, Revu said:

Why are you on GQ in the first place? You didn't mention any gaming problem.

Because I have more important priorities like finishing community college. My gaming problem? I was bored and I wanted something fun to do. I played the stupid mobile game for a year and a month. Then again, I was stressed out when things do compete with each other and I have to take control of my life by making sure school and homework are on top of my priority list. I just don't want my mind to be idle all the time. I can keep my brain busy and engaged, for I don't want temptations to you know... procrastinate. I graduated from community college 3.5 months later. I have 4 months into a gap year and counting. I am still becoming a better person.

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13 hours ago, Natalie said:

Then again, I was stressed out when things do compete

the same thing happen to all of us , it is normal . i would do a quick shower then do a plan where i accomplish my priorities first .

13 hours ago, Natalie said:

I just don't want my mind to be idle all the time. I can keep my brain busy and engaged

a therapist have told me that i have a ADHD , because i can not stop thinking but at the same time i can not achieve daily activities just because of overthinking , maybe that will help you .

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@Natalie feel good , u are always strong , playing such a shit game for couple minutes or hours can not be ruin your whole day ! 

we are humans , we do mistakes , many mistakes . but we always can comeback .

 

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@Natalie Ah, that sort of a thing. Great that you've overcome that.

Don't you get exhausted from excessive thinking? I do have headaches after work for example, where I mostly try to solve a problem and email clients (technical support), so it's mostly thinking, solving and typing. So I think I can call it excessive. Not-so-bad solution to that I've created is, when at home, to turn off all the lights, make the room as dark as possible and as quiet as possible and just sit and let the thoughts come by, something like meditation. Reducing the inputs I receive from the world to the minimum kind of works for me. Maybe it can work for you.

@ismailkanaan Thanks for your support.

 

Day 4

 

This day without gaming wasn't very hard. The only thing that is annoying are those damn memories of a game. It tries to convince me to play because the daily dose of dopamine is not being delivered to my brain. It cannot rule me. Everybody should be able do what is in their best interest, the best interest of their higher selves, not the primal selves.

A Ted talk about procrastination comes to my mind. The guy who was presenting was comparing our lazy selves to a monkey that was jumping everywhere and wanted only pleasant things. I cannot give in to that monkey.

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23 hours ago, Revu said:

A Ted talk about procrastination comes to my mind. The guy who was presenting was comparing our lazy selves to a monkey that was jumping everywhere and wanted only pleasant things. I cannot give in to that monkey.

Is that Wait But Why? I've seen the talk before and read the blog. Have you read it before? Look here.

https://waitbutwhy.com/

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Day 6

 

Stopping gaming helped me a lot with getting all important things done. Now that I have more time, I am planning my days and suprisingly I'm doing stuff from to-do list. That's very helpful, and I think I will extend the challenge to June to finish Bachelor's degree without problems.

I observe some withdrawal symptoms. When doing some sort of a task, my brain wants to have fun, to play, to stop doing difficult but important things, like its telling me: "You did too much. Let's play". Sometimes it is even sort of compulsive.

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Day 7

 

Today I came back home earlier this day, got the feeling of wanting to do nothing at all. I think one of the replacements for gaming will be reading. I got rested and had fun reading as criminal books are always fun. Later I got to the gym and after that I felt like powerful and fearless. That was great. I need to exercise more often.

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Day 8

 

It's Saturday, lots of free time. Today I was coding and I came across a problem I wasn't able to solve. I sat with it for hours and couldn't figure it out. I felt defeated, and main source of pleasure to counteract that - gaming - was not available. I was really suffering. I started deeply thinking about life. I even started wondering if everything I do in life makes sense. When I was gaming, I didn't have time to think about these kind of things and my mood was good enough to not bother about it. Now I have to face it and do something about it or I will freak out.

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OK, so if on Saturday was day 8, today will be...

 

Day 12!

 

Christmas can be a busy time, and that is helping my challenge. Been buying some gifts, prepared to meet my family and there was no time left for gaming or even thinking about it. I am developing a belief that anything I work on on a webdev project has its purpose and that it is not nonsense beginner shitstuff that will never be valuable. That is pushing me to learn more and more and grabbing my attention away from gaming. That is the result I want.

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Day 13

 

Today I coded a lot, but I had moments when I just wanted to chill out and get entertained. To do so I watched films on YouTube some of them were about gaming. I felt better, but I plan to do this rarely. I need to go to library for a casual book.

It's hard to spend free time not on gaming, but I can't give up.

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