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Mega's Journal


MegaTiny

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Hi, I'm MegaTiny. I'm 31 and this is my journal. I'll start with a little rant about why I'm here:

 

Why I'm doing this

I'm in the enviable position of not needing to have a job thanks to shares from my previous one. The downside of this is I had to leave that job of five years mainly because video games were seriously affecting my work i.e. jump before pushed. I'd both stay up incredibly late playing them and try to secretly play them at my desk/take extra long lunch breaks. It severely damaged the quantity of my work, but because everyone there liked me and my addiction has made me a practised liar, people just assumed my boss was a demanding arsehole. And I let them believe that because it made keeping my job easier.

This has been a problem for me in every aspect of my life and doesn't go away no matter what the situation is. For example when I was doing a snowboard instructor course in Canada for four months I would sometimes make up an injury so I could stay in to play stupid online flash games all day. Or when I was in Central America on an amazing tour with a beautiful girl, I spent the whole thing dreaming of my next Dark Souls build for when I returned, getting genuinely grumpy that I couldn't be doing that right then and there. I could list many, many more, however as pretty much the epitome of a high-functioning addict no one has ever even questioned my gaming bar one very posh girlfriend who was worried it would affect my posture.

So let's bring this to present day: I've had a full year off work at this point and achieved almost nothing. The other day I played OverWatch from 8PM to 10AM. Hating myself, the game and everyone on my previous team, I logged off and opened up Reddit. After browsing through all of my usual gaming subs I stumbled across the infamous r/askreddit post linking to this site's sub. It was like a lifeline. Seeing all those stories and watching a few of Cam's videos, a little switch went off in my head. Everything people had written resonated with me and I saw, not for the first time, that this is something truly serious. Something that I need to take care of if I'm ever going to achieve anything in my life. I'm getting older and it's do or die. So here we go!

 

Long term goals

  • Quit videogames for good
  • Build good habits around eating, sleeping and working out. I am already pretty knowledgeable on eating and working out, having lost 24KG in the past six months, but my sleep pattern is a disaster
  • Complete my personal design project
  • Improve my digital artwork skill
  • Increase local social circle, as most of my good friends don't live in the same city (or in some cases country) as me
  • Have a romantic life
  • Be a bigger part in my family's life (brother/sister/mum not wife and kids)
  • Avoid ever being in this situation again (NSFW language warning)

 

Goals for the week (it's Thursday already but hey, goals are goals)

  • Remove access to my video games - √ -
  • Finish implementing basic systems for personal project
  • Practice art for every day that's left - X -
  • Spend time with my family - √ -
  • Re-connect with one pre-existing local friend 
  • Sign up for counselling

 

--- Day 1 ---

 

Woke up: 11:00 (recovering from preposterous video game binge the night before)

Bed time: 00:30 

Diet: Quesadillas, but cooked healthy meals for dinner and the next two days.

Workout: Nothing.

Social: 

  • Noting now that I visited my brother in London earlier this week and had a great time.
  • Called my Dad who lives in Ireland, costing me a small fortune.
  • Arranged a meet up with some old work friends for Saturday.

Artwork: Nada.

Weekly Goals:

I started today by steeling my heart, packing up all of my consoles, and taking them to the local electronics exchange. Made a tidy £360 off of my PS4 and Wii U (not amazing I know, but I needed rid of them fast). I already gave my Xbox One to my brother as I wasn't playing it so that's one less thing to worry about. Then came the hard part: coming home and removing access to my Steam, Battle.Net and Origin accounts.

This was incredibly hard to do. I felt serious anxiety pangs as I clicked the verification links that would scramble the email and passwords associated with them, like I was killing a pet dog. Seventeen years of my gaming life gone in fifteen minutes(I've had that Battle.Net account since Diablo 2 came out). It's already been a success though as I instinctively went to click on both Steam and the Blizzard app when I was bored this evening. I've also cleared up 700GB (!) on my hard drive. 

That's the fun, vindicating bit over and done with. Taking these steps has strengthened my resolve ten-fold, though I know the truly difficult part will come with letting people know. I have no idea how I'm going to tell my buddies that I play Heroes and Ark with that I'm not coming back. I imagine it's the last time I'll hear from them after years of good times online. That thought upsets me, and I hope reconnecting with local friends will help somewhat.

Cheers if you've taken the time to read this, I really appreciate it.

Things that went well today:

  • I got rid of all my video games
  • Room no longer looks like a garbage tip
Edited by MegaTiny
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Thanks Mhyrion. Okay so I had a very busy first week and haven't been updating the journal. I'm just gonna summarise and then get back on track with this!

 

Goals for the week (it's Thursday already but hey, goals are goals)

  • Remove access to my video games - √ -
  • Finish implementing basic systems for personal project √ -
  • Practice art for every day that's left - X -
  • Spend time with my family - √ -
  • Re-connect with one pre-existing local friend √ -
  • Sign up for counselling √ -

 

--- Week 1 Summary ---

 

General wake up times: have varied considerably. Up by 10:30 most days though, aiming to improve that this week.

Bed time: by 1:00 at the latest. Aiming to improve that this week. 

Diet: Off the rails completely due to alcohol. But back on the rails as of yesterday.

Workout: Hit the gym three times total.

Social: 

  • Went out three times with different friends
  • Went on a blind date
  • Spent time with my niece and nephew Easter Sunday

Artwork: Nope

Weekly Goals:

I consider this week to have been a huge success as far as weekly goals go. I had three brilliant days out socialising (in two cases with people I haven't seen since I left my job), though I drank way too much on all three occasions. One of these groups has invited me out several times over the course of the year, but each time I found an excuse and stayed in playing video games, including one particularly crap day where I simply stayed in and completed BloodBorne for the third time rather than show up. Now I know what I've been missing out on, and I'm freer from the nagging urge to go home and play (simply because I can't).

Also wound up on a blind date my brother set up, which was fun, though she lives 50 miles away so I doubt it's going anywhere. But it was a confidence booster none the less.

My ability to concentrate has improved somewhat, though it's still a big struggle for me to focus on a task for any length of time. I installed StayFocusd immediately, but have been sneaking incognito window twitch streams and reddit browsing, which is where the late bedtimes come from. Having fiddled around with it all week I've managed to remove the incognito function from Chrome this afternoon and had an incredibly productive seven hours working on my project. 

Overall it;s been a very positive experience so far and I'm looking forward to setting new weekly goals tomorrow, with a focus on fitting in art practice and diet. I'm feeling way, way better about the decision I made at this point.

Cheers for reading!

Edited by MegaTiny
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I started today by steeling my heart, packing up all of my consoles, and taking them to the local electronics exchange. Made a tidy £360 off of my PS4 and Wii U (not amazing I know, but I needed rid of them fast). I already gave my Xbox One to my brother as I wasn't playing it so that's one less thing to worry about. Then came the hard part: coming home and removing access to my Steam, Battle.Net and Origin accounts.

This was incredibly hard to do. I felt serious anxiety pangs as I clicked the verification links that would scramble the email and passwords associated with them, like I was killing a pet dog. Seventeen years of my gaming life gone in fifteen minutes(I've had that Battle.Net account since Diablo 2 came out). It's already been a success though as I instinctively went to click on both Steam and the Blizzard app when I was bored this evening. I've also cleared up 700GB (!) on my hard drive. 

 

This is huge. I still can't bring myself to do it and I don't know why, so to go the full monty on day 1 is amazing. Massive amounts of respect for you.

Look at the 700gb from a different perspective; to quote Will Farrell, now you have so much room for activities! Build your own file server, stock up on your favourite TV shows, try out a bunch of new productivity apps. New hobbies await!

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Cheers man, I think I'll struggle to fill 700gb with activities but I'll try! Okay here we go:

 

Goals for the week (it's Thursday already but hey, goals are goals)

  • Hit the gym six times - 2 - 
  • Finish current Trello board for my project
  • Practice art at least three times
  • Spend time with my family - √ -
  • Meet up with a local friend 

 

--- Day 1 ---

 

Woke up: 11:00 (recovering from preposterous video game binge the night before)

Bed time: 00:30 

Diet: Quesadillas, but cooked healthy meals for dinner and the next two days.

Workout: Back and Arms. Popped a blood vessel in my eye lifting weights : /

Social: 

  • Nothing today, few texts with friends and that's the lot

Artwork: Nothing

Weekly Goals:

Today was a hardcore project and gym day. I need to work on focusing on my project during the time allocated. At the end of the day I got everything done, but it would have been done by five rather than eleven if I'd been more focused (leaving time for art/friends). I'm not even cheating by going on Reddit/playing video games when I should be working, I'm just daydreaming!

Not a complete disaster of a day. Food is prepped, washing is done and I'm getting into bed before midnight. Gotta focus up tomorrow for real though.

Cheers for reading!

Things that went well today:

  • Killed it at the gym
  • Ate healthily
  • Got project work done

 

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