@Keli - Congratulations on your 30 days as of yesterday! You have received the 30 Day Sun of Hope Award!
Checking in. The past 2 weeks I allowed myself to play video games. Well I only played one, Baldur's Gate 3. What an amazing game. The game tells me I put 75 hours in it, but I did some saving and reloading so I think it's more like 90 hours. I just finished act 2, so I'm still only at 2/3rd of the game. A good moment to stop. While I did very much enjoy it, I very quickly started to put the game above my habits. I stopped meditating and working out. I used to go to bed at 21:00, now it was around 23:30 at the end. I postponed responding to any work related e-mail (which all in all only would have taken only 1 hour). I had a week of free time with the kids, but my mind was just busy optimising the time I could play games and not doing activities with my wife and kids. So I wasn't really engaged or coming up with fun ideas to do. I even started having thoughts about watching porn yesterday, and I actually was watching it in my dream, while thinking: Hey I shouldn't be doing this. But my current life just doesn't allow this. I don't have time for it. I can't let my family down. I can't let my clients down. I don't want to step on that escalator that slowly brings me lower and lower eventually down to hell. So I'm wondering if I should keep this idea of playing games during vacation time. On one hand it's fun and something to look forward to, and I like still being able to check cool games out instead of avoiding them altogether, and being able to talk about them with friends. But on the other hand, it doesn't really add something to my life. And do I really want to lower the quality of my free time with my wife and kids? Maybe there is a middle way. The next time I allow myself to play video games, but only if I keep my other habits in place. So still working out, meditating, going to bed on time. It would leave me with less hours to play, but possibly don't let thing get out of control. What do you think?
Keli, I congratulate you and I am so proud of you! Praise God, God has heard our prayers! After so many efforts, you succeeded! I wish you to achieve the next award and continue in the same spirit, stay on the narrow path, because it is worth it! You will succeed! I wish everyone else to never give up and continue this good fight! May God bless us all and give us the strength to move forward to freedom!
You answered yourself well and I think that you should devote more time to your wife and children because it is the real treasure and try to find joy and fulfillment in it and then you won't want to play video games and PMO anymore. May you manage to stay strong and may you manage not to fall into temptation!
There are two types of video games... the games that have addictive qualities, and the games that don't. (Or at least have less of them) Anything with levelling, or a gear grind, or a constant series of quests without a clear sequence break, is addictive. And addictive games get that dopamine pumping, making other dopamine-seeking behaviour much more likely. The key is to find video games that don't have levelling or grinding, where the gameplay is not continuous but a specific, time-constrained block, just a quick 30 minutes and then out again. There aren't many games like that, although I found Bloons TD6 to be one of my favourites, it has a lot of depth and complexity, but each level is only 20 minutes or so, or simple puzzle games like "hexceed". I also started messing around with Duolingo a few weeks ago, though it's technically not a game it's still a nice distraction a few times a day. Chess.com is another great option, but it's a bit harder on the brain. I'm assuming you'll finish off Baldur's Gate 3, since you're 2/3 of the way through it. I'd recommend you slow-roll the end of it, stretch it out a bit... if you rush to the end, you'll find an immediate massive craving for another game, and if you can't find another game to fill that craving, it's not good.
Muchas gracias.. @artifact Estoy de viaje hace 2 semanas y eso ayuda a mucho. Mañana vuelvo a casa.. Espero seguir bien
@Warren of fleabags - Congratulations of your amazing achievement of 6 months! You have received the 6 Month Medal of Honor. Great job! @Real Jerry Seinfeld - You have been added to the member ranking. Welcome to the group! @StDiego - The group is currently full but you have been added to the waiting list.
Thank you very much! It has been an enormous challenge but I am proud of my efforts, albeit in a bittersweet way.
