Giving up something that isn't working

[Remiel]

Over this last weekend I had a very interesting no accident moment with God.


Before this happened I asked myself and God what it was that I needed to do to start walking down a path that I want to, basically financial independence. The answer was very clear. Give up World of Warcraft. I cannot begin to tell you how much the very fiber of my being protested that realization. I did not want to give it up and in some ways I couldn't give it up. So I pushed back and said that I will give it up but I need help in getting to that point. Well that help came in the form of me losing my PDA.

Basically I lost my PDA which I have with me at all times. Instead of worrying about it I chose to simply trust that it would be restored to me at the right time and that if I didn't find it in a few days that there would be something else for me to consider. The reason my PDA is important is that I use it as my system for keeping track of appointments and such.

While it did get returned to me on Sunday night (in a very nice no accident way) the PDA itself was simply the trigger. Before I lost my PDA I told myself that I could play and just have it for "fun" when I wasn't busy with other things. Guess what happened when I no longer had the ability to move forward due to my PDA? You guessed it, I went full bore into playing World of Warcraft. By Monday I realized that this isn't going to work for me.

What I've decided to do is set aside World of Warcraft as a video game that I play by myself. There are two distinctions here that are why I'm not quitting it altogether. The first is I've noticed a huge parallelism between the World of Warcraft auction house and the way people buy and sell in the real markets. My plan is figure out a time limit that works that would allow me to get a feel for how to make use of the inefficiencies of a system such as the WoW auctionhouse.

The second thing is that I have begun playing it with my little sister. For me it is more of a way to hang out with her once in a while than anything else. I will seek some other activities to do with her and if and when the time comes that WoW is no longer an issue I will give it up at that point. This isn't the first time I've given up MMO's and I've frustrated her in the past by playing with her then suddenly stopping for no apparent reason.

Could these just be excuses to continue playing? Maybe, and if it does turn out to not work then I'll stop playing. The key problem I have been having is trying to do alot of the more time intensive stuff such as raiding. Cut out that time and I think (we'll find out in a week or two) that will eliminate the problem.

Has anyone else had an experience where they know 100% that they have to give something up and yet they rebel against the very thought of giving it up like I had?

[Remiel]

Well, I've ended up taking this 1 step further. Even after giving it up I was spending too much time focusing on "not" playing. Which was not working for me. So I went and deleted my character. He is now permanently gone to the digital graveyard never to be seen or heard from again.

This is another one of those moments where I talked with God and he told me very clearly to delete the character. Sadly it took me over a week to do it and in the meantime I learned something new. Video games no longer are fun to me. It's almost like cleaning my room or weeding the garden. Just a task to be done but not enjoyable to do.

Now that it is gone the question becomes, what next? What can I fill my life with? How do I recharge my energy now that video games can no longer serve that purpose?

Any suggestions?

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by Remiel

Now that it is gone the question becomes, what next? What can I fill my life with?

Why do you need something to fill the void in your life? If you become addicted to something else, even if it's "positive," you'll probably end up feeling the same about it as you did about WoW. Maybe you should figure out why there's a void in your life in the first place, before you try to fill it.

[Remiel]

Good point. I definitely don't want to become addicted to something else. At the same time I have a void of "time" because I've gone to the point of completely removing world of warcraft from my life. What I am looking for now is a good, healthy activity to do that will help me rest and relax or have fun and recharge.

To give an example I enjoy doing Taekwondo, yet it is a draining type of activity. For the longest time I used video games as my chill activity. Now it doesn't meet that need.

As it stands I must have something to fill that time. I've already gone off the deep end a few times and eliminated all fun from my life. I made it a week and a half for the longest stretch. After talking to several successful people they both told me that one has to take time to himself / herself in order to be at peak performance elsewhere in life. Without it, one just burns out and becomes very ineffective. Both of them have wives and kids. I am a 25 year old single guy.

Who knows, maybe this is just something I have to figure out for myself?

[cylon]

A few weeks ago I saw a documentary called Second Skin,

Home | Second Skin

And it was about this exact subject. It really frightened me because I could very clearly see the similarities between that, and being a forum addict (which I probably am) and it was just not where I want my life to be headed. Being addicted to the computer is being addicted to the computer, whether it's games or chatting. You may get something out of that film as it follows people who are playing WOW and Everquest, what their lives are like, and one guy in particular who lost everything and rebuilt his life after giving it up. The film spans a couple years so it's fascinating to watch him get to the point that he is as low as he can get, and then they cut to him several months later and he kicked it on his own and he became a new person. So well worth checking out.

After I saw that movie I turned the computer off, and the tv off, for over a week. You have to detox from it before you can reconsider it in a healthy way. And if you fall back into it, all it means is that you aren't focusing on the other aspects of your life. It takes courage to face something like this, and it also takes self-discipline.

And not to be obvious, but a big help for this is getting out of the house, being around people, and getting into fun conversations. Nothing can compete with that. No immersive game or chat room can ever compete with the pleasure of being around people and looking them in the eye and connecting with them.

Where I am at now, personally, is I am chatting a bit more than I want to be--- but I am also going out on a regular basis and meeting people, and having fun, and laughing, all that good stuff that I tried to substitute with the internet. So it's not like "I gave up chatting and now my life is perfect" but more "I'm rediscovering how fun it is to be around people, and my chatting is less than it used to be."

Good luck man.

[Remiel]

Thanks for posting. I appreciate it. I think that video will be an interesting one to watch as well.

[Talkofthatown919]

I've gone through that plenty of times. Smoking, drinking are two of the main ones. I remember when i said i was going to quit smoking (marijuana) then the next thing i know i was puffing on it once more. Till one day i had a realization that i wasn't going to get very far if i continued down my path. But anyhow with drinking i do not do it hardley at all like i used to. Very scarely if is. Because that started to get out of hand as well. Was living life in a different kind of way not how truly i am as a person.

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by Remiel

At the same time I have a void of "time" because I've gone to the point of completely removing world of warcraft from my life. What I am looking for now is a good, healthy activity to do that will help me rest and relax or have fun and recharge.

To give an example I enjoy doing Taekwondo, yet it is a draining type of activity. For the longest time I used video games as my chill activity. Now it doesn't meet that need.

Did you already do stuff besides WoW, or were you a full-time player? The difference being that you probably could use more social activity if you were full-time (Do something, Learn something, Share something, Change something - Meetup.com is a good resource if you're in a well populated area, or you could do community service, or go to church if you're religious or even if you're not), whereas you might be looking for more lonesome activities if you're already satisfactorily social. Maybe you could go to the library more often and rent books or cd's, or learn how to juggle, or put those little ships into bottles. I guess what I'm saying is that you need to figure it out for yourself .

[FazK]

Listen to your soul man it will tell you to stop playing WoW. Trust there have been many times when i knew i had to give something up but i just couldn't find a good reason. This is your mind trying to rationalize and trick you. JUST GIVE IT UP. You will feel so much better. Think about all the days and months you've wasted in front of your computer.

[Remiel]

Originally Posted by FazK

Listen to your soul man it will tell you to stop playing WoW. Trust there have been many times when i knew i had to give something up but i just couldn't find a good reason. This is your mind trying to rationalize and trick you. JUST GIVE IT UP. You will feel so much better. Think about all the days and months you've wasted in front of your computer.

It took me a while but I finally did listen. My level 80 character is now binary dust .


@The Cloud
I did stuff besides wow but on a very inconsistent basis. I go to the gym and have a trainer, I have a sales / business coach, and I work 40+ hours a week. Basically I'm not the mom's basement level of wow player, but I think I was creeping back up there. Now that I've stopped wow its become incredibly easy to start moving forward on my business ventures. Yet I know for a fact that I cannot let my fun loving / rested tank hit empty. I've done that too many times to know it is entirely counterproductive to my health and general well being. Not to mention sanity.

What do you guys do for fun, rest, and relaxation?

[aggie]

sometimes i think that when people are bored or need to fill their life with something it is helpful to look around and see what you can do for someone/something else besides yourself....just a suggestion

[Groucho]

I have never been interested in games like Wow, so I never had a problem with that (in fact, my problem was that with most games I played I lost interest so quickly, that I never finished many of them). However, I have a good friend that was crazy about Wow. He was literally addicted to it. Lost one year of study because of this. He told me on many occasions that deleting that game and his account was one of the best things he had done in recent years.

I personally start feeling anxious if playing games or watching TV for more then an hour or something... because I get this nasty feeling that I am wasting my life, watching a screen of pixels, while other people are actually living their potential. I rather go out for a walk and I feel 100 times better doing it. That is the primary reason I stopped playing games about a year ago... and believe me, I have played some seriously fantastic computer games in my life, that were really worth playing

[cylon]

Originally Posted by Remiel

What do you guys do for fun, rest, and relaxation?

I write and record music, that's my passion. Other than that, just being around people and laughing has to be the best relaxation for me.

[ar81]

Even if you get rid of the object, you are attached to it.
Instead of getting rid of Warcraft and PDA when you stilll need it, try the opposite approach:

How would you make yourself not to need them?

The day you do not need them, you may choose to play or not.
If you do not reduce the need, you will find a substitute, but you will not detach.

[Remiel]

Originally Posted by ar81

Even if you get rid of the object, you are attached to it.
Instead of getting rid of Warcraft and PDA when you stilll need it, try the opposite approach:

How would you make yourself not to need them?

The day you do not need them, you may choose to play or not.
If you do not reduce the need, you will find a substitute, but you will not detach.

That is most certainly a great way to put it. How does one go about eliminating the need to play? Also is it possible to separate the desire to play while one is still playing heavily?

As it stands I do not regret my decision to delete my character. While I can't be sure quite yet, I haven't had the need to play video games for the past 4 days. I played a bit on Sunday but instead of making me want to play more I was bored. Could I have been struggling with the habit of playing video games without a need to play them? I don't really know. Could I have been struggling with a "What now?" sort of question that the only answer I had in the past was one of "Video games"? That could be it too.

I do know that I've found a freedom by deliberately deleting my character. In a sense it was like I was cutting my ties with my past and cutting its hold on me along with it. Does anyone else relate to that sort of feeling?

[ShiningLight]

I am very happy for you to be on your incredible journey of self-inquiry. Welcome and enjoy the experience.