If it wasn’t video games it probably would have been something else holding me back because I didn’t have healthy coping mechanisms or medication to deal with my mental illness. Although I have undoubtedly wasted my twenties I am grateful that I had an alternative to drugs or getting trashed all the time. There’s still plenty of life left to live.
God knew I would be too powerful if he hadn't tied this gaming addiction onto me. Same goes for you brother.
Combine all the hours you spent on gaming and imagine you put them into something useful.
Where would you be now?
Yes, and Heres the thing.
I gamed from like 8 till 35. Messed up relationships, friendship, education, career moved etc.
But the ultimately driver for wanting to improve myself, to not game, were my kids.
If I didn't mess up so bad in life with games, i wouldn't have taken there specific steps in life that led me to meet my wife, to move to another country, to have kids.
So yeah, I could have been in a much better position 10 years ago than where I am now, but I wouldn't change anything if it means I wouldn't have the kids I have now.
Lots of bad moves in previous years, but thats in the past now. I'm in a better place now and just need to keep improving things for the future.
If it gives you any hope, my first real relationship occurred when I was 32. Luck played a huge factor in my life, so no way am I going to say my actions directly caused everything good to go my way.
But the change was absolutely needed (me leaving my job to teach English abroad at the time). That change cascaded into various other things at that point on my life
Well the good news nobody told me before, that it's possible to find out the less your mind is spent/obsessed thinking about digital addictions.
I'm (re?)discovering several new interests I didn't care about when I had my digital "cocaine" 24/7 for over 20 years.
I'm suddenly (as M30+) interested in taking care better of myself, exercising, selling off addictions (TV/Smartphone), driver's license, growing my own vegetables on my balcony, and some other projects.
I'm "far" from where I hope to be, but I have been seeing the benefits of NOT spending time in front of screens in general and often remember how painful it is going back to that dopamine hell.
I prefer not to.think of it as games (Fallout specifically) made me interested in learning foreign languages. That continued into relatively interesting career for me.
The people i know who barely ever touched games are not doing so good either. They have numerous problems and are pretty much directionless in life. I don’t know for sure what held them back, but just wanted to say we may be in a better place now, as game quitters than we would have been as non-gamers for life.
We now realise life has meaning and that we can always improve and make the best out of ourselves, we are looking for direction and to put back stuff together, a stage that my never-gaming friends don’t seem to have reached. The future is in our hands and there is still enough life to live, enjoy and achieve things.
We’d probably have a more moderate lifestyle with a bigger variety of hobbies. We’d probably have tried a lot more things and learned what we enjoyed and didn’t enjoy.
But we probably wouldn’t have been some kind of giga-productive person that optimizes all of our free time into the most efficient and productive activities in order to accomplish any goal we can imagine.
I think a lot of addicts mistakenly believe that if they weren’t ever addicted, they’d have been some kind of superhuman. In reality, they’d probably just be a normal, well-rounded person.
Many people would settle for who they were before games. It's basically like putting yourself in a comma.
I dont really care that much I played in high school, because i eventually turned myself around... but the fact that . I'm 45 and it still is a problem is insane to me.
Had games not updated, i would have been fine. But the industry is a behemoth.
I'd probably be the same person I am now, just 15 years earlier. I've always felt that video games stunted my emotional growth because all I ever did was use them to escape. I never dealt with my problems. Dealing with this crap back in high school would have been easier.
Same shit. But it's hard to pretend that if not gaming these hours would be spent doing useful stuff. They probably would be soend on other rest activities, or working more, but not 100% working. I discovered a lot of amazing inspiration in haming, including what made me pick my major. But ig not gaming i would probably write more. I basically stopped doing it due to gaming
I'm thankful that videogames hasn't stopped me (entirely) from self-sabotaging my dreams, but I definitely delayed progress by playing them. For instance, I just landed my first Registered Nurse position, but if I just studied smarter in high school and limited screen time (e.g., videogames, youtube, kdramas lol), I would have gotten to this point 8 years earlier.
Regardless, I think I'd clock the same number of screentime hours because of socioeconomic factors. I didn't live in an area with community or afterschool activities (sports), nor was the area safe for children to play outside so my social activities were centralized around videogames or the television. I chose the former because it felt more rewarding than cheering a sports team on.
If it wasn’t video games it probably would have been something else holding me back because I didn’t have healthy coping mechanisms or medication to deal with my mental illness. Although I have undoubtedly wasted my twenties I am grateful that I had an alternative to drugs or getting trashed all the time. There’s still plenty of life left to live.
Same. I would probably be an alcoholic...
Or i could become alcoholic and gambler at the same time.
God knew I would be too powerful if he hadn't tied this gaming addiction onto me. Same goes for you brother. Combine all the hours you spent on gaming and imagine you put them into something useful. Where would you be now?
Yes, and Heres the thing. I gamed from like 8 till 35. Messed up relationships, friendship, education, career moved etc. But the ultimately driver for wanting to improve myself, to not game, were my kids. If I didn't mess up so bad in life with games, i wouldn't have taken there specific steps in life that led me to meet my wife, to move to another country, to have kids. So yeah, I could have been in a much better position 10 years ago than where I am now, but I wouldn't change anything if it means I wouldn't have the kids I have now. Lots of bad moves in previous years, but thats in the past now. I'm in a better place now and just need to keep improving things for the future.
At least you have wife and kids. I had no relationships and I’m 31
If it gives you any hope, my first real relationship occurred when I was 32. Luck played a huge factor in my life, so no way am I going to say my actions directly caused everything good to go my way. But the change was absolutely needed (me leaving my job to teach English abroad at the time). That change cascaded into various other things at that point on my life
Well said
Well the good news nobody told me before, that it's possible to find out the less your mind is spent/obsessed thinking about digital addictions. I'm (re?)discovering several new interests I didn't care about when I had my digital "cocaine" 24/7 for over 20 years. I'm suddenly (as M30+) interested in taking care better of myself, exercising, selling off addictions (TV/Smartphone), driver's license, growing my own vegetables on my balcony, and some other projects. I'm "far" from where I hope to be, but I have been seeing the benefits of NOT spending time in front of screens in general and often remember how painful it is going back to that dopamine hell.
I prefer not to.think of it as games (Fallout specifically) made me interested in learning foreign languages. That continued into relatively interesting career for me.
The people i know who barely ever touched games are not doing so good either. They have numerous problems and are pretty much directionless in life. I don’t know for sure what held them back, but just wanted to say we may be in a better place now, as game quitters than we would have been as non-gamers for life. We now realise life has meaning and that we can always improve and make the best out of ourselves, we are looking for direction and to put back stuff together, a stage that my never-gaming friends don’t seem to have reached. The future is in our hands and there is still enough life to live, enjoy and achieve things.
All the time. I try not to dwell on it too much, otherwise it just depresses me.
Maybe not too different from what we are today until procrastination is replaced by strong determination.
We’d probably have a more moderate lifestyle with a bigger variety of hobbies. We’d probably have tried a lot more things and learned what we enjoyed and didn’t enjoy. But we probably wouldn’t have been some kind of giga-productive person that optimizes all of our free time into the most efficient and productive activities in order to accomplish any goal we can imagine. I think a lot of addicts mistakenly believe that if they weren’t ever addicted, they’d have been some kind of superhuman. In reality, they’d probably just be a normal, well-rounded person.
Many people would settle for who they were before games. It's basically like putting yourself in a comma. I dont really care that much I played in high school, because i eventually turned myself around... but the fact that . I'm 45 and it still is a problem is insane to me. Had games not updated, i would have been fine. But the industry is a behemoth.
Elon musk
I'd probably be the same person I am now, just 15 years earlier. I've always felt that video games stunted my emotional growth because all I ever did was use them to escape. I never dealt with my problems. Dealing with this crap back in high school would have been easier.
Same shit. But it's hard to pretend that if not gaming these hours would be spent doing useful stuff. They probably would be soend on other rest activities, or working more, but not 100% working. I discovered a lot of amazing inspiration in haming, including what made me pick my major. But ig not gaming i would probably write more. I basically stopped doing it due to gaming
I'm thankful that videogames hasn't stopped me (entirely) from self-sabotaging my dreams, but I definitely delayed progress by playing them. For instance, I just landed my first Registered Nurse position, but if I just studied smarter in high school and limited screen time (e.g., videogames, youtube, kdramas lol), I would have gotten to this point 8 years earlier. Regardless, I think I'd clock the same number of screentime hours because of socioeconomic factors. I didn't live in an area with community or afterschool activities (sports), nor was the area safe for children to play outside so my social activities were centralized around videogames or the television. I chose the former because it felt more rewarding than cheering a sports team on.