That girl!
The last time I visit my mom she told me some recent news.
She met her old friend and had a small talk with her. That woman’s daughter went to the same class in middle school as I did. She told my mom that her daughter had divorced her husband. I had a crush on her for a few years, so it took my attention. That guy played too many video games and did not spend enough time with her.
“What a bummer”, I thought.
“She’s so pretty and sunny girl, I would definitely not behave like that if I had her as a wife!”…
“Or would I?”
Stealthy addiction
That makes me think deeply about it. I played a lot. I mean, not so much as I used to a few years ago or in a school, but still.
I work in the gamedev industry, so it feels like a work-related thing. Like I need to play to be a better developer. I still believe it’s true. To create any great product you must consume it and analyze other similar products.
But didn’t I lie to myself?
Can I actually quit gaming if I wish?
I had no answer. I slightly feared like I cannot.
I remember how I stopped drinking coffee every day and how much it changed my life. This time it might be the same thing – this thing was in my life for so long so it might actually turn into an addiction.
So the best way to know if it’s true or not is to experiment. As always. It took roughly a month to get the final verdict.
Nope, I cannot.
I used my method for daily productivity to track how I’m going toward my goals. But every so often I got stuck in the Path of Exile or No Man’s Sky grinding some random resource I didn’t even need. Each time I wasted a few days in a row completely, plus my sleep schedule broke completely.
The first time I thought like “Ah, it’s not an issue, everything is fine”,. But on the 3rd or 4th I found myself thinking “Dude, WTF are you doing?”.
It scares me a little. Really? Gaming addict? I am? No way!
Luckily, understanding the problem is the first step to solving it.
Fast healing
Thankfully, I found a solution pretty fast.
I noticed that all games that took my attention the most were about grinding, farming, or collecting something. Everything story-related or other types don’t affect me like that. And the worst part – i did not get any joy from them. I already played all these games and clearly understood the gameplay. Every time deleting the game I felt ashamed and guilty. Like “I know I need to do other things, but I cannot resist it”.
I instantly remembered the book I had read recently. It is called ” Habits of a Happy Brain” by Loretta Graziano Breuning. The author describes the process of dopamine motivation that happened in the brain to train us to do some things and not do others.
If you struggle with any addiction, the first thing you need is to think about the reasons you got so used to it. Any addiction (as a habit) has a source in your brain. It needs something and that action gives your brain that. If you can replace it with something new (new hobby, physical exercises, etc.) – your brain will still get what it needs. But this time without the behavior you want to change in yourself.
I find that I was lacking the feeling of achievement in my life in general. I quit my job where I always fulfill this need. Now I’m working on several long-term personal projects with almost no noticeable milestones. So my brain, which got used to being a high performer, screamed to get some checkmarks near some quests. And grinding video games were the ideal solution for that.
By understanding that, finding a solution was pretty easy. I need more visual progress in my non-gaming projects. I decomposed all projects one or two steps deeper and started tracking them in my Notion diary pages.
Result? It was too noticeable. I can shut down any game at any moment now and don’t need a useless source of progress validation.
Findings
After that short experiment, I found a few very important conclusions:
1. We have a hard time noticing our addictions (and any other habits).
2. Understanding the reasons behind always help to fix any problem.
3. You can turn your bad addictions into something more useful.
I’m not sure if my solution is the ideal one. Or do you need to ask a specialist and remove any addiction completely? Until it helps in self-development and getting things done I think it’s a be a good option.
What are your thoughts?