Timestamp: Monday 31 October 2016 at 13:19 Whoa. It’s been a month since I started this journey. Interesting. It has gone so much smoother than it has in the past. I thank grad school for keeping me busy. Really, I do. Get me out of the apartment and on campus with something that can’t really play games, and, well, there’s not much of a choice in the matter. I’ve been focused on this one thing as a goal, and it seems to be working so far.

Timestamp: Sunday, 23rd October at 22:46 How do weeks work? The Reddit bot tells me I’m at 24 days though, so I’ll take it. What a week, and where to begin…? I’m still game-free, thanks grad school! Seriously, being on campus until 9:30 or 10 every night is probably the number one factor in my success thus far. The urge to play a game is still there, lurking, waiting for me to lower my guard.

It’s only Thursday and I can already tell this’ll be the toughest weekend yet for this whole project. The hype around Civilization VI is incredible - and I was right there with the rest of everyone on the internet for the last two iterations. Similarly, this time around it’s proving difficult to not get caught up in the excitement. I mean, listen to this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQYN2P3E06s This is my jam. I get damn near obsessive over this sort of music.

A rare second post on the same day appears! I just have to get this one out there while the spark of inspiration is there. In addition to maintaining this space, I keep a journal of sorts on a support group forum for folks trying to get past gaming as I have recommitted myself to doing lately. It’s not perfect by far, but the resources and community are a great resource.

Timestamp: Friday 14th October 2016 at 13:01. Wow, so it has been two weeks since I started on this journey of self-revitalization. That’s two weeks without launching a video game, two weeks of refocusing on who I am and what it means to be who I am and where I am today…and two weeks of rising to be better than I was. It’s tempting as hell to sit back and rest on my laurels today.

It’s a funny thing, motivation. I spent at least a decade of my life (absolute number of hours almost undoubtedly, never mind real time) chasing completely arbitrary and ultimately meaningless goals in search of that next hit of dopamine or whatever it is. Ultimately, that stuff doesn’t even matter. I couldn’t even tell you what many of those bullshit “achievements” were for actually doing. I do remember that there were a large number of such achievements just for exploring the entirety of certain areas in World of Warcraft all those years ago.

Timestamp: Saturday 8th October 2016 at 23:56 C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER! The other post is cool, but hey, it’s been a week since I dedicated myself to this project. Here’s a real end-of-week retrospective now that I’ve gone for a run and gotten those feels out. But really, cam I go back in time, bottle that feeling up, and relive it any time I’m feeling down about something? Anyway, wow, it’s been a week already.

Timestamp: Saturday 8th October 2016 at 22:24 Day 6 as well I suppose. I’d rather not count the days one by one honestly. The streak on the badge on Reddit is awesome to look at, and highlighting milestones is awesome too; that said, taking up that title space is a drag. Maybe I’ll program a widget or something… Got home so late last night that I couldn’t post before falling asleep.

Timestamp: Wednesday, 5th October at 23:01 Wednesdays are my short days at work, so I have an absolute ton of free time. And yet, not enough to really do much. As soon as I get into working on a real project for class or for myself, it’s time to go to grab dinner or go to class or what have you. Guess how I’ve been filling this time up to this week…

Edit: I’ve been posting these little daily journals to a certain forum as part of a project to keep me on track with the plan I outlined in a post a few days ago. A dear friend suggested I post them on here too, so why not? If it’s too much for you, I can look into a category filter or something. Timestamp: Tuesday, 4th October 2016 at 18:13 Reread Respawn last night, just to refamiliarize myself with what I’m doing here.