Direction

Finding direction in life can be frustrating. The trouble is that every time I didn’t choose my own path, someone else chose it for me: An employer, a family member, or even my “lesser self”. By that I mean the part of me which thought it was best to just chase money. It makes sense to value money as we need it to survive and thrive in this modern world, but every time I prioritised chasing money over anything else, I was unhappy. Then I would try to fill the hole in my soul with gaming or some other distraction.

It took a few years, but eventually I just got sick of what I was doing with my life, both at work and in my spare time. At that point I made a conscious effort to make changes. I stopped chasing work which paid the best, and started doing jobs which felt more meaningful to me. I also chose the people I worked for and with more carefully. The interesting thing is that when I felt happier at work, I had less stress and so I spent less money in my spare time. So despite earning lower salaries by doing jobs I liked, I would often end up having more disposable income each month. I would also play games less. I think one of the core reasons as to why I buried myself in excessive gaming so often was simply because I was unhappy.

Once I was doing a job I liked, I also started trying new things in my spare time. At first I just moved away from AAA gaming and got into indie gaming, though later I tried a few completely different things, such as:

* Getting into philosophy (Stoicism, Buddhism..)

* Martial arts (Taekwondo, Kickboxing, MMA..)

* Board games and Dungeons & Dragons

* Reading fantasy & sci-fi novels

* Developing an RL social life

* Hiking and mountain biking

* Learning how to program

* Learning a new language

* Gym and general fitness

* Travelling

* Writing

I have a few favourite hobbies these days which I’ve stuck with for years, but I still like to try new things from time to time. For example, a few weeks ago I ordered some wool and knitting needles haha. It’s also just good and fun to put yourself out there and meet some new people. I volunteered at a dog shelter a few months back and met some really lovely people, not to mention a number of super furry doggos. Yes, it was difficult to make changes at first, especially when those changes involved being more sociable in person, but I took it in small steps.

Direction also doesn’t just have to mean your work, it’s just the route you take in order to better yourself in any way you want to at the time. Once I had direction, life often just flowed and the idea of wasting time on excessive gaming became a silly notion. However, you need to make sure that you persevere when there are bumps in the road.