For the briefest of moments I toyed with the idea of quitting video games for a year. Two seconds total. Maybe three but I think the heart crushing depression that came with that idea slowed down my cognitive processes somewhat. The reasons that lead to the point where I would even consider doing something so drastic are pretty common and may be something everyone experiences at one point in their lives.

I love being creative. Whether that’s writing, game designing or even thinking up some nifty (yet utterly futile) new feature to add on my blog that I barely use. I love thinking that I made something that I enjoy or if I’m lucky, something other people might enjoy. I derive a great amount of pleasure from the creative process especially the beginning. The middle is a tad tedious but necessary and I hardly ever make it to the end but that is one of the reasons why I think I need to devote less time to video games. I’d like to finish more of those creative projects that I start. I’m far too easily distracted and if I’ve had a bad day or stressful day at work (which happens more and more and more) I tend to just do something mindless and non-productive. It helps in the short term I think, taking my mind off that bad day, but eventually I’d like to change my mindset to do something creative instead.

What makes it hard though is that I love to play games. Whenever Steam has a sale, it takes quite a bit of discipline to not buy everything in sight even if I know I’m not going to get to it. Just the knowledge that I have it available whenever I want is akin to eating a big bowl o’comfort food. That’s another reason to try and stop or maybe even just cut back. Spend less money. Between board games and video games I’d need at least three full time jobs to pay for all the games and hardware I want.

The end goal for me in all this would be to get to a point where I am good enough and disciplined enough to write and game design in order to make enough money to live on. Or even just enough of a side income to get in to job where I might actually look forward to going to work.

So anyway I’ve been playing The Walking Dead that was just on sale on Steam and…

aw crap.

-v- out.