Another one goes down the drain đ
Last week I’ve decided to make a decision that was definitely worth it for my future high school and college life: quitting online chess.
I’ve quit a lot of games before, and now this?
Let me explain a bit…
In sixth and seventh grade all my friends were playing a game called Tank Trouble. They played in flex, sometimes at lunch, and definitely on the bus. I joined in, and I was addicted for almost a year. Every day when I get home, I would open my Chromebook and start playing the game instead of doing my homework first. However, my grades did not drop; my mom helped me quit the game in a matter of time.
In 2019(seventh grade), one of my friends on my previous swim team was playing surviv.io. Looking back, I can’t blame him for that: we were in a swim meet, and he was probably lightening his stress with this game.
When I got home, I tried playing this game. At the time, it sounded very fun, but within a week, I was addicted again. And this time it was worse: in October 2019, our family moved to Taiwan, and I was destined to homeschool until we could find our way back to the United States, where I would go to a public school again.
It took me another year to completely get rid of my surviv.io addiction, but yet a third game rose from the ashes: Chess. I was rated 600(blitz) in July 2019, but then rose to 1500 in May 2021. Again, the game had no impact on my homeschooling, except that it ate up thousands of hours of precious time. And after seeing my bad score on this year’s AMC 10A, I decided that it was the moment for change.
I would quit online chess and never play another video game for my life.
I’m not saying that videogames are bad; they can definitely lower down your stress levels if you know how to self control.
Over my middle school years, I look back now and see myself sitting in front of my computer and mindlessly playing an hour of two of videogames. If you think that one hour or even just thirty minutes is a little, double check your calculations. It adds up if you play every day.
So it was only a week ago that I’ve quitted online chess, but I feel a lot happier now. I realize that video games were a “mental allergy” for me; once I get exposed, I’m addicted.
Of course, this isn’t the case for everyone, but my main point is that everyone has mental allergies. There are just things that you can’t touch; there is stuff that seems harmless at first, but in the end, it rips you open.
My decision last week was definitely worth it; this week might have been one of the happier ones this year; even though Taiwan is in lockdown, I feel a lot better without online chess and video games; a burden has been lifted off me.
So now, ask yourself: what can’t I be exposed to? What deteriorates me until my life seems completely pointless? It doesn’t have to be an addiction; if you consistently do something that is bad or harmful to you in any way, you shouldn’t do it.
If you can relate to my addiction to videogames, let me just tell you this one thing:
It’s never too late.
And if you want to know how to quit a bad habit, see my post on quitting video games.