Video Games

I enjoy them immensely. Yet there’s a nagging voice in my head that tells me I’m wasting my time. It’s been an ongoing debate in my head for decades. The time-wasting narrative has been the victor most of the time. Even now I find it hard to argue. But it goes deeper than the activity itself.

I’ve identified within myself this connection between self-worth and productivity that is soooo frustrating. I am not a robot. I need time to relax and unwind like anyone else. And I can see that when it comes to others. But for me? Nuh uh. Is your brain absolutely fried? Too bad, stuff needs done so feel guilty about it for the next 5 hours. And with video games it goes up a notch. I think partly because I do enjoy them so much. Somehow my brain not only thinks it’s a waste, but that it’s worse because I have fun while doing so. But I’m not inherently engaging in video games to ignore responsibilities, although my history with college classes begs to differ. It’s going to take a lot of work to even start rooting out this negative belief. It gets in the way all the time, entangling guilt and enjoyment at every thought. Exhausting, right?

Like yesterday for example. I had just about 12 hours to do whatever, so I played a couple different games. It was a blast. Some of those hours were playing with friends, the rest were not. Unequivocally I had an amazing time. My memory is just slightly tainted, unfortunately. I want to just leave it as is, but that voice comes in again and says heaps of unhelpful stuff. “You’re lazy, unmotivated, avoiding your life, wasting your time, you shouldn’t be enjoying this”. In recent years I’ve been trying to fight back and say that because I enjoy it it’s not a waste. Or that I don’t need to have accomplished something in order to feel good.

At the end of the day though, I can’t shake the thought that it’s just nuanced. I know sometimes I do “escape” to video games instead of doing slightly harder but more rewarding things. I don’t know that I’ve written about this yet but I notice that when I play games I’m putting my life on pause. And that doesn’t feel great. I care a lot about my well-being. I know that I benefit from doing certain things but instead I go to video games. Which doesn’t mean the games are the culprit. I enjoy them and they let me focus on something without getting caught up in my head. That’s worth something. At the same time I am very aware that I procrastinate a lot and don’t get outside of my comfort zone as much as I would like to. So it feels like this debate might go on for a very long time yet. Ideally I could channel both sides. Enjoying them while I’m playing and still making space to do the things I feel matter more. Balance. Maybe that wouldn’t “fix” it though. What does that balance even look like day to day? I want to let go and let myself exist without the fixation on doing stuff. But I don’t think I’m capable of that right now.

So I’ll do the best I can with what I’ve got. Hopefully 6 months or a year later I can say things are “better” in this aspect. Time will tell, and so will I.