Video games, tv and self-worth

This entry is still in "beta"

It all began during summer in my high school years, when I completely cut out TV from my life, under the conditions it'd just be for just one month. Time went on and that period eventually became 2 months, then before I knew it, a whole year had passed without me turning on the television.

I didn't realize at first, but as I looked back, I noticed something interesting. The first thing to replace TV was increased time spent playing video games, watching movies and reading books. However as these mediums each, in turn became increasingly non-interesting, I began to pursue other activities.

It began when I realized the situation I was in at school, my home life, and my personal education. Almost instantly I began to reflect on the decisions I made, the way I presented myself and how I approached others.

I was hopelessly socially awkward, the result of thinking I only needed myself for near 14-15 years, and at first it was rough to get along in social groups other than my own. However, in doing so and learning about others different than myself, I began to see the benefits of meeting people and learning about who they are, and what made them that.

At first, I was startled to learn that the ones I found most interesting didn't play video games, at least play them often. Instead of revolving their lives around games, they instead either seldom played or never played at all. There have been situations where This came as a huge shock at the time, after all to me being good at Star Craft, and having beaten Fallout 2, 40x different ways, was life.

The dynamic began to become more and more apparent. The less time I spent playing video games, the more productive I became, and therefore the more interesting of a life I would lead.

As I became aware of this, my life radically changed overnight, without me even realizing it. I experienced a sharp decline in my time spent on activities such as games and as result a I almost felt the dramatic increase in my feelings of self-worth. Where this came from, I'm still not sure, though I think it has to do with working daily to improve yourself, even if small. And springing from that self-worth,  my motivation to accomplish great things in my life became not something I sought, but something I could not contain.

It was from this motivation that I set far reaching life goals and began to pursue them, even if when rationally thought upon, I realised it would be impossible to accomplish everything on my list in my lifetime.

Thinking upon it in that sense however is not the correct approach. For in even accomplishing one, be it great or small, I would be content with my efforts in life.