Tomorrow I begin a new project: converting my gaming hours into something better. Something that I want more: playing and leveling as my own hero or character in a real-life realm.
It could be becoming a tarot card reader or a cook or a home and office organizer or a tennis player or a youtube vlogger or a dancer or a voracious reader of books or a bus travel expert or a storycrafter or a thrift store fashionista or a mushroom grower or a model railroad enthusiast. WHATEVER! None of those are what I picked to begin tomorrow, but any of those types of things would do.
Basically I figured out how many hours I spent playing my favorite match3 puzzle games over the past ~five years; I’m committing to spending that amount of time doing something DIFFERENT with those hours over the next five years instead of throwing them away.
Starting tomorrow I begin logging hours (14+ hours a week) leveling up my skills in a totally different area. If I could afford to squander all of that time on gaming, I can definitely afford to build on the skills and character(s) I’ve already learned and been playing with since I was a child, and even used to make money on. But this time it could even be okay if I’m just doing it for me. Like playing games.
I’m excited to see where I’ll be five years from now if I stick to this the way I’ve stuck with Empires and Puzzles, for example. As much as I love my fully-leveled legendary heroes and enjoy playing with them, there is a lot more potential for where I could be even at the end of one year devoting the same number of hours I’ve spent on gaming in the past over the same span of time than if I continue huddled around my phone swiping and farming and “training” my game heroes. And after five years? This character could be a pretty amazing exclusive tank+++++++++++++.
The secret may just be to treat training and leveling up my real world character(s) as a fun, easy, and inconsequential game.