Addictions and my Experience with Computer Games

I have long struggled with a tendency to get easily addicted to computer games. To the point where I'd spend days just sitting at the computer and lose all sense of anything else I needed to do or any of my other hobbies, and have severe withdrawals any time I managed to actually wrench myself away for a few minutes. And it could happen with any kind of game really. It could even be something as simple as Tetris. The sad thing is, I'd begin by genuinely enjoying the game. Then I'd start to get bored with it, but be even more highly addicted. After a few days, I'd turn into an empty husk, gaining nothing from the game yet feeling even more worthless and depressed whenever I'd stop and inevitably reflect on the manner in which I'd spent my time. It's not a fun place to be.

I've experimented with various different methods of control over the years. For whatever reason, it's been a pretty complex issue for me. The simplest approach I've found for dealing with addiction is simply to quit cold turkey. For example, I did this with fast food beginning in the summer of 2010:

First, I looked at the cons of eating fast food, from the amount of money I spent on it to the health issues to the way it made my body feel. While most the time I felt fine, if I went a month without eating it then tried it again, my stomach would react almost violently to the grease. Next, I looked at the extent to which I relied on fast food as a crutch. I tended to go through a drive through several times a week and felt strong cravings on the days I didn't go. Various factors played into this, from the addictiveness of the food itself to the convenience and relative cheapness compared with eating at a restaurant, to the fact that my mom was also addicted to fast food and more than happy to suggest it and drive me there.

Finally, I considered what I would lose if I never ate fast food again for the rest of my life. Certainly I would miss the taste for a while, I thought, but there are plenty of other foods that taste good. I might miss out on some convenience, particularly if my friends really want to hang out at a fast food place, but this is unlikely and I could always plan ahead to eat something else and then hang out with them without eating there myself. Overall, I realized that if I never ate fast food again, I would truly not be missing out on anything essential or even important. So, I wrote out a list of fast food places I would never eat at again. Listing the specific places was important for me, as this way I couldn't rationalize my way out of my promise ("well, it doesn't exactly count as a fast food place...") I would also be clear on the places that I would allow myself to go to. If, at a later time, I deemed an additional place unhealthy and addictive for me, I could always add it to the "never list".


For many years I took a similar approach to computer games. While I hadn't strictly ruled them out, I simply avoided them altogether. Still, in many ways I missed the positive aspects and felt a sense of loss when I'd see others enjoying video games or computer games. Similarly, if I added all of my potential addictions to a "never list", I would very quickly wind up painting myself into a corner. At the very least, I deemed it worthwhile to try and see if I could find some other way to moderate my game usage.

One idea was to limit the amount of time I could play a game per day. In theory this was a simple, logical idea. In practice, it was extremely difficult for me to maintain. I would start out strict with myself, wrenching myself away from the screen painfully as the timer I set would go off. This never worked for more than two or three days, and even when it did I experienced intense withdrawal symptoms.

After a while I started to wonder if the problem had to do with playing games that were meant to be played for several hours at a time, drawing the player in. So I tried picking games that were simpler and could be paused easily at any point. I figured maybe I'd get bored with them easier. The results? I would indeed get bored with them sooner. The problem is, I would still get addicted incredibly quickly. And being addicted to a game I wasn't even interested in was even more irritating.

One day, after weeks of being hooked on a game I initially didn't think would hold any long term interest, I started to wonder if there were some underlying needs of mine getting indirectly fulfilled by playing various games. I thought that a need was probably getting met even by the more boring games, and the convenient and familiar method is what made it continue to be addictive even after the need was no longer getting met as efficiently. I began to analyse what the appeal of each game was (for example I enjoyed a game called Terraria because I could explore and find lots of different items that could be combined in interesting combinations to build new things, which reflected my values of curiosity and creativity). This understanding changed the way I played games, helping me get more out of them in less time by disregarding activities that weren't as fun wherever possible. Unfortunately, while I became more efficient in extracting value from my game play, I was still left with an addiction. Dropping games once I lost a sense of joy in playing them worked with a bit of attention and effort, but I would still be drawn to the next game.

Now while I obviously recognized the problem with excess and how depressed the resulting guilt and self loathing made me feel, I also felt pretty depressed and bad about myself when I denied myself all activities that weren't strictly productive; reducing life to "worthwhile" and "worthless" activities made everything feel flat, cynical and empty to me. In addition, even if I cut out computer games, there were an infinite number of known and unknown potential addictions waiting for me and I still had no reliable method of curbing them without rendering myself frozen by restrictions. And so, I continued to experiment on myself from time to time with the familiar medium.

One of my more recent experiences was getting addicted to a very, very simple puzzle game akin to Candy Crush for over a month. And I had planned on deleting it after a couple hours. Now, on the plus side, I had limited myself to fifteen minutes per day, an unusually low time limit, and I managed to stick to this limit for all but the last week I was addicted. The benefit of this small time limit combined with the simplicity of the game seemed to be that I didn't have time to get too deeply involved mentally, so it was easier to stop when the timer went off.

Unfortunately, the game also slowly evolved from being something I could easily recognize as a meaningless distraction to relax on occasion to a central part of my daily routine. Oddly, even with such a small amount of time, my sense of worth started to get attached to my increasing mastery of this silly little game while motivation in other areas of my life decreased noticeably. And, of course, the time limit eventually started slipping and I had to delete it.


This particular experience gave me a new idea: maybe part of the problem was that I had to fight my addiction on a daily basis instead of just every once in a while. Plus I would constantly feel like I hadn't played as long as I really wanted to. These two things would tend to reinforce any withdrawal symptoms. Worst of all, I had far too many chances to fail in keeping my word to myself, especially as the inevitable stresses of daily life began to set in. And once I had failed in my self moderation attempt, the depression would start to set in, making it easier to fail each consecutive time, to greater and greater degrees until I would finally hit a "rock bottom" point and ban myself from the game.

So, I thought, perhaps I could allow myself an entire day of shame free gaming. But only one predesignated day out of each month. This would give me a clearly defined limit, but one that was long enough to let me really get into the game and enjoy myself. I gave it a try and was amazed at the results; for the first time in over a decade, I spent all day playing a game (Nethack, something I greatly missed from my childhood), and I did not openly or secretly hate myself. Not even a little bit. Not even in the back of my head. Not even when it was time to stop and go to bed and I could clearly see that I had "accomplished" absolutely nothing that day. I would even go so far as to say that my self worth improved from the experience.

And was I tempted to play again the next day and just keep going and going indefinitely? Did I experience intense withdrawal symptoms? Yes. But I felt no need to act on these feelings. I simply looked forward to the next game day, clearly marked on my calendar. Why was this method so effective? I believe the primary reason is because it allowed me to feel good about myself. I gave myself permission to enjoy the day, embracing it wholeheartedly. I set clear limits. I didn't set myself up to fail with a situation where I'd be repeatedly tempted.

Most importantly, having experienced the joy and positivity resulting from that "shame-free" label, I became intrinsically motivated to maintain that highly valuable label at all costs. If I gave in after one day, or indeed any day before the next designated game day, I would destroy it. Gaming would be depressing for me again. And the joy would be far more difficult to get back than it was to destroy. While thoughts about the game continued to pop up randomly in my head for a few days, they gradually became less frequent and the painful urgency dissipated rapidly. What was left was a feeling of contentment, and a level of confidence in my abilities I was unaccustomed to.

While I still need to see what the long term results of this method will be, I am optimistic that I may have found a viable way to self moderate most potentially addicting interests and behaviours that may develop in the future.

The Irons in the Fire Method

I seem to be addicted to projects where I can set something up and then check back later to reap the rewards. My recent interest in crystal growing is a great example. I can do tons of research ahead of time on a type of crystal I want to grow, set it up, then go do something else for several hours. If I haven't gotten enough of crystals yet, that "something else" might well be researching and setting up another crystal growing experiment. In any case, I get the thrill of seeing a change the next time I check back on the project. I absolutely love the idea of putting in the planning and effort up front, then kicking back and letting things progress automatically.

I do run into a problem if I don't have enough other things to do. If that's the case, I may wind up waiting around expectantly, and I'm subsequently not as excited when the results do come in. When this happens, I run the risk of losing whatever momentum I'd gained and not having much energy left to start up a new project or continue with the current one.

I'm extremely prone to forming mini obsessions that last anywhere from days to months. While the intense period of interest might keep me going with a seemingly endless supply of energy, my interests also have a tendency to switch suddenly, making it hard to plan on getting things done with this level of efficiently for any predetermined amount of time. Using the "irons in the fire" method would mitigate this, as I could follow my natural rhythm of rotating through interests, intentionally choosing projects that will yield rewards over time.

I have attempted in the past to construct to do lists that involve completing a series 15 to 30 minute tasks, consistently, on a daily basis. Nothing could be more opposite to my natural inclinations. The last time I attempted such a thing, I succeeded exactly once in completing everything on my list for the day. It was exhausting. Each following day of the week, I would inevitably end up spending several hours on one task or another that was meant to be "brief", and then not have enough time or energy to complete everything else. And then I would feel guilty for not having completed my goal. But why? Isn't cleaning my room until it's spotless or composing music for 4 hours technically a good thing?

Perhaps it's time that I stopped setting myself up to fail and instead worked with my natural tendencies instead of against them. Within reason, of course. (Wouldn't it be nice if you could do dishes for three days straight and then not have to worry about them for an entire year?)

Dealing with Low Energy

From time to time I struggle with long periods of feeling depressed and lethargic. Even when I start to look forward to new possibilities, I just can't seem to find the energy. I've tried getting more sleep, less sleep, eating consistently, avoiding carbs, and exercise. Each of these things only seem to yield minor, temporary improvements to my energy level.

I gained an insight one night when I was sitting at my laptop, writing a journal entry. I was having some exciting ideas, and as I started writing them down I noticed that I went from tired and lethargic to jittery and restless. I felt like running and jumping around but that wasn't really an option in a small room at 1am with other people sleeping nearby. So I kept typing. Whenever I stopped I felt really frustrated. It was as if I had to concentrate really hard to keep up with myself.

Eventually I ran out of words. The jitters stuck around for a while, then I went back to feeling very tired. Something about this experience was familiar. That's when it clicked: the constant lethargic feeling was a result of too much energy with no place to go. I desperately wanted to be active physically, mentally, and creatively, but if I didn't know how to channel all that energy I would just shut down instead. And trust me, being in "zombie mode" for extended periods of time does not feel good.


So now I know that the solution to feeling constantly lethargic involves coming up with the appropriate channel for any energy that I happen to have stored up. Once I tap into it, it seems to be almost never ending. I've experienced this every time I get really absorbed with an interest. I'd love to hear from others if they have had simiar experiences and what they find helps most when their energy levels are low.

How Being a Slow Learner Made Me a Better Tutor

I am a slow learner. Despite loving math, when I first started at a community college I placed into intermediate algebra. Luckily I had an awesome professor, but it still took a huge amount of study time for the material to really sink in. (Interestingly, as I got into higher math, I actually found it easier and easier to absorb new material, even though the material itself was getting harder. I suspect this is because, with practice, I became more proficient in the specific mental processes involved in picking up mathematical concepts.)

The upside of being a slow learner became clear to me when I began tutoring others in math. The student would ask a question, or I would identify from observable patterns which concept the student was struggling with and immediately remember when I was confused about the same thing. More importantly, I would recall exactly how I got from not understanding the concept to understanding it. This allowed me to connect with the student from their starting place and use guiding questions to lead them through a very similar process.

Tutors who tended to pick up new concepts almost instantaneously often seem to have a harder time when students don't understand their initial explanation of how a problem is solved. I've even had a fellow tutor ask me how I found the patience for students that didn't grasp things after multiple explanations. From their perspective, if the student didn't understand their explanation they couldn't understand why not, nor could they figure out how to break things down any further. Perhaps my patience for others developed as a result of needing to have so much patience for myself.

Whenever asking guiding questions during a tutoring session, my goal is to get the student to think. If the questions are too easy, I risk just giving the answers away, and the student is taking my word for it on some level rather than thinking through the problem themselves. If I make the questions too hard, the student is just as stuck as they were initially. They aren't thinking in that case either; they're frozen. What I usually do is start with the more far reaching questions, then if the student is still stuck I keep breaking the questions down into smaller parts until they begin to make headway. The better I can analyse my own learning processes, the finer the pieces that I can break problems into for others.


This concept of starting where a person is and leading them through a solution applies to giving people advice as well. I remember giving a someone with social anxiety advice on how to ask a guy out. I could get very detailed with the steps, address every fear, explain how it was possible and worthwhile without sugar coating anything or discounting the risks. The reason my advice was helpful in this case is because I, too, have social anxiety and have been in the same situation where I was trying to teach myself to ask guys out. I had to work very hard to overcome my own fears, and I had little guidance for how to do so, as unfortunately I hadn't yet discovered the term "social anxiety" and the associated resources at that point.

People would try to give me advice when I described my difficulty, but one of two things would happen. First and by far the most common, they would tell me to just do it. They might have one or two tips (usually the same ones I already found from a google search), but when I tried to get more details they would either look sorry for me, tell me I was making it too complicated, or revert to saying "It's hard for everyone, just do it". The other reaction came from people who didn't quite know how to accomplish the task either. They tended to be more helpful as they would take the time to seriously consider my questions, but again there were a lot of missing pieces as their advice was mostly theoretical.


From this I could conclude that one can give the most useful advice when one has experienced the same issue to a comparable degree and figured out how to solve it through personal experience. In addition, the harder one had to work at resolving the issue, the more details are readily available for communication later. Since every one is unique and has different strengths and weaknesses, it can sometimes be hard to find the perfect person to get advice from, especially if one is struggling more with something than the general population. That's why support networks are so useful; you can find others who have dealt with similar issues and thereby increase your chances of getting useful advice. In addition, it can help counteract the feelings of alienation that can occur after spending many years surrounded by others that don't seem to struggle with the same things. For social anxiety I recommend this support forum which I found incredibly useful.

Music as Transformation

One thing I began to notice is that different types of music will resonate with me depending on my mental and emotional state. One of the reasons I love Beethoven's music is that it can go from one extreme of emotion to another without effort. And an interesting effect would happen sometimes; I'd be in a mood where the intense beginning would resonate with me, and I would feel very connected to the music. Then, it would later shift gracefully to a peaceful section... and my own internal state would shift right along with it.

And yet, when I would try listening to a completely "peaceful" piece when I'm in an "intense" mood, it just wouldn't work. It would feel off, empty. I would get irritated, then switch to heavy metal. Just as with teaching and tutoring (see my previous post on the topic) or a well written story, in order for music to transform the listener, it has to first make a connection with their initial state. Then, the more believable or smooth the transition to another state, the more likely a transformation will occur.


It occurred to me that I could use music as a way to intentionally transform pain or a bad mood into a more positive mindset. Unfortunately, the majority of the songs I own tend to stick to just one "mood" throughout, and the ones that did switch between moods might not have the exact effect I was looking for. So I created five different playlists and filled them with my favourite songs, numbered in order of "happiness level". So playlist 1 would have songs that resonated with me when I felt intense pain, anger, and other similar emotions, playlist 2 had sad songs, playlist 3 bitter-sweet songs, playlist 2 was upbeat, and playlist 1 contained the most joyful, celebratory songs I could find.

Once my playlists were created, I began to test them out in practice. Whenever I would find myself in a bad mood and feeling like some music, I would choose the playlist that seemed to resonate most with me at that particular time. After a few songs I'd switch to the next level up, and so on. Finding the right amount of time to spend on each playlist was a little tricky. Too short and the transition would feel far too abrupt. Too long and I'd risk reinforcing a bad mood. In general though between two and four songs from each playlist seemed to work well for me.

My results: A consistent and noticeable improvement. In most cases bringing myself from a 2 to a 4 was pretty easy. On rare occasions I was able to go from a 1 to a 5, but it was time consuming. Occasionally I could identify a good "transition song" that would help me move more smoothly from, say, playlist 2 to playlist 3. When I couldn't manage that, switching playlists would feel a little uncomfortable at first. With a little concentration I could get back in the flow after a few minutes, perhaps because the gap between the song and my mental state were minimal enough.

Side note: I can always tell whether a song is resonating with me or not based on my reaction to it and how closely I'm paying attention. For example, if I'm in a pretty good mood, Metallica's Unforgiven will either seem too intense and I'll switch to a different piece, or I'll think it's nice to hear, pay half attention, or analyse and admire it from a distance. If I happen to be feeling down about life, however, I'm guaranteed to have tears streaming down my face the instant it gets to the chorus.

Mental Trick for Changing One's Personal Story

You may have heard the trick of imagining your ideal self and then imagining you are already that person (or thinking of your goal and then visualizing having it). This has to do with the idea that we are "talking to ourselves" all day in our heads, and that what we say to ourselves reflects our view of ourselves and what we're capable of - our personal stories. Rather than trying to change individual behaviours with a brute force method, we could instead change the internal story which led to the behaviours in the first place.

Unfortunately I have found that it often doesn't work to simply tell myself that I am the person I want to be. Perhaps this is because if I tell myself that, for example, I am someone who is always considerate and acts accordingly, this works right up until I do something from long standing habit which does not "fit" this model. Then the illusion is shattered and I fall back into my old story.

Perhaps I need to adjust the story of who I want to be such that it is compatible with the transition. In other words, make the goal not just some static standard of perfection, but an ideal process. So instead of, "I want to be someone who is always considerate", it would be more like, "I want to be someone who strives to be considerate, and when she does something inconsiderate takes the necessary action to learn from it and make things right." Notice that the former statement is unobtainable, and that the latter statement is completely doable.


There's a big issue of guilt in my personal stories. It seems I tell myself something like, "I want to be someone who never does anything she should feel guilty for". I describe the details of what I would do rather than state it this way, but that appears to be the underlying nature of the sentiment. Really, it is built upon the foundation of the concept of blame. If this concept is accepted, then I would always have to strive to be someone who acts in a blameless fashion. That is the supposed function of blame after all; to scare people into doing "the right thing" in order to avoid feeling guilty. Since there will always be people who blame even without good reason, avoiding it would be essentially impossible. My only alternatives would be to surround myself with a sufficient number of people who find me blameless in order to counteract this effect or to isolate myself from those who would blame me by labelling them as unreasonable or blameworthy themselves. These are common strategies, but short term solutions at best.

On a conscious level I choose to reject the blame/guilt model altogether. Guilt and self blame are not useful. They are counterproductive. They keep me stuck. I know this. Yet it appears to be the most difficult of all my thought patterns to break. There is an alternative world view; nobody is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. The important thing is what we do after we make a mistake. Very cliche sounding, but how often do these concepts actually sink in? This view requires abstaining from blaming altogether, self and others. I can get quite far with not blaming others, but the circuit never quite completes itself when it comes to not blaming myself.


Doing something different and acknowledging something I regret seem to be... uncomfortable tasks at best. Unthinkable at worst. Why? If a person regrets what they did, wouldn't it be quite natural to state that something went wrong, why, and then implement a solution after the completion of their analysis? This would not require self hatred. It would not require unshakable guilt. It would simply require seeing that something went differently from the way one hoped, finding out why, and then looking for potential methods of improvement. Once again, the old blame model is standing in the way. But why is it so hard to shake, even conceptually?

One thing I find problematic is that, while internally the two perspectives could not be more different, externally I haven't figured out how to differentiate between them. I may design an action that I intend to take out of guiltless regret, no blame, just attempting to fix the miscommunication or poor technique. But this very action fits too easily into the blame model as well. My fear seems to be that it will look as though I have accepted the blame and the underlying assumptions; that I am a bad person, incompetent, irrational etc. The fear is that this will put me in a poor position in the future, as someone easily dismissed or looked down upon. Or others will think that by considering their needs so openly, I have decided to sacrifice my own, as would be dictated by the blame model.

(Note: there is likely something else at play as well which catapults me back into the blame model, as I often find self loathing springing up the instant I start actually considering the most logical mitigating action.)

So it appears I need a personal story that not only works for the transition process, but which also works for interfacing between the blame model that others might retain and my desired, guiltless regret model. That is, I need my new story to work without requiring others to accept the idea that blame is counterproductive and destructive and that change can be motivated quite easily without it.


I focused on one example in this post (overcoming guilt as an obstacle to becoming more considerate), but I'm sure the concept could be applied to just about any goal. The theory that seems to be emerging is that, when attempting to change one's personal story, the new story should meet a few requirements:
1) The goal should be realistically obtainable.

2) The new story needs to allow for a transition from the old story.

3) The new story needs to be compatible with other people's reactions and other effects.

Mental Tricks for Organizing

I like to take an analytical approach to organizing: sit down, write out the most efficient procedure to go through everything, and set up a sorting station. That usually involves coming up with categories of keep, trash, donate, and "belongs in x room". For example, if there are things in the dining room that belong in the kitchen, there will be a box labelled "kitchen" which later gets taken to the kitchen to be put away or sorted.

From experience, a "maybe" pile can be very helpful. Technically it doesn't seem like the most efficient thing to have, since one will end up looking at some of the same items more than once. However, it may speed up the decision making process. Anything where I have to pause to think about it, I just put it in the maybe pile instead of staring at it and creating a bottle neck. Then, once I've gone through everything else, I can go back to the maybe pile. Since I've seen everything else in the room, I have a better feel at this point for what I really need to hang onto. I have also had time to think about the item on a subconscious level, so that tends to gradually decrease my attachment to it.

As an example, I once went through about 500 books. They wouldn't fit on my shelves any more, not even double stacked. Many of the books were easy to make a decision about. However, there was a stack of over 100 books in the maybe pile. They were books I hadn't read yet and kept putting off, yet I kept telling myself I'd get around to it eventually. Or they were books I had read once that were mediocre, but I wasn't entirely convinced I wouldn't want to read it again someday. I let that pile sit overnight. In the morning, I didn't have to look again at any of them, I just immediately got rid of the whole pile. The logic was that it didn't make sense to keep a book I wasn't looking forward to reading, and it was so much easier to come to terms with that once rather than to go through it 100 times over.


I stumbled on another mental trick when I was trying to tidy up my room. I had formulated a plan for where everything would go and the most efficient order to complete tasks. And yet... I just couldn't seem to get into the process of cleaning my room. I knew exactly where the logical place to start was, but it was like pulling teeth trying to get myself to do it. The breakthrough came when I moved my music stand out of the main path. All of a sudden, it felt like I could move around easier. I cleared everything out of the path, then began dividing items up into general categories (books, clothes, cds, papers, etc.) and piled them up in various corners of the room. As soon as I did that, I was able to proceed easily with my original plan of action. I suspect the reason I kept getting stuck was because the clutter in my room was visually overwhelming, and clearing a space made it more manageable. Not to mention easier to walk.

Living in the Present

I think the happiest people are those who live in the present. When it comes to thinking optimistically, it's so much easier to do so by escaping to the past or future; reliving happy memories or imagining the way things might eventually be. Living in the moment sounds great. And it is... right up until you get bored in the moment. Or things could be better than they are. Or something not so pleasant happens. Suddenly, memories and imaginings start looking so much more appealing.

The reason that I think those who live in the present are happiest is because they don't try to mentally escape their life. If they become bored with something, they search for interest in the situation. If they're depressed about the way things are going, they look around themselves for something to be happy about. By turning to memories and plans when life becomes less than ideal, future and past thinkers inadvertently wind up placing more value on some experiences more than others. Those who consistently live in the present, however, develop the ability to find happiness in a much wider variety of experiences.

Another advantage of the present is that it feels more real than the past or future. This may sound obvious, but when faced with a choice between an unpleasant present and a vague but happy memory, I suspect most people would go for the memory. This doesn't completely solve the problem. You only escape the present to the degree that you are able to imagine things or recall events and feelings clearly.

In contrast, someone who is used to living from moment to moment will have a higher capacity for changing their perspective of the situation, in some cases turning an unpleasant experience into a meaningful one. The present thinker may wind up happier than the past or future thinker because not only can they find meaning in a wider range of situations, but their experiences tend to be more real. (As an aside, really taking in everything around you and observing many different aspects of life will also help with improving both imagination and the clarity of memories.)

Undeniably, it's still useful to know how to plan ahead, or learn from the past. There may be times when these skills are needed to take action or add context, and a change in perspective in the "now" may not always cut it.

However, I know that I, for one, am particularly underdeveloped in my ability to stay focused on the “now”. Personally, when I try to live in the present for any extended period of time, I inevitably have the thought, “So... is this all there is?” Even when life around me is going very well and I have a strong feeling of contentment, such a thought is nevertheless quite unnerving. Perhaps it just shows how ingrained my habit of always looking for “more” is. In any case, I look forward to gaining experience on how to live from moment to moment.

I'd be curious to find out where other people spend most their mental energy: the past, present, or future :)

Living in the past

As mentioned in the previous post, I tend to live in the future. Others, however, might choose to live in the past. A good example is my mom. When I was a kid, I used to get upset when I only had a couple weeks of summer vacation left. My mom would always try to cheer me up by saying, “But you had such great summer! Think about all the times we went to the park and the beach and how...” and she would list a few things then try to get me to add to it.

At the time, this only served to heighten my despair. I was a future thinker; I'd be thinking, 'yes indeed, summer vacation is really great... and it's about to be over!' It was baffling, back then, that my mom thought the past could hold any consolation for me. In hindsight, it's clear that my mom had experience deriving joy from memories and simply assumed I had the same ability. In fact, I barely began to reflect on my past at all until my early teens.

When I first started thinking in terms of the past, it was mostly regrets; things I wished I hadn't done and, even more often, things I wish I had done. Unfortunately, the past usually just left me crushed with guilt. I didn't like thinking about it because I wasn't totally happy with who I was as a person. That's why thinking about the future was so much more appealing. With the future, I could still become anyone. The good news is that once I started looking back on my life, I started to understand how certain events had shaped my values. I didn't always embody the values I believed in, but at least I began to identify what they were.

For quite a few years still, even happy memories of the best parts of my childhood only served to make me wish I could turn back time. I didn't seem to be able to look back without rewriting certain events and even my own perspective. My imagination was constantly at work on my memories, making edits to create a story that would only have been possible if I had learned early on lessons that can only come from hindsight.

Later, after I became an optimist, I began to learn the art of accepting good memories as they are, leaving them unchanged and experiencing their joy all over again. Sometimes even more joy than I felt at the time. For me, it's not quite the same as simply reliving the past like a scene from an old movie. It happens when, for example, I'm walking home from the bus stop and I catch the scent BBQ somewhere in the neighborhood. It reminds me of times in my childhood when my family and friends and I would be out in the woods having a BBQ picnic.

The present gets linked to the past and the result is a feeling better than either one on its own. If I hadn't had those memories, the scent of BBQ would have merely been some odd scent (or perhaps it would have just made me hungry). And while I may have been happy and content back when I was a kid, the present experience provides another layer of meaning, since I've had time to learn to appreciate things in new ways.

The past is a great tool for understanding yourself better, and for learning from your mistakes. But living too much in the past presents similar problems as living too much in the future. Guilt is only useful to a point, after which it can stifle your confidence and creativity, keeping you from moving on and changing. Even dwelling too much on good times that are over can hinder the forming of new ones. As with the future, the key is not to spend all your mental time there. Instead, visit your memories from time to time, learn from them, and use them to reinforce what you believe in and what gives you happiness.

Living in the Future

My own tendency, I find, is to live in the future. What I mean by this is that I'm constantly thinking ahead of where I am. I'm constantly planning, thinking about the next thing I have to worry about or to look forward to. If I have nothing I need to do on a particular day (a rarity for a college student such as myself), I find myself looking ahead to the next task I can think of. And once I have that task figured out, I plan further ahead. And once I've planned as far as I can in detail, I start thinking about where I'm going with my life in the long run... What I inevitably find is that it is pointless to try to see more than a few years ahead of myself. Sure, it can be done, but meaning seems to dissolve whenever I try.

The few times I have attempted to lay my entire life out in front of me, like a story plotted out onto a time-line, I've been seized by a sort of, for lack of a better phrase, “existential despair”. Looking at my life in such a way seems to shorten it and cause it to loose all it's depth; relationships are reduced to formulas and scripts, hobbies become a way of using up time, careers a way of filling up the time between hobbies and beauty and happiness become stagnant ideals.

Needless to say, I don't like to go to quite that extreme when I think ahead of where I am. However, I do have a habit of looking ahead to my next goal or thing I want and planning it out in great detail, inventing in my mind a detailed scene or a set of events to make up a story. At some point I realized that the purpose of this was not merely to plan for practicality's sake, but to give myself something to think about that would make me happy. So I want something now that I don't have? No problem! I have imagination. I can just create it in my head. If I think about it long enough, it'll eventually become as potent an experience as a memory.

One of the more obvious problems occurs when my goal is too far away or unrealistic to come true anytime soon, but close enough to reality that I don't recognize it as a fantasy. A memory or imagined event can never seem to reach the same strength of experience as the present, and the contrast between the happy but vague future improbability and the reality of the pesky present is the source of much frustration.

There are more healthy and practical ways to use thoughts of the future. For example, planning ahead in the sense of thinking about what needs to be done, deciding what you're going to do and when, then letting it go until action is required. Also, looking to the future can be used as a form of optimism, as a way of seeing creative possibilities or building confidence in your abilities (if you're not able to do something in the present, you still have time to develop new capabilities to attain your goals in the future). The thing to stay away from, as I know all too well, is living so much in the future that you fail to see what you have in the present.

Myers-Briggs Test Results

I took the Myers-Briggs test today. I was a solid INTP for many years, then in the past few years my results have been fluctuating quite a lot. This doesn't really surprise me. Right now I came out as an INFP, but last year I was an INFJ (still fairly close to the middle on the J).

Apart from the test results, however, I noticed something quite interesting when taking the test; for the questions on socializing, a lot of my preferences are shifting towards wanting to be around people, but my actions are that of keeping to myself. For the questions on thinking/feeling, I have a much higher value on feeling than I used to (that was the shift from T to F), but my actions are based on logical reasoning. I dislike too much order (it's starting to make me feel more trapped than supported), but I tend to plan everything out before acting.

Seeing a pattern here? My inner motivations are changing long before my actions can. After a life spent keeping to myself, it's hard learning how to interact with people more, even if I have had a major shift in value towards wanting to. That's something I knew already, but it just made it even more clear to me that I'm changing in a lot of different areas internally.

On the one hand, I'm going through a rather confusing and challenging time, since my internal values are not matching up with my ability to express them or my actions. On the other hand, my shift in values is growing stronger, not weaker, meaning I'm not going to give up until they start to show through.


One last thing I'd like to talk about is my belief about change: I don't think one personality type is better than another. In fact, I was very happy, even proud, of being an INTP. But I've been getting this strong urge to explore... everything. Thoughts, feelings, ideas, the world around me, the world within me, and all the ways they can come together.

One of my current goals may be to become more social, but that doesn't mean I want to replace my old personality; rather, I'd like to have the ability to be both. I'd like to be able to change labels whenever I feel like it, to be unafraid of new things, to understand different ways of thinking and perceiving, and to continue to change even after achieving whatever the most recent goal may have been.