Gamifying My Life

[Seego]

Greetings, NF Rebels.

 

20 year old half-Orc, half-human here from humble means. Profession? Laborer! Class? Mortal! (not even a high enough level to select a class yet; it's like I'm still floundering around in the tutorial!)

 

I'm always at a loss with Hello, World! posts so this probably won't take too long. You should know, though, that I really don't mess around. I'm not gonna omit anything in this introduction. I want to be radically honest, even if it doesn't cast me in the best light. If you don't quite get what I'm saying, just wait. You'll see.

 

I'm here at Nerd Fitness for a couple reasons. I mean, like, truly a couple:

 

1. To level up my health

2. To level up, more broadly, my life

 

The first one is pretty self-explanitory and I'm already well on my way. I've been a bit of a nutritional and exercise geek for as long as I can remember (dabbled in vegetarianism, strict veganism, paleo, low-carb, and some others). Well, let me fix that: a non-practicing food/exercise geek. I've always been super interested in a variety of sports and activities - stuff like running, longboarding, skydiving and slacklining - but have never possessed the physical prowess, mental fortitude or hard assets to pursue most of them.

 

That's all changing. Last summer I had ballooned up to the heaviest weight and worst physical shape I've ever been (around 260 lbs of not lean mass) and have been fighting to get it down since around October or November. I don't have an accurate weight for where I'm at today (seriously, I just ate dinner, not gonna go weigh myself now), but it's around 200 or 205. It would be lower (I got down to 196 at one point) but I've fallen out of eating clean and exercising for the past month or so with noticeable results.

 

But I'm ready for battle again, and ready to start seeing the scale continue downwards while simultaneously improving my physical conditioning.

 

The next reason, to level up my life, is a bit harder to describe.

 

I'm not much of a person. Seriously. I'm a college dropout and townie loser who lives at home with his parents and gets by working a dead-end, menial wage job in the service sector. I'm up to my eyes in debt, though I'm actually 2/3 of the way or so towards paying it all off. I've had mild, lifelong social anxiety that became aggravated and evolved into some severe social anxiety due to some very high-stress living conditions, which I've been struggling (to varying degrees of success) to reign in the past couple months. I also have a very troubling internet addiction and the fact that I'm writing about this on the internet is not lost on me.

 

There's other things. I have a lot of fears. Bugs, heights, the dark, and, on the less concrete side of the phobia spectrum, things like success, intimacy, rejection, and so on. There's more to my story. A lot more. And I'm sure, if you stick around to listen to my tale, you'll find out about the gaps in due time.

 

I should get to why this is titled Gamifying My Life, though.

 

It's because I've come to the realization that in order to make changes stick in my life, I need a heck of a lot of incentivization. Through a debilitating combination of procrastination, laziness, fear, uncertainty and being stuck too deep inside my comfort zone, I always have trouble making lasting changes to my life.

 

One of the best tools for me (besides public accountability projects such as posting stuff like this on the NF forums) is to remove myself from the equation. How do I do that? Simple; I'm turning my life into a video game, much akin to how Steve and others have done it. I love games. RPGs, especially. I can level grind or farm resources for hours mindlessly. And yet, I could never bring myself to do the same in real life (grinding being stuff like studying for class, or following a simple hygienic routine, or sticking to a schedule, or what have you). But my brain loves being rewarded, and its nitpicky, almost-OCD side loves aiming for 100% completion. So, it makes sense to incorporate all the fun and reward of questing, leveling up, and getting achievements into my day to day life.

 

Does it sound kind of crazy to a normal person? Yes, which is why I'm not planning to make a huge deal out of this with my real life acquaintances. But you, here, can know.

 

That's enough for this post. If you're intrigued, or if you'd like to stop by and say hi, I'm planning to start a sort of Adventure Log which will go into further depth about how I'm turning my life into a game. It'll include things like a bucket list of quests, stats, achievements, challenges, progress updates and more. I'll post the link here (and, you know, in my sig and everything) once I get it up and running.

 

I'm sure I'll be seeing you around these parts. Keep on fighting the good fight.

[Ba'sini'on]

Welcome to Nerd Fitness!

 

That's a lot of problems to go through but the fact that you acknowledge your life could and will be better, is awesome  ! Would you believe most people will go through life with terrible health, bad jobs, unhealthy habits, and think that everything is alright and they don't need to change? I was like that, always playing games, sitting on the computer, it never occurred to me that the days that seem to fly by I can never re-do like in my games. The turning point was when I couldn't really tie my shoes without wheezing. But still it took a lot longer than I would like for me to do the complete turn around I am still trying to achieve.

 

I applaud you   for turning it into a video game. Seriously, why settle for amazing when you could be Badass? Anyone can lose weight, but what else have they accomplished?

 

Yes, the game OCD would seem crazy to a NORMAL person, but we aren't normal...WE... ARE... NEEEEEERDS!! Gaming OCD runs in our veins, we are always trying to be perfect at every level, guild, anything just so we can have that 100% complete on our save, or becoming unstoppable in the RPG world. That's why we have decided to stop making heroes and start becoming them.

 

Would You Kindly, send me the link? (Little Bioshock humor  ) And if you have any questions or just need to vent just PM me.

 

I will see you in the Battlefield mortal!