how to quit a bad habit

hey -

there are things that we tend to do that we know we shouldn’t, but it brings us a level of comfort.

to quit an addiction means to abstain from performing the action altogether

i’ll give you an example:

i had a severe video game addiction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

specifically in the game VALORANT. from noon to 2 in the morning, i was locked in.

looking back, I don’t understand how I was willingly able to play a game for so long without burnout.

but that's besides the point.

i broke the addiction not by just merely quitting (easier said than done)

rather, i took on the identity of one that didn’t play video games in general.

not someone trying to quit, because that leaves it to chance. there’d be a possibility for me to fall back.

when i say that i don’t play games, period, that means it’s not something that entices me.

i deleted it from my computer; out of sight, out of mind.

this isn’t a one-fits-all solution, there will be times where mentally changing your identity won’t be enough. and that’s okay.

this was something that works for me, because it was mental shift.

when I tell myself “I don’t do x”, it makes it less likely for me to do x. Subconsciously, if I did do it, I wouldn’t be living ‘true-to-form’, which would be very unfair to me.

it’s a blessing and a curse that things can be so fluid in the sense that, not everyone’s problems can be solved by one single solution.

it would make many lives a whole lot easier if that were the case.

but its not, and although its not, that’s what makes every person unique.

when people are unique from each other, there will always be something remarkable about that one person you’ll never forget.

nobody wants to be forgotten about in this world after we die, and our uniqueness will almost guarantee that this will never happen.

despite this tangent i took, hopefully you can consider this technique. it has worked for me, i can’t guarantee that it’ll work for you, but it won’t hurt to try. any effort will infinitely be better than none.

see you then

• Ethan