Topic: Non-Gaming Resolutions for the New Year of 2023

I've got a few, not sure if I'm ready to post them just yet as they are very personal. Mine are also not so much resolutions but just things I need to do that happen to have occurred/come to a head at this time.

Still though, I'm quite interested to see what others have planned for the New Year that doesn't involve gaming! I'll try and post mine when I can order my thoughts a bit better.

This year I want to...

1. Pass my driving test
2. Keep up with my exercise routine
3. Travel abroad somewhere for my 30th Birthday

1) Lose at least thirty pounds by the end of the year.

2) Start lifting weights and going on lengthy walks again.

3) Obtain a driver's license.

4) Get back to studying Japanese.

5) Write every day, and submit a piece for publication at least once per month.

6) Never take the small moments with loved ones for granted.

A lot of this is honestly just getting back to where I was earlier in 2022. The back half of last year, and especially last month, put me through an emotional blender, and the impact on my habits and personal life have been catastrophic.

It's tempting to just use all this as an excuse to continue letting myself go, but I have the feeling that the longer this goes on, the harder it will be to eventually return to an emotionally healthy place.

So I'll just push through and achieve my goals through force of will.

Keep cycling 100 miles per week minimum and get on with the regular structured training since I got a smart trainer last month, this shouldn’t be too tough as I have had a very consistent 2022 and generally I am really enjoying it. I just want to make sure I’m not too hard on myself if I miss a few targets, sometimes it can feel like I’ve lost months of progress if I am off the bike for a few days and it’s never actually true.

Try and be more economical given the increased energy prices and interest rates that are primed to bite me in the ass over the next 12 months. Mind you, if things get really bad this might be less an optional resolution and more a simple fact of life… I could do with being a bit more frugal with meals etc, maybe I’ll learn some tricks that will benefit me when things are less tight in the future, so focus on the positives I guess!

Just not sweat the small stuff so much and focus on what really matters, this is a constant battle of course but I think I am getting better with age, and stress is just terrible for my arthritis/uveitis

I guess my resolutions are all just things that will happen anyway, but what’s important is reacting to them in the right way. So yes, I guess my New Year’s resolution is just to focus on having better reactions to controllable and uncontrollable situations.

@JudgeDredd Just out of interest, what do you do for work to the degree that it's out of your control how much you do it?

@JudgeDredd I know a couple of UPS guys here in the UK and they work really hard, too - and that's (typically speaking) without the oppressive weather conditions!

Ok, resolutions. Again, I will say that these are not so much resolutions but more just neccesities based on current circumstance. I've got immediate stuff I need to work on and stuff that can wait. I'll start with the immediate stuff. I will also probably be annoyingly vague about certain things...

• Work on my relationship. I haven't been happy for a long time. Years even. Both in myself and in my relationship. I was doing stuff (hiding feelings, being unattentive etc) to make my life easy and it just built up and built up until it became untenable. I dropped a nuke on my relationship before Xmas and we are still dealing with the fallout. I am really hoping that if it continues, we can work together to be stronger and more open, honest and accepting of eachother.
• Get Counselling. I've considered it many times over the years but always bottled out. Before I dropped this nuke, I'd decided to go for it because of how much I'd bottled up. Now I am liberated but know that I/she/we will need counselling to deal with it and ourselves. It won't be what I thought it would be and I don't want to "fix" myself but I am cautiously optimistic that a professional may help us deal with our issues.
• Get a job that I can be happy with. I more or less had a nervous breakdown when my last contract ended a few months ago. Not because I had "lost my job" but because of how much I'd bottled up during my time there, quite simply because I didn't have any free time to "be healthy". So when my time became my own again, everything I was feeling just came out and came back. It hit me really hard, I couldn't get out of bed most days, I couldn't find enjoyment in anything, life just sucked so hard. I'm not typical in my job search. I really don't want a repeat of my last place. I want to work somewhere with either a short commute or with some days a week working remotely. I don't want to write off 5 out of 7 days a week, I want my evenings to be more than just "getting ready for the next day" and I want my weekends to be more than just resting, recovering and recuperating ready for the next week of the torture that I had become numb to in order to endure. So I won't just be applying for everything and hoping to land something. I will continue to take my time and think about the places I apply to, making sure it's a place I want to work and an arrangement that I am satisfied to be apart of. I might not be successful and it might take me a long time to find somewhere that'll have me with this approach but I just can't go back to an unrewarding job, knowing that every day I spend in the office is one day closer to my eventual death.

Medium term goals:

• Continue to deal with my hoarding. I've done a lot this year, I've trimmed about 70% of my dvd/ blu ray collection and I want to do more. I want to get rid of a lot of comics and graphic novels. I even want to get rid of a few games. I definitely want to get rid of a lot of my Lego. Unfortunately I also want to get some money back for these things. That will be the hardest part for me. It will take a long time, dealing with CEX, dealing with eBay, potentially dealing with other auction houses for more valuable stuff like all my 20+ year old Pokémon cards. But the baby steps I've taken this year feel like not enough and make me feel like it's insurmountable but also makes me feel invigorated and inspired to continue. Yes conflicting feelings are confusing but I am human and just have to face that I can feel two opposite things at once.
• Stop Eating. My over eating and stress eating that I have been using to cope this last year has to end. I don't do drugs any more and haven't done for many many years so instead I ate to cope. I am not sure how achievable this goal is, recent stress has already reduced my appetite but I am hoping that counselling and facing my problems head on will help keep me stable and aware that reaching for a chocolate bar isn't the answer.
• Write more, do more creative things. I want to finish that script I started writing years ago. I want to start making videos for YouTube. I want to finish that rap album I dreamed of. I need to do this. I don't want to hold myself back any more. I need to become happier and more confident with myself. I need to bat away (accept and tackle in a healthy way) feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Feelings that I or what I make just aren't good enough and therefore not worth pursuing. I'm hoping this will come naturally. The heartbreak and emotional stress I've experienced recently has already inspired me to consider going back to creative endeavours even if I have yet to put pen to paper. I'm hoping I move forward with this.

Longer term goal:

• Exercise. I don't have much time right now, I am still making sense of the landscape I find myself in. I am hoping I will stabilise and my time commitments will normalise and I will find time to improve my physical health. What's the point of being scared of death everyday if I am doing nothing to prevent it. I need to stop eating junk and I need to exercise. I don't have time right now but I will find it eventually. I just need things to go back to slightly better than normal before I find that time.

Main goal:

• Stop living with regret. I may seem atypical in that I don't regret things I've done, I regret things I don't do. I regret turning down opportunities. I regret the road not taken. I don't want to live like that any more. I want the best of both worlds. There are many reasons why I can't have the best of both worlds but I want to work toward having what I can. It will be hard, I may end up alone but I know I can't continue living in the way I have been living. I might lose everything in this perhaps foolish pursuit of happiness but it can't be worse than waking up every day feeling numb and isolated inside my own head.

This definitely is not atypical. Which isn't to say most people haven't regretted some things they've done. But, almost universally, the biggest regrets people have in life are almost all related to things they didn't do. Usually because they were scared of something. Of failing. Of looking foolish. Of disrupting the status quo. Of how their lives might change.

@ralphdibny Forgive my ignorance but what's the difference between "hoarding" and "collecting"? Is it just that one is healthy and the other is a compulsion?

@ralphdibny
I sincerely wish you all the best, hope you can overcome some of your current issues and, sooner or later, can find some of the happiness and contentment you aspire to. Good luck and thank you for your honesty.

@ralphdibny Thank you for sharing this, as I know it could be hard to share this kind of things (trust me, I can relate to maaaany things you are experiencing right now).

I know maybe we haven't interacted much (I know your more from the Pure Xbox forums, lol) but you are one of the nicest persons over here and I am glad we share this hobby. Best of luck with everything (but, as someone have already said, I get the feeling you won't be needing it much ).

Thank you for everything over the PX forums, mate!

This, this and this! Particularly the last two more recently. Thank you for your sympathetic reply. It really means a lot!

A lot of what you said in your earlier post rings true for me as well. I suspect we have gone through very different things though. I think I've been hiding behind excuses and also exhaustion for far too long now. I am scared about what the future holds but I am also excited.

I will give you a more detailed answer than you were perhaps expecting. This is my own opinion though and I suspect other people's tolerances will be vastly different.

Honestly, I don't think there is a lot of difference and it is a very thin line between hoarding and collecting. What started off as collecting for me, has become a compulsion at times throughout my life. It did start when I was young when my mother kept everything of mine and insisted I do the same "in case it's worth money one day". Spoiler alert, it never was.

I kept going, little things, mementos. I found eventually that I couldn't even throw away receipts from days out. I have done so since when I've had massive clearouts. I actually sold a 20 year old theme park map for a reasonable amount of money on eBay not long ago so it's not all terrible. Those items are few and far between.

My DVD collection ballooned when I was at uni, everything was so cheap. £2 films from Asda, why not? I split my collection between my uni house and my parents house, I barely noticed. It never really stopped since then though. I collected a lot of games consoles very cheaply before I went to uni as well, you know, before the retro boom skyrocketed all the prices.

I also got back into Lego when I was at uni. A few years later, the Super Hero lines launched and gave me a sizeable amount to collect which I did with aplomb. I didn't stop until they began releasing £100+ sets which made me realise my habit was unfeasible due to cost and also made me realise how much I'd spent on smaller sets over the years. But, small victories there I suppose. If I didn't open and build a set, they normally retained their or increased in value so I've made a small portion of that money back over the years. I also "won" a Lego Bat-Pod (from the dark knight film) because I spent over £50 in store one day. I sold that for about 700 quid in the first year of the pandemic.

I stopped using drugs about 6 years ago and found I had money burning a hole in my pocket. I felt like I couldn't hold onto it and needed something to occupy my time so I got into comics. It quickly turned into a £100/month habit with all the ridiculous cross overs and "follow so and so's adventures in this other tangentially related book" tag lines. I cut back massively over the years and finally kicked it to the curb last year because I had a 2 year back log that was only getting bigger.

So TLDR, to answer your question. Collecting can seem harmless enough but I believe it borders on or turns into hoarding when the following things happen:

• When you need that "high" from buying things more and more regularly. It's called retail therapy but it is expensive and life altering when it happens every day, even multiple times a day.
• When you have too much stuff. Collectors are very good at "hiding a hoard" because of their experience as collectors. My place has never looked like one of those typical hoarder homes you see on TV with stacks of newspapers, rats and goodness knows what else hiding behind it all. I'm good at hiding it, creating ingenious storage solutions, organising and tidying even if it still could be described as "clutter". It doesn't make the collection any less of a burden on me. It creates a physical and mental pressure and strain that I want to free myself from.
• When you are compelled to "complete" random collections. So I had a Guy Ritchie collection of DVDs, do I really need to own Swept Away? Do I really need to own King Arthur? I actually never owned either of those dvds but it demonstrates my point. Then multiply that by every director or actor that I had a passing interest in and you can imagine my DVD collection before I began the cull.
• Finally, when you see the "small victories" as a justification for owning massive collections. I've described a few in my reply and it does make me feel good to make a bit of money back from my compulsion. But was it really worth living under piles of albeit neatly shelved stuff for more than a decade? No I don't think so. But I haven't sold those Pokémon cards yet and I'm (foolishly) hoping they will put a deposit down on a house for me 😂

Thank you. It really can be hard to be honest here sometimes. I had a very public meltdown (class 1 overshare) here a couple months ago because I was feeling isolated and hadn't posted much for a good while. Members of the community banded about to make me and others who were sharing at that time feel welcome and not alone. Honestly, I don't feel worthy of the replies that you and other community members post here. It genuinely really makes my day, not only when people reply to me but also when I see members supporting other members.

Thank you mate, and thanks for writing that generic and open to everyone "How are you?" Post a few months back. I'm so glad I took you up on that and replied to it. It really was an eye opener, even just to order my thoughts and get feedback on them. It's not something I typically do for fear of looking like a fifteen year old's Tumblr account. I don't even know if Tumblr is still about but I seem to remember that kind of self indulgent overshare being typical of the site back when I was at school. Whether I am indulging myself or not, I hadn't used this forum like that for a long time. Retrospectively, this forum has always been a form of therapy for me and I am gutted that I forgot that for so long so thank you for reminding me!

Cheers mate, but I would feel very lucky if I achieved everything I wanted to. I don't think I would believe it if it happened and I'd probably think that I had gone even more insane and lost the plot completely 😅

I almost feel bad complaining about my last place of work (it was a particularly toxic workplace though) considering what you've described above regarding being a UPS employee. I have done ridiculously long days in my life but I just couldn't handle them as I got older. I used to be a film extra which was like 12 hour days + around 4 hours of travel before I knocked it on the head a few years back. Even cutting down to 8 hour days + 2 hours travel at my IT job is completely draining and has in part, contributed to my meltdown this last year. I really hope I can get a "normal" and reliable job at some point. I suppose everyone dreams of that but even more so that the job itself can be rewarding in some way and respect the boundaries of your personal life.

Thank you and no worries. Even though the last month of my life took me away from the Game Club responsibilities, it really is a very rewarding thing to organise and be a part of. Even though I was initially apprehensive to accept Fraser's offer to promote it monthly on the front page of Pure Xbox, I was immensely proud of it and what the community came together to achieve. It really was something!

I'm really glad I made you feel welcome over there. The GC can be a really great and chill place to relax and chat about the game of the month so I am glad you get something out of it as well!

@Kanji-Tatsumi @kyleforrester87 @xeofate best of luck with your resolutions/neccesary actions under the circumstances. Here's to a 2023 that's better than 2022 🍻

stop eating meat , i may do it every now and then but overall no more meat on the regular ..only fruits , nuts , and a lil bit of veggies . i already drink water almost exclusively too. i recently developed a fear of cancer after learning that it can affect anyone (ignorance is bliss) and knowing someone who recently passed from colon cancer and actually seeing the affects of it firsthand , i guess it traumatized me . so yeah … NO RED/HEAVY/GREASY MEATS FOR ME .

@ralphdibny So the short answer is the compulsive element? I thought I might be in trouble because I have a keen interest in retro gaming, home cinema and buy "Saga" every month! Sounds to me like the old adage that a person can get addicted to literally anything might be true. Be well - it seems a lot like you know which mountains to climb and in my experience that's half the battle won.

@nomither6 I cut out meat many years ago (for moral rather than health reasons) so I applaud your decision wholeheartedly! I lost weight almost immediately and saved a ton of money. Just be prepared for severely curtailed options in most restaurants and takeaways! If you need any advice then give me a shout.

Sounds like you've got some big aspirations for 2023 @ralphdibny. Wishing you the best man, let's get it 💪

@LN78 well everyone's different and I'd hate for somebody to read that post and feel differently about their own collecting. Having said that, if someone is beginning to feel like their collecting has become unhealthy then I hope that what I've related can be of some comfort to them, if only in solidarity.

There is one other key point I think crosses the line:

• Money troubles don't halt collecting. If you have £200 left in your bank account but you've earmarked £104.99 for that Mega Drive II Mini, then that isn't great either. Especially if you're living pay cheque to pay cheque in a contracting gig, not knowing if you will even be given shifts for the following week. This is really tough for people because of all the "limited run", "get it before it goes" product scarcity that companies inflict on consumers. This means that collectors will move mountains in order to make money available for that mini console, a certain amiibo, NSO controllers or what-have-you. It becomes a real life pre order bonus or microtransaction.

@ralphdibny Yeah, what you're talking about there is the same addiction (presumably to the dopamine/serotonin) that gamblers and other non-chemical dependents experience. At that point you need treatment - and understanding that is a crucial first step.

I had the same feeling at the beginning of 2022 regarding the fear of cancer. I actually found it really easy to not eat meat. The problem I had was I found it nearly impossible to eat "whole foods" and mainly just ate processed vegan freezer foods from the supermarket. The processed foods were delicious and I don't know if there are links to cancer but I found the general consensus was that processed foods are still not good for you so I became a bit disillusioned with it. Also I was never able to cut out cheese and I actually started drinking regular milk again recently in the last couple of months.

I've balanced out a bit more now and I still eat red meat occasionally like on a meal out or on the rare occasion I have bacon for a fry up. But I typically do vegetarian fry ups now if I have them, with vegan sausages and vegan black pudding but still with eggs, just no bacon

@ralphdibny
What the heck is vegan black pudding??? How is that even a thing? Somebody manage to bleed a radish?!