I am completely confused and upset by how this girl that I play Valorant went from having so much fun to always getting annoyed and mad.
Facts that I know:
Used to beg me to play constantly, only stopped because I was too busy with work so I said no all the time
Used to laugh and think I was very funny in games
At first, was resistant to smurfing, but after she was convinced, had a ton of fun trolling on smurfs including doing frenzy only challenge
Used to be afraid to talk in voice chat, only talked to me
Spent all her time talking to me on Valorant and ignored her relationship because of how much she liked playing with me
She used to be my favorite person to play with for several months:
Was always fun and chill
Could make jokes or talk about deep stuff
Made me feel special because she only wanted to play with me
Would actually listen to strats unlike some girls who would get defensive when given any feedback
Was very smart and improved a great deal in the time we played
However, somehow, after months of having lots and lots of fun, everything has taken a dramatic turn:
Gets annoyed when she isn’t doing well and takes the game very seriously
Gets annoyed when I’m taking the game too seriously but also gets mad when I goof off
Wants everyone to be mean and toxic yet gets upset when people are toxic back
Is mad when I’m goofing off and think I’m somehow trying very hard to be funny
Claims that unrated it doesn’t matter if she wins or loses but gets mad when she loses
Claims smurfs don’t matter but somehow gets mad when she loses on a smurf
Somehow is able to have fun with other people and refuses to play with me now
Cannot seem to remember any of our happy times and insists that she never had fun
Some factors that I think may contribute:
May have been taught by someone that being slow and boring is a very bad thing, seems to be overly concerned with it and projects onto other people
May feel a really strong pressure to do well, seemed to take the game extremely seriously after her friend started playing on it
May also feel a great deal of pressure to play well and be less toxic around me because she wants it to work out, the pressure may cause her to do worse, and be even more toxic
May feel a sense of superiority or arrogance? When we first started playing, she kept telling me she was afraid I would stop playing with her because she was lower elo than me. I never did, but always wondered if she would stop playing with me if she got better than me.
Altogether I can’t really make sense of this phenomenon and it does bother me a great deal. I suppose on some level I must accept that something about Valorant and playing with me triggers her in some deep way and that I shouldn’t let that stop me from having fun. It does make me sad that things have changed so dramatically and I lost my favorite Valorant buddy.
Valorant has become significantly less fun for me now. It almost feels like work, instead of a game that I loved. There was a period of time when I was playing with her that I truly let go of the need to win and actually just had fun. I don’t know what I need to do to get that feeling back. I hope she finds a way to have fun as well, but it breaks my heart that it isn’t with me.
I saw an ad on Facebook. It was talking about making money as an introvert and making money without giving up your inner peace.
I immediately signed up. It was about 20 dollars.
Now I have done a bunch of the exercises for the prework of the challenge and here are my reflections.
Some major questions that I have right now:
What am I willing to give up and how will I go about giving it up?
How do I live my values every day in a way that is in flow and not forced or mechanical?
I have some initial ideas.
First, I was thinking originally about what I wanted to give up in terms of things like YouTube, or socializing. But recently it made a lot more sense for me to think about time. Specifically, I wanted to dedicate my entire morning to succeeding at these goals.
From the time I wake up, I usually am doing what JT Franco calls “buffalo brain” (the idea of being one of the herd that moves without thinking). I listen to audiobooks, and watch YouTube videos. I don’t eat breakfast or drink water. I keep the blinds closed. I feel awful and I don’t feel the feelings.
Someone once said (might be Melinda Gates) that the first few hours of the day are the most important because they set the stage for the entire day to come. If I want to give up anything, I want to give up my mornings to getting up, drinking water, feeling my body, and going downstairs into the lounge to write on my blog and work on achieving my dreams.
Middle of the day has to be reserved for work and for talking to my girlfriend. End of the day has to be reserved for me time. Being alone, taking time, creating art, and letting the magic of nighttime take over.
This is what I’m thinking roughly:
7/8 AM – 9/10 AM: Dedicated to living the magical life
9/10 AM – 12 PM: Dedicated to doing the impossible at work
12 PM – 1/2 PM: Lunch, meditation
1/2 PM – 5 PM: Work, performing at the highest levels
5 PM – 7 PM: Misc time
7 PM – 11 PM: Alone time, creativity, play
During the weekend, work will be removed, leaving more time for dedication to my magical life. I think it will look something like this:
7/8 AM – 12 PM: Dedicated to living the magical life
12pm – 7 PM: Misc time
7 PM – 11 PM: Alone time, creativity, play
With this balance, it seems that my breakdown is this:
Weekday
1-3 hours per day on living magical life
5-7 hours of work
4 hours of alone-time/play
2 hours of miscellaneous time
Weekend
4-5 hours per day on living magical life
4 hours of alone-time/play
7 hours of miscellaneous time
I suspect, I will have to do careful planning during the weekend, in order to perform at the absolute highest levels of work and potentially spend less time there.
In terms of living out my beliefs of empathy, intuition/following feelings, creativity/imagination, and honesty. I’m not entirely sure what actions I need to take to feel that I am in congruence with my values.
My main thought right now is about taking risks, breathing through difficult emotions and sensations, and following connection theory.
A few days ago, my coach asked me a powerful question. I don’t remember what it is but I came up with this poem.
the summer sun on the blue pool smell of chlorine, flip flops on the concrete the late nights in your city, lights on long streets big dreams in a small classroom on a paper on the board paint covering the canvases, dripping off the walls life has always been waiting for you to be recklessly, wildly, lovingly creative
This led to me deciding the most powerful question in this whole poem is “why has life always been waiting for you”?
I felt in many ways this is true. I live in a wonderfully creative city. I have a youtube channel, a coaching practice, a well-paying job with lots of free time. Life is waiting on me to make a move.
I kind of dropped the ball on these because I don’t know if I feel like challenging my core wounds, but I think I need to keep going for the 21 days at least. It is interesting because you are supposed to focus on one core wound. I don’t know which one I would focus on, but maybe if I just keep going there is one that I will want to focus on.
I was talking to a friend about how it is hard to work on yourself sometimes. What I told her is that it is sometimes scary to think about who you might change into, but I think there is another reason. Sometimes it is hard to work on yourself because in order to work on yourself you first need to look at yourself in the mirror and face who you are, and that isn’t easy to do.
I think a big core wound or belief is that there is something wrong with me, that no one will actually like me if they know who I really am, that I’m weak and creepy and unattractive.
I ran with the ideas last night, of dance and music and I can say I feel extremely sad. Something about how much I miss this part of me. I feel sad about the weight I’ve been carrying around for so long. I feel sad because sadness acknowledges the pain in the world without shying away from it.
I watched this video last night:
I remember in art there is no right or wrong way to go about something. Just like in life. I feel we forget that a lot.
For some reason, I feel the desire to write stories. Here is a space for some freewriting:
A shark was washed onto the shore. That was the day when I asked my next door neighbor Amy to marry me. We were both 12 at the time. Amy was a quiet sort of girl, not shy, just took a while to think about things before she talked. When she did, she didn’t say much.
She looked at me up and down as if she was trying to size me up.
“So what do you say Amy?”
I wonder if this is how the shark felt. He was already dead when he was on shore, but his eyes seemed to look at you as if to say…well? What’s up?
“I don’t know,” Amy finally responded. Her fingers figeting.
“You don’t know?”
“Yea.”
“That’s ok!” I said. I was 12 and I felt invincible…
I feel sad because of how much of this I repressed within my self.
In terms of work, I feel I’ve done the experiment and I can officially say to myself, working on too many things at the same time does not work towards my strengths. I think I need to focus on one focus every day. If I get to a second one, then that’s good. Also, I can have many low effort progress toward every goal, but it can’t be the main focus.
In doing one main thing, I might be able to go to bed much sooner which is something of great concern to me.