Reflection in Real life - Habitual Behavior

When I was in secondary school, I struggled with a gaming addiction. Everyday all I could think about is to get home as fast as possible so that I could game the rest of the day until I had to go to bed. There was once, I played for almost 18 hours straight and only left my computer chair when I needed to use the bathroom.

Looking back to when I was in secondary 1, I had very low self esteem and did not like socializing with others. I only found comfort when playing computer games, nothing else. I grew up as a shy boy and being an introvert did not help either. I did not share with anyone my struggles but buried them by gaming, this led my bad habit of gaming extensively into an addiction.

I eventually overcame my insecurities and low esteem through facing my problems by forcing myself to socialize more and realizing that the world does not revolve around playing computer games. My turning point came 2 years later when I almost dropped from the express stream to the normal academic stream due to my horrendous results. I knew I had to stop gaming or reduce the hours that I spent gaming. But in order to overcome it, I had to tackle the root cause of it. 

I signed up as an usher in my church and had to constantly talk to people, meeting new strangers. Through the years, I started to develop more confidence and was unafraid to talk to people. Instead of feeling inferior to my peers and burying my head in my games, I started to put in the effort on my studies and do better.

Through this experience, I learned that we must face our problems and do something different in order to have a change in your life. There is a saying that doing the same thing over and expecting a different result is foolishness. Everybody are bound to have bad habits, but it is whether or not do we want to overcome and act on it. That is what makes the difference.