My One Week off the Xbox 360

If you were on my friends list, you probably got my message about me taking a week off of the Xbox 360.
I did this for a few reasons. One was I became very aware of how much of a hold I allowed videogames to have on my life. I wasn't getting other things done in life that could have been done had I not been gaming. Now this isn't to say I was like a lot of those WoW players that neglect friends and family to game, I was just playing it when I could have been washing my car, or getting ahead on some other work. This week was no minuscule task, I have played that 360 pretty much every day since its release in November of 2005.

I don't like to allow anything in life to grab a hold of me, and have me under its control. All this is not to say its Microsoft's big plan to put a 360 in every household so they can control the world, its videogames in general. If this had been the Wii or PS3, the same thing would have happened (That is if they actually had games to keep a hold of a gamer's attention anyway, but thats for another blog post).

Another reason is my church was having a week long fast, and I chose videogames to fast for a week. I understand a lot in the gaming world doesn't understand things such as this, but 'fasting' is sacrificing something that you would normally be doing, and substituting that time for prayer. A lot of folks do food or something else, but I just felt that videogames was a good choice, since I already knew it controlled me far too much.

I actually had no desire to play the xbox a few days after I started. The first few days I would wake up and think about playing, but then realized I wasn't going to. It really showed me how often I would be playing, and just how much I could get done in real life if I didn't. The car got washed, things got done that needed to be, and it wasn't a big deal really. Its not like I am addicted, because even before this break I rarely thought about videogames when I wasn't actually playing them. I enjoy my life far too much to be controlled by that box.

Don't get me wrong, I love everything that videogames has to offer, it just shouldn't take up the most time in our lives. I mean, I'm 21, going to college, an active youth leader at my church, have a wonderful and beautiful girlfriend, and I'm trying to kick start my life with a new condo and a new truck. Videogames are just something I do for leisure time, which is how its supposed to be.

I took a break from the gaming community during this week as well. I love the community, I just get tired of the complaining and same ole' routine every week.

So, in closing, I urge you to check yourself as to how much of a hold videogames has on your life, and see if your life would be much more productive with limiting them more so than you currently do.

I appreciate you checking out my blog. You can also find me on The Gamer's Garage podcast every week, found at www.TheGamersGarage.com