77,760. That’s the number of minutes I had been playing the popular online game League of Legends. 77,760 minutes doesn’t look so long, does it? Guess what? 77,760 minutes is equivalent to 54 DAYS. I have spent 54 days of my life playing the same game and I’ll be honest, I didn’t even realize it. In fact, the moment I found out, I went through a mini version of the five stages of grief. The number wasn’t easy to hear, but I am glad I did because that is what ultimately helped me quit the game.
Since quitting, I have made more time to do things that I am actually passionate about. I also now find myself constantly wondering about other things in my life that are like the game (i.e. the non-essential things I have spent countless hours on). The game showed me how many hours I’d played, but what about real life? There is no timer in real life telling me just how much time I’d spent doing things like trying to please others, or time spent in bad relationships. The game has a timer; real life does not.
So what now? Well, if you think that you are wasting time doing things you shouldn’t be, I encourage you to quit. It may not be easy to resist the temptation at first, and sometimes it may not even be easy to acknowledge it is a waste of time. We all make excuses from time to time and soon enough we will accept them as truths. These are the reasons why quitting is hard. Quitting is not simply putting something down and never doing it again. Quitting is first being honest with yourself, and then resisting the urge. It may be hard to quit a bad habit, but it’s never wrong to do so.
