Time Management/Identity Management 

It is been over a year since I quit spending multiple hours a day either gaming or on Twitch. Since then, I found other things that get my needs covered better, in a more balanced and healthy way. 

I was addicted because I didn't know a better way to exist or to spend my time in a more constructive manner. I write "more constructive", because if nothing else, I owe a great part of my English skills to this period. This experience has given me an unique quirk to examine any behavior that people carry out daily for at least a few hours.

The general population has accepted the fact that it is normal to spend half a normal day either at school, university or work. All these institutions serve as a very strange intermingling for finding one's purpose, along with education, moneymaking, stress, socialization, as well as love and hate. 

The issue with the all-out lifestyle focused just on one thing is that once that thing goes away, the chance that it's going to drastically transfigure your current lifestyle is very high. In that case, it doesn't even matter if it's something we love or hate. Going to work or to school or gaming for 30-50 hours a week is quite the investment of time and identity.

One of the more scary ideas I sometimes offer people is that they don't need to be defined by one single thing (or a few things) so heavily. There are ways of making money that take up only a fraction of time they spend at their job. There are ways of getting a university degree that take up only a fraction of time they spend at the university on lectures. There are ways of spending your time in a more constructive way than binge drinking/watching series/overeating/pick your poison.

Yet most people do not consider these alternatives or don't even know they exist. They're scared of standing out. Afraid of failure. Protecting themselves from ridicule. The only path they know to success is the following one; you need to have a university degree to get a good job. You need to have a good job to make good money. You need to make good money to go on a vacation once or twice a year. You need to go on a vacation because you need to take a break. You need to take a break to do the things you have half-forgotten you like more than your job.

One could make the argument that the system is built in a way to prevent people from making more money for less effort and that it's even a good thing, because otherwise people would have too much money and OD on meth or something. However I disagree, since one can ruin their life regardless of their financial situation; rich, poor or middle-class. Abundance or lack of money usually only speeds up their current situation, but it's hardly ever the prime reason of why one's life is not going well.

The whole idea of having a job is predicated on the fact that it makes one materially and psychologically dependent on it. Unplanned loss of a job is normally a disaster and even a planned departure is difficult to bridge without a reasonable alternative. Therefore, it could be that having multiple jobs could be better for people's well-being in transition periods, because if they lost one job, they would keep the other (and perhaps could support at least their basic needs).

It goes in line with the idea that once something fails in one of the areas of your life, you can take a step back, work on other things, relax and think how to go about the fail more rationally. If that was the only thing you had going in your life, you'd be desperately clawing to keep it as it was and unwilling to let it go if needed.

Since we all have 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week and 730 hours a month, it's obvious we can't do everything and that we have to prioritize. Luckily, there aren't not too many important areas of life to look after and sometimes one activity might help in multiple areas at once. Any compulsive/addictive behavior usually comes from not attending to these areas or their variants:

Spirituality, health, finance, relationships, personal development.

I'm trying to live a balanced lifestyle consisting of all the areas above. Maintaining the equilibrium might not be efficient, but it keeps the life going.