Life as an RPG (Role Play Game)

[dlenger31]

A lot of people spend hours and hours playing video games and hunting for achievements, but neglect the biggest adventure game there is: life. The thing is: I get it. I love video games aswell and find them incredibly rewarding. The consequences of mistakes and the anxiety around playing are also not as severe as in real life. So I get why people choose to play video games instead of trying to accomplish amazing things in real life.

But I thought: Maybe it's possible to transfer the reward that people get from video games to real life. I will try to be the guinea pig and will try to live like my life is an RPG.

One of my ideas was to use a magnetic board to track some of my achievements. I will buy magnetic buttons representing the achievement I have made, when I accomplish something. For example: I would buy a small magnetic button with the swedish flag when I finish the Duolingo Swedish Course. 

I don't have a complete list of all the achievements I want to add yet, but I will update my list from time to time. 

Disclaimer: I'm not a native english speaker. So please excuse my mistakes.

[dlenger31]

Sports:

I had to take a break because I was sick and I will try to get back to my old level.

BJJ: I started doing the martial art BJJ around a year ago. I already won some fights, but not on big tournaments yet. The achievements here are easy to track.

• Blue Belt
• Purple Belt
• Brown Belt
• Black Belt
• First IBJJF medal
• First Gold medal on big tournament

I used to do powerlifting, but I did not lift as much as I used to because of I was focusing on BJJ and because of my illness. I would like to get stronger again. I was heavier than (around 88 kg - 195 lbs at around 5'7-5'8' (175 cm)). My lifts were as following: 

- Squat (485 lbs - 220 kg)

- Deadlift (518 lbs - 235 kg)

- Benchpress (308 lbs - 140kg)

I don't know where my max lifts are currently, but I will keep updating the strength values. I am currently at around 80 kg (176 lbs). My first/goals achievements will be to get back near my old lifts.

- Squat (440 lbs - 200 kg)

- Deadlift (440 lbs - 200 kg)

- Benchpress (265 - 120 kg)

 

 

[dlenger31]

Books

I am an avid reader and have read around 50 books a year for the last years - sometimes more, sometimes less. I did not always take notes on them unfortunately, but I want to change that. I will track the books I read on Goodreads and will only let the ones count, for whom I wrote a review. I hope that will change my behaviour around taking notes. I will let audiobooks and books read on Kindle count aswell

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/171758983-dom-leng

So the achievements I want to get are as follows:

• 100 books
• 200 books
• 300 books
• 400 books
• 500 books
• 600 books
• 700 books
• 800 books
• 900 books 
• 1000 books

[dlenger31]

Languages

I want to become a polyglot. Growing up in Europe, I already learned some foreign languages, but I haven't mastered them yet ofc. 

The languages I know:

• German (mother tongue)
• English (C1)
• French  (C1)
• Latinum
• Graecum
• Spanish (A1)
• Italian (A1)

Currently learning:

• Swedish

=> Achievements:

• Finish Duolingo Course
• A1
• A2
• B1
• B2
• C1

I will add other languages later.

 

Edited February 20 by dlenger31

[dlenger31]

Spirituality

I find it hard to track spiritual progress. So this is just my first attempt to pin down some achievements in the spiritual domain I want to reach. I will probably update it later.

• first enlightenment experience
• direct insight through contemplation
• first psychedelic experience

 

 

[dlenger31]

Habits

I have some bad habits I want to work on.

7 h of sleep

Especially when life gets stressfull, the first thing that suffers is my sleep. But because I am miserable, when I don't get enough sleep for a long time I will make an effort to get at least 7 h of sleep a day. 8 are better but not realistic on some days.

Under 4h screentime on phone

I often watch long videos and podcasts on YT while I do chores. I learned a lot that way. So I don't aim for 0 h screen time, but sometimes I watch some stupid shorts because it's comfortable. I want to reduce that. So I am for under 4h of screen time.

Time spent in deep work

I don't have the focus I used to have. A good proxy I want to measure to get back on track, is "time spent in deep work". 

[dlenger31]

Financial

I don't have big financial goals right now, but it's a part of life I have to deal with.

• 10 k in stocks

It's just a stepping stone, but the next goal is saving up 10 k in stocks. Currently I am at: 4110,66.

• morgage paid off by 40

I bought a house in 2021. I plan to pay it off before I am 40 years old. I am 27 currently.

 

More financial goals will follow, but they are not my focus in life rn.

[dlenger31]

Career

I am self-employed as a SEO- manager (marketing). I did it to finance my studies, but I have no passion for it. So I would like to focus on my studies. I am currently finishing my master and have only a few exams left. Goals:

 

• Bachelor ✔️
• Master
• Phd

Two profs asked me if I wanted to do a Phd. I will decide after the master, if I want to do it rn or later in life. 

• teaching in university

I already teached two classes and I loved it. I want to go back to teaching in university (part time) after my master.

[dlenger31]

Emotional Mastery

I don't know the exact reasons, but especially since covid, i got more anxious than I used to be. I want to work on a few things in relationship to emotional mastery.

• Fear of driving in the city

I am allowed to drive a car for around 10 years now. I've not had an accident yet, but I still have an irrational fear of driving on unfamiliar roads or in unfamiliar cities. Especially in big cities with a lot of traffic, I get panicky. It does not seem like my panic stems from a fear of getting hurt, but I don't know the exact reason. I want to overcome the fear by taking the opportunity to drive to unfamiliar places more often.

• Fear of organisational stuff/calling strangers

I recognized that I shy away from organisational stuff like applying for a new identity card, because it involves talking to strangers. Every conversation I can avoid by filling out a form online, I will avoid. I don't want to be afraid of normal conversations with strangers.

• Fear of standing up for myself

Standing up for myself is a thing I am working on aswell. I did the personality test from Jordan Peterson on https://www.selfauthoring.com/ and had a really high agreeableness score (99 percentile). So it seems to be one of my flaws. I hate to argue and would back up to avoid the argument, but I see the benefit of standing up for my own interests aswell. I will focus on working on that aswell.

I am not sure yet how to measure my success in that regard, but I will find a solution.

[dlenger31]

On 19.2.2024 at 10:04 AM, dlenger31 said:

Habits

I have some bad habits I want to work on.

7 h of sleep

Especially when life gets stressfull, the first thing that suffers is my sleep. But because I am miserable, when I don't get enough sleep for a long time I will make an effort to get at least 7 h of sleep a day. 8 are better but not realistic on some days.

Under 4h screentime on phone

I often watch long videos and podcasts on YT while I do chores. I learned a lot that way. So I don't aim for 0 h screen time, but sometimes I watch some stupid shorts because it's comfortable. I want to reduce that. So I am for under 4h of screen time.

Time spent in deep work

I don't have the focus I used to have. A good proxy I want to measure to get back on track, is "time spent in deep work". 

First I tracked screen time, but I found that to be not the optimal proxy. So I changed it to “time spent with shallow entertainment” and will measure that from now on.

 

[dlenger31]

Family & Love

In regard to family and love, I want to achieve the following:

• proposing to my gf
• marriage
• child
• buying a house ✓

[dlenger31]

Weekly Update #001

I will do a weekly update for the activities I did, that brought me closer to my goals.

Sports: 

My first training week after being sick for a long time. Despite being sore all week, this week of training has been okay. To not burn out right away, I took it slow.

Gym: 18.02., 20.02., 24.02

BJJ: 19.02.; 21.02.; 25.02

Books:

Currently I am rereading "Pursuing Consciousness" by Peter Ralston again and have been taking excessive notes.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22822920-pursuing-consciousness

Judging my success in form of the sheer volume of books is unwise. So I changed the metric, I will keep track on to: "time spent in deep reading".

Spirituality:

I have to confess that I did just two contemplation sessions and two meditation session this week. Next week will be better. It is not enough for me just to read about spirituality and enlightenment.

Languages:

I used Duolingo daily last week and learned a lot of Swedish last week. See my statiscs here: https://duome.eu/dom529218

Habits:

Sleep: My sleep was really bad this week. Because of the fact that I came back home late on many days and had trouble falling asleep, the only day I sleept around 7 hours, were Saturday. On the other days i just could get aroung 4-6 hours. That is pretty bad. I will use a sleep journal to track it better and to find out triggers for bad sleep.

Screentime/Shallow Entertainment:  As I said: first I tracked screen time, but I found that to be not the optimal proxy. So I changed it to “time spent with shallow entertainment” and will measure that from now on. I spent around two hours a day with shallow entertainment. That was quite shocking. 

I am trying to get it to 1,5 h now first. 

Time spent in deep focus: I used an app called "Forrest" to keep track. I only let the time count were I am so focused that I am not checking mails or picking uo the phone once. I didn't track it on the weekend unfortunately. 

Emotional Mastery:

I know that most of the things I am afraid of are not a big thing for most people, but I guess I have to be honest to myself to tackle it.

1) I choose to drive willingly in the city on Monday  and Friday despite having other options to get there.

2) I did two organisational tasks that have been bothering me for two weeks. What helped me with that, is setting a timer to 30 minutes and trying to handle as much organisational stuff as possible in this time. I know I can handle 30 minutes of discomfort and as soon as I start it does not seem that scary anymore.

3) I like harmony in my relationships. So I find it really hard to stand up for myself. The following examples might be trivial for many, but I am proud of my small victories.

I have an old friend from school who is really toxic, but keeps texting me despite my signals to not contact me anymore. I told him that I don't want to meet up with him.

My girlfriend struggles with anger and tends to be mean to me then. I am not really emotionaly reactive tbh and anger is not an emotion I struggle with at all, but I told her that I would not like to be treated that way.

Family & Love:

What helps me tremendously with keeping my relationship healty is having deep conversations on long walks. We took a long walk 3 times a week, where we talk about life, goals and whatever keeps us up at night.