9: How Gaming & Twitch Streaming Changed my Life (For the Better) How Gaming Changed my Life (For the better)

With the rise of hustle culture, often times, people (especially adults) demonize video games, saying that it's a waste of time. But, what if that's the beauty of it? Let’s explore how maybe videogames aren't the bad guy.

Gaming offers an outlet, a reprieve, and an escape from an often complicated, scary and stress inducing world. The world often tells us success is only deemed valuable if it makes you money or gives you prestige. As a recent graduate student who spent 7 years in higher education to enter the workforce unprepared and entry level, I felt so small and lonely and anything but successful despite my best efforts to prepare. So, how did gaming fix all of those feelings of inadequacy and loneliness? Well, it didn’t. But it helped me find a little bit of enjoyment in the day, it gave me a moment to smile, a little break. Gaming has been one of the most meaningful ways I have found balance in my life, and has overall been a positive impact that allowed me to meet new friends as an adult.

Life is uncomfortably unpredictable. You can’t control where in the world you’re born, what economic status you’re born into, or how many opportunities you’re born with. There are almost no situations in real life where I can say "If I make this choice, then a predictable outcome will happen without question". Life can, for the most part, be unpredictable, and doesn't follow any rules. But games always have rules, objectives and mostly comfortably predictable outcomes. If I want to be Poppy’s best friend in Animal Crossing, I just send her little letters, give her cute little gifts, and bam— we’re instant besties.

Not everything has to be so serious, life is about balance. In a way, gaming taught me how to be kind to myself. Because sometimes, the most seemingly mundane and silly things shape and mold us in the most unexpected and beautiful ways.

What We Discuss: 
- Adulthood also comes with the responsibility of finding fulfilling hobbies.
-Not everything has to be so serious, life is about balance. Be kind to yourself.
-Sometimes in life, the most seemingly mundane and silly things shape and mold us in the most unexpected ways.
-I was originally motivated to succeed out of fear of inadequacy, and that’s not having it all together.

Transcript

0:00 Hey guys! It's Reese, and I'm so glad you decided to Adventure With Me today on the "Adventure with Me" podcast, or Reese Grey analyzes YouTube channel, we look at creations and experiences in art, media, music, and even video games to explore exactly why we think the way we think question what we believe and learn something new! Media you consume undoubtedly impacts your life and interactions and that doesn't necessarily need to be a good or a bad thing, what's important is that there is awareness that we have in our minds and in our hearts that we are being affected by the media we consume :)

0:40 I want to understand what influences us~ And today, I wanted to talk about how gaming changed my life, and for the better! So, I actually didn't grow up gaming. I was really quiet, and scared, and lonely kid... Being the shy and anxious kid that I was, I was deathly afraid to make any mistakes and stand out. So, I simply enjoyed watching my friends and family play video games. My family only had a GameCube so I would watch my little sister play wind waker, and my mom loved animal crossing, and occasionally I did join in on mario party four and six... and I think I also remember having a copy of hello kitty derby racing as well ! But mostly because I like the cover art. And other than that I never ventured out much in the way of gaming. And that's not because anyone explicitly told me not to uh but baby me thought I was bad at gaming and I didn't want to risk the embarrassment of making mistakes to get any better so I wrongly assumed that gaming would never be for me.

1:48 So, as a kid, in addition to being extremely nervous with this faux sense of apathy to cover up for my crippling anxiety I had this intrinsic need to be productive. My family struggled financially growing up so I felt a big pressure to be successful. Because I wanted to be able to provide for myself as an adult and then hopefully my parents. And I never wanted to be under the same amount of financial stress that they seem to be in. And that absolutely terrified me, so I conjured up this idea in my mind...that if I could just buckle down and work as soon as I could and as young as I could I could do it. I could provide for everyone.

2:31 And as I got a job as a hostess at six flags at 15 and a half years old I had to learn no matter what Mark Cuban from shark tank tells you Mark Cuban Soundbite: "I'm gonna kick your ass you know... and you're not gonna outwork me". Hard work in itself doesn't inherently bring anyone that huge amount of success, where you can provide for yourself and everyone around you. There wasn't any normal amount of nine to five work would be able to provide for both myself and my family, like between the ages of 15 and 19...like you can't even work overtime when you're 15.

3:14 So I had to learn that unfortunately life is about balance, that means balancing leisure and work. I think adulthood can be really wonderful and freeing and it might be a hot take but I do enjoy adulthood more than childhood, because of that financial freedom and freedom of your time. But, what nobody told me is that adulthood also comes with this responsibility of finding fulfilling hobbies and I found that how I spent my free time in a large way determined how I felt about myself. I felt an emptiness because I didn't have any hobbies and I also felt angry with myself because I wanted to be creative but I was too scared to be.

4:02 Gaming is thought of as a waste of time to a lot of adults, so it wasn't like an option for me. I found it really difficult to just like, sit down and feel like I could do something fun that was deemed as being pointless to so many people. It bothers me when I hear people describe video games as pointless because there's always an air in of judgment in their tone when they say that video games are pointless. Because of course games are pointless that's the beauty of it! Everyone needs to do things to escape the world even just for a little bit and relieve some stress.

4:44 So, as an adult when I first started playing like more video games, when something wasn't going well in the real world it was okay because when I got home I could just load up animal crossing and decorate my buddy sherb's house for a while! And it was positive because I had something for myself that I could look forward to that was silly and fun and stupid .Or I could throw on some step mania or Friday night Funkin, or some osu and just jam the night away~

5:14 In itself, the concept of balance has always been quite frustrating to me. I find it hard to properly relax, as it gives me the feeling that I am "wasting time" and I'm sure a lot of people were faced with this reality as well who pour their livelihood into work or school in order to forget the normal everyday issues that you have in life. Not everything in life has to be so intense, and of course my love for gaming didn't fix everything. I ended up seeking help through therapy and getting a better job that had a really good work-life balance ability, but gaming was that first step... it was that first non-profit or work-related hobby I had other than just singing for fun!

6:01 And I've been told by both my family and friends like I seem like the type of person who knows their passions, and has it all together but I was motivated out of fear and inadequacy and that's not having it all together... I just graduated with my master's degree in international relations and I had to move away from Seoul South Korea to California and I was left extremely like lonely after leaving all of my friends in Korea.

6:29 And it's embarrassing to admit but I was always focused on keeping the appearance of being someone who had it all together, instead of actually having it all together. I was checking off boxes in life instead of experiencing life, and growing myself and appreciating where I was, and valuing others time. I was 25, freshly graduated, with no lasting friendships but because I didn't even really know who I was I really struggled with any interpersonal relationships that I managed to keep.

7:06 And if there's one thing that my 27 year old self could tell like 20 year old me it would just be to calm down, and that everyone's life changes at different paces. I think when you're you're younger especially right when you enter college just whatever you do after high school you're used to everyone in your age meeting the same milestones. Like everyone in your class is the same age, and you're trucking along grade after grade year after year in similar classes. But like, after school like everything changes between the ages of like 19 and the rest of your life.

7:42 It's just about choice. Like, one friend can get married and have kids right out of high school, and another bought their parents a house because they're an entrepreneur, and another moves back in with their parents, and another works at google. Like these are all people that I-- I know. And you know, one person decides to travel the world and one person never leaves their hometown.

8:03 And you know what's the same about all of those people? Is that they made choices. And not one is better than the other. What matters most is to just value people at wherever they are at in life. It gets really easy to compare yourself to others and it's easy to feel inadequate, but if you're watching this, and if you're at this point in the video now... if you haven't heard it from anyone else I'm asking you not to doubt yourself, and that you're not inadequate, because I feel like some people don't hear that from people around them in their lives. And you might not believe that but I'm gonna ask you to try.

8:44 And what matters most in life is not what you succeed in doing, but whatever you decide to do in life you just do in kindness because I thought when I looked back at what would be the most important thing to me I---I thought what would be important was how people remembered me. But that's not it at all. I wish I was kinder. I wish I cared more for other people. I wish I took the time to share myself with others.

9:19 Even though I was surrounded by some genuinely kind and wonderful people I felt this genuine emptiness still, no matter how privileged and off-putting that sounds, I genuinely felt like I wasn't able to have a sense of enjoyment for these things because I felt like I didn't deserve it yet.

9:37 Living through these experiences of things that should make me happy, and that I truly wanted to enjoy... this hyper awareness of my appearance to everyone else led me to feel undoubtedly physically present, but mentally exhausted. So, how did gaming fix all of those feelings of inadequacy and loneliness? Well it didn't in itself. But it helped me to find a little bit of enjoyment in the day and give me a moment to smile. It gave me a break. And gaming has been one of the most meaningful ways I've found balance in my life, and has overall been such a positive impact.

10:17 That fear of being creative, also it gave me this outlet because I started twitch streaming as well and I was able to interact with people in a way that I was never able to, over any hobbies.

10:31 Life is uncomfortably unpredictable, you can't control where in the world, you're born what economic status you're born into... how many opportunities you're born with. There's almost no situations where in real life we can say if I make this choice, then this predictable outcome will happen without question... Life can for the most part, be unpredictable. It doesn't follow any rules but games always have rules, objectives, and mostly predictable outcomes. If I want to be poppy's best friend in animal crossing I'll just send her little letters cute little gifts and bam where instant besties!

11:17 Games give you an avenue in life where actions directly advance towards a goal, wherein life rarely has that. With gaming we get to leave behind the real world implications of decision making, goals seem arbitrary as we navigate a fantasy world to check off boxes and achieve things for achievement's sake... but that's what makes the experience of gaming so beautiful and cathartic. In gaming we don't need to fret over everyday decisions and choices as there's truly nothing to lose because in gaming if we don't like how things are going or we want to change something we can just start over.

11:59 Though definitely there are games with nuance like for example in to the moon, where where we have failure in our mission and learn that every decision has consequences and thus changes the outcome but really most games exist as an escape with the objective simply being to win. There is also this sense of wonder and enjoyment in the mystery of thrifting for cute bargain games too and every shop has like a bargain bin and even if you stick your hand in there and pick something up totally at random like I did before that new copy of ninja bread man was mine for four dollars to keep! And I find myself discovering fun things that I didn't even know I wanted or that I knew existed.

12:48 And sometimes in life, the most seemingly mundane and silly things shape and mold us in the most unexpected ways. The little words that you say to someone it might reshape the way that someone thinks in the future, like I know has done for me. And who knows, maybe that person can go on to change the world, or maybe you'll just help someone see something in a new perspective, or maybe it will be just as simple as making someone smile! And feel warm.

12:19 Not everything has to be so serious. Life is about balance, so be kind to yourself. Even if you never have before, try picking up a game, or just let go allow yourself to just have fun. I know that that can seem difficult and pointless...but it is and it's beautiful.

13:44 I know a lot of my videos are based off of like analytical like descriptions of things that go on in the world... and kind of like academic but I've been really affected positively by gaming as a hobby and I know that I can get more analytical with this type of video, but I really just wanted to say how I felt this is just a little bit of me :) And I really hope that you enjoyed adventuring with me today!

14:15 So before you go, this originally wasn't going to be a video, it was a blog post! On reesegrey.com r-e-e-s-e-g-r-e-y dot com. Any of the games that I talk about in this, I'm actually gonna leave in the source notes! And you can read the blog post there. I basically just like spoke off of that blog post with my little notes over here.

14:39 So I also want to let you guys know...before you go ....wait! Make sure you like and subscribe, just kidding don't do that. Dislike, and unsubscribe. And we can keep these conversations going on mental health Mondays! Mental health Mondays will be a segment of Reese Grey analyzes on the adventure with me podcast and we'll answer your questions about love, life, or a prior video essay here on Reese Grey Analyzes.

15:02 You can submit your questions anonymously on reesgrey.com or leave a comment on this YouTube video, which isn't necessarily anonymous but hey.... anyway you want to do it. You could tweet me, you can send me an Instagram DM which you guys actually have! Oh my gosh.

And I really look forward to hearing from you guys! All right, that's all I've got to say for today, and I love you guys so much! Okay, love you, bye!