What will make you Happy?

So yeah after my big bombshell yesterday I got some nice comments on MSN about it. Hopefully over the day you had time to think about it.

It's quite astounding that we often miss such a huge question in our life.
We can get so caught up in the busy world, that we actually don't think about why we are doing some stuff.

I can totally relate to this. I used to play some online games. Don't worry it wasn't WOW or anything like that. I never actually payed to play online games.
I played a couple of text-based strategy games. I got really into them. Way too much.

I am very analytical, but the problem was I was dedicating that talent to the game, not to life. Soon I was becoming a respected player in the game and a leader of a group of people. This was great mind you, I got some great leadership skills from playing this game. However it was really dominating my life. In the holidays I would play for 12 hours a day, because at the time of my holidays I would step up as the main leader. People on this game expected me to be on a lot, I guess I did it because of those expectations.

I got totally caught up in that game. I was definitely addicted. It was quite funny, the police gave all the Year 13s at our school a street smarts handbook. In it was a section of Internet addiction. It had a question on the margin.

How do I know if I am spending too much time playing games?
1 Have you gone without food to keep playing?
2 Have you lied to a friend or family about where you were or what you were doing?
3 Have you borrowed or stolen money to pay for something in the game?
4 Have you missed work or let a friend down because you were playing?
If you answer yes to one of these questions you are probably spending too much time. If you answer yes to lots of these questions then you almost definitely have an addiction.
(your body is starting to crave the endorphins you get from the excitement of the game)

Maybe someone with something similar to this has the same problem.
Having one day realised that it actually wasn't fun anymore, I decided to quit. I did and never looked back.
But here's my confession:
I skipped breakfast and was eating at noon often rather than breakfast because I got hooked in.
I lied to friends and family about what I was doing.
I definitely let my friends down because I was playing. It got to the point where they never contact me outside of school because I would never come anyway.
So I am really sorry to my family and friends who I totally let down.

I set my priorities wrong. I put the expectations of random people I had never met above my family and friends.

Well I got through this totally alone and this I guess is an important confession and a lesson certainly learned by me.

So that was quite a long story. But it's an illustration on what was happening in my life that was stopping me from being happy. Is there anything similar in your life?
Commit it to a friend and get through it.

Time is a limited resource, we can't buy more time. We can lose it through bad choices, not just things like smoking, but what we actually spend our time doing!

Do things you actually enjoy! But not just in your day to day life. Set long term goals as well.
What do you stand for?