Resolution To Quit Playing Games
Blogged By: Low Hang Wei @ November 29th, 2007 - 7:00 pmI know it is not New Year yet, but I’m setting a resolution to quit playing computer games. The last time I set such a resolution, I stopped playing games for 3 months, but got tempted by my friends who were always playing games in my presence. This time round, I don’t see much temptation around me, so it is my goal to stop playing games for 3 years with exceptions like when I go back my home or at someone else’s home. I don’t go back home often, so playing computer games then will not be an issue.
The reason behind setting such a resolution is pretty obvious - it is simply taking up too much of my time and energy. During the time that my manager gave me time off to study for exams, I was not studying… I levelled two of my online game characters to lvl 50s from 0 within that two weeks. So, yeah, I played quite insanely and this will be reflected in my grades.
A lot of my university friends do not believe me when I said that I have a chance of failing two modules, since I was in Dean’s list in my first year. However, they do not understand that for two modules, I have skipped a large majority of classes, some due to uncontrollable situations, while others I skip just because of plain boredom. In return, for my maths module, I scored D for my coursework when most of my friends were getting A+ and As. It’s true that I am oblivious to whatever results that I am getting since I fulfilled my academic goal of getting into Dean’s list for any year. However, if I had to retake a module because I spent too much time playing computer games, I think it is pretty dumb.
With all that said, it’s back to my main point… I am quitting playing computer games with the exceptions that I previously wrote. For the next three years, I will concentrate on performing my duties as a Financial Adviser. It is dumb that I impart financial literacy to people and think that I am helping people, but they don’t pick up any form of plans to improve their lives. Afterall, they can have all the knowledge in the world, but if they don’t act on it, their life will not improve. Other than committing myself as a Financial Adviser, I will concentrate on becoming an excellent trader during my free time. This shall be my form of computer gaming, since trading requires as much clicksmanship as playing computer games. 
Finally, I have some other commitments that is still not confirmed, such as a business startup with my friend. My friend prefers confidentiality, so I can’t say anything until the whole project is launched. Anyway, we are still waiting for approval on that. I am also trying to help my brother become a world class internet marketer and I am willing to finance him if the need arises. He is now building up a website, not from scratch, but using a system that I have programmed. I don’t know if he will give up halfway, but I hope that he can see the fruits beyond the labour. After all, a website takes a long time to build to success.
If successful though, I foresee a lifetime passive income and the ease of building another website through leverage. I have planned a path for him to follow, just as I did for myself in the past to help me gain a significant amount of money that is able to support my finances independently till now. The difference was that I was directed away from my path during my National Service, since having to sell away my website was a huge setback for me. I was literally going back to square one and did not like the feeling, which caused me to stop my internet marketing activities since. I know it’s probably just an excuse because I had quite a healthy sum of money and was in a comfort zone.
In fact, I feel that I have wasted the previous 4 months of my life because I am in a comfort zone too. I am now set to stretch myself and add more achievements to my life, with energy leechers from my life removed. I’m going to charge ahead!
Blogged Under: First Million Challenge, My Personal Life, Random Thoughts
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November 30th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I’m so surprised that so many young people are addicted to gaming these days. I think it is a growing problem that requires more attention from our society. Like all addictions be it gambling, gaming, cigarettes, porn - the chemistry is the same. The brain fires up and releases dopamine …and the urge for the activity increases.
People who get addicted to one activity are probably vulnerable to addictions in other areas. Your gaming addiction can spill into gambling (e.g. stock market gambling) etc. then it becomes harmful. If I were you I’ll stay away from those forex trading talks, knowing that you’re a person of high addictability.
The opposite of addiction is control. Every one of the high achievers I met had one thing in common discipline. The ability to control the mind to do the right thing rather than the pleasurable or acting on urges.
My advice is if this addiction persist or spills over into more harmful areas like stock trading, you should seek professional help. Don’t try to struggle with it - fix it so that you can move on.
December 1st, 2007 at 4:59 am
99% wins? Wow but I did be sceptical. How many trades was involved? How many markets?
The only way to get 99% is to make multiple short term trades on an extended trend in the same direction. I recently did 13 straight winning trades shorting the Hang Seng but the 14th trade wiped out 30% of the gains because it had a disruptive 1 day surge. It was dumb luck skill-less because the Hang Seng fell like rock in one of those rare situations when a short trade always gains 2 days later. I probably try the reverse by going long since it is rebounding. These 14 trades give me 93% winning record but I assure you I have not much skill at doing this and I’m only doing for fun. There was only one observation I made from Jul until now is that serial runs are correlated, there are more consecutive up and down days than a random walk and I’m trade this just for fun.
I heard of traders chalking up close to 50 winning trades in such situations but it is meaningless.
I believe in the long run my net gains on Hang Seng will average to zero once normality returns to the market. Never mistake luck for skills.
You probably have to take control of your obsessons and channel them in the right direction. The problem with trading is it can turn into gambling and the results is devastating. There is only a thin line between trading & gambling. I see people getting burnt all the time on options and futures. They start out very diligent and do all their reading once they get into it - the thrill & spill, they become hooked and it becomes gambling. I’m totally opposed to adverts telling people they can “trading for a living” by doing a course etc it is misleading. There is one guy even telling people they can get “financial freedom” by trading options. From my experience, I can only conclude that these people are far from responsible interested in selling their courses for money…and they are making misleading statements. A few people showed me what they were taught in these courses and I’m stunned to see the poor quality of material.
I wonder why things like network marketing, options/stock trading, MLM are becoming so prevalent these days. It is as if peoeple are will to go for some “get rich quick scheme”. There no “instant riches” to be had …more often these things take away your precious time. Time that can be used for development of productive skills, focussing on your day job and studies.
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Hi there,
Just stumbled across your blog today after hearing from my brother that you appeared in Nanyang Chronicles sometime ago.
I’m also in NTU, freshmen, and very into Internet Marketing. Couldn’t find a contact-me page, so maybe you might wanna shoot me an e-mail and we could chat up sometime?
Cheers,
Ben
December 13th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Well I hope you haven’t resoloved not to play any more computer games……I on the other hand want to have more “leisure” time at my computer because I was doing nothing but work on my computer and I was missing all the other great things on my computer that I haven’t had a chance to play around with - so I’m trying to enjoy my computer more and not just use it for work.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Greetings.
I chanced upon your blog while searching under “quit gaming” on google.
So it seems that your plan is to make a million in four years time (excluding an unknown amount the public may not know that you already have). Just a few thoughts.
By simple mathematics, you would have to make $250,000 per year in order to amount to a million in four. I must say, this is indeed a challenge which is pretty tough to achieve. Nevertheless, good luck to this challenge.
Of course, my previous statement of making a million dollars in four years being difficult to achieve, could be negated since with the saying “The rich gets richer and …[yeah I will not continue the next part of it)”, it would mean that with more capital, comes more income through investment or otherwise. And so it would seem that investment is surely the way to go. And this is just what you seem to be doing. But still- due to lack of knowledge on investments or economics- I can’t imagine how a million could be made in mere four years !
Don’t get me wrong though, my purpose is not to discourage. Rather, if you may, I hope you can offer some insights to how it could be achieved. This would greatly prove to be interesting to us.
Lastly, I’ve noticed a trend of positive thoughts shown through your writings (motivational etc.). This perhaps could be another factor to becoming a millionaire. So, keep ‘em coming. Would be interesting to check back on your blog.
Cheers.
August 2nd, 2008 at 6:41 am
Hello Kangwei,
it’s me again and I just want to advice you to save your hard earned internet marketing money. You are a finance student( from the modules I see you taking) and I am sure you know ways to invest it safely, ie. Definitely not in trading Forex.
Since you are good in internet marketing, why not do it?? I don’t see any reason unless you want to make your million through trading. I’m sure you can run a website and do many things you want(learn trading) and have to(studies..etc) at the same time.
I just hope you haven’t put any real money in the Fx and Futures( your blog on opening an account) market yet. Just an advice, maybe you can try papertrading with whatever knowledge you have and platform recommended by the course you took up but keep on learning more about trading and perfecting you own system as I mentioned before.(This process usually lasts for at least a year) So maybe in the meanwhile, u can earn some side income with your talent in internet marketing?=)
Finally, although I too disagree with what Lucky Tan says about trading most of the time, what he says this time is very true about trading courses promising farfetched values and painting too nice a picture about trading. Also about the 99% wins thingy, I would not count on that. No offence but with a 66% accuracy prediction rate excluding entry and exit strategies, you would already be a top notch trader.
I hope you fully tap onto your technical internet skills which is obviously abundant to achieve your goal while honing your other skills which will be attained with dedication.
Liangwei