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A couple days after getting my Zune, I woke up and went to turn it on - and nothing. Nada. I went online in search for the answer, and found a lot of answers - and none that were the answer I was looking for.In my situation, it was far simpler than all of the crazy solutions I read about. So if you’re a new Zune user, and your Zune won’t turn on, you might have the same problem I had…

The battery went dead and needed charging.

Before you laugh - read on. Naturally, I thought it could be a dead battery, but wrongly assumed that when I plugged it in, the power from the USB cable would immediately wake it up. That is wrong.

If your Zune goes dead, it will take several minutes (give it 10 minutes even) of charging from the USB connection before it will turn on. I believe that’s because the power from the USB cable doesn’t directly power the Zune, so it must charge the battery enough to run first.

If that is not your problem, I did learn of other things to try when researching my “dead” Zune problem. The most common answer I saw was that you need to simply reset the Zune. How to reset your Zune? Simply hold down the back and up button on the control pad. Also, make sure the keypad isn’t locked on the top, so that if you do need to reset it the keys will actually work.

If your Zune ever seems to be acting strange, it might be wise to reset it. This is the exact same as rebooting a computer when it’s giving you problems.

Some people said to merely plug it into the USB cable and that might “wake it up” so to speak.

Other Zune battery tips
I noticed that leaving it on in wireless mode will drain the battery far faster than with wireless mode off. If you use the wireless sync, be sure to turn wireless mode back off as soon as the sync is complete. And if you’re like me and hate to pick up your Zune after a night of sleep, only to see the battery’s charge has gone down, you can also turn the Zune completely off instead of having it go into standby mode. Standby mode allows it to come up faster, but slowly drains the battery over time. Press the back button and push the control pad down and it will power off in a few seconds. Press and hold the play button to turn it on again. It takes longer to power up, but those extra few seconds are easily saved in extended battery time.

So to recap the commands…
Back + Up = Reset/Restart
Back + Down = Turn off, also known as Sleep mode

If you’ve been following a particular weight loss system, but you’re still having problems, here are a few suggestions to fine-tune your program and give you a better chance at success. Let’s take a look at some simple solutions to those problems, so that if you want to stick with one of those programs, you still can.

Have a free day or free hour.
Several systems want you to be rigid except for a “free” time, hour, day, etc. Bad idea. People will often cram as many calories into their bodies as they can during this time, destroying the progress they achieved since their last “free” time. Have a couple of free meals a week instead. Go to a buffet, restaurant, or even fast food location. Have your meal, enjoy a soda or beer, even add a desert, and then stop. You’ll feel good about your meal, and then later you will feel good that you didn’t continue eating. Don’t feel guilty about what you ate. It also allows you the flexibility to go out on a whim, or along with friends. Just make sure you aren’t doing it more than a couple times a week. You will be able to enjoy your meal without guilt, knowing you have stuck to your guns all week.

You should only drink water
Time for a reality check. If you find water pleasant enough to drink, that’s great. In fact, I recommend trying various brands of water for the one you find the best tasting, then stocking your fridge with bottles of that brand. When you’re thirsty and open the fridge, a nice cold bottle of water might just sound great. Many people don’t find water palatable enough to drink 24/7, or at least need to adjust to drinking only water. There are options. Diet sodas are OK, but because of some lingering health questions about their sweeteners, try not to go overboard. In fact, I like to rotate between different artificial sweeteners so that I don’t get too much of any one of them. Diet Rite and Propel use Splenda (sucralose), while most other diet drinks use Aspartame. I don’t endorse drinking these in large quantities, but they are fine in moderation. I suggest allowing yourself one treat a day in the drink department, such as a diet soda. You’ll enjoy it far more than if you were to drink them all day long. Try to find ways to make water more palatable, too. Ice-cold water seems to “taste” better than room temperature water. Try adding a twist of lemon. Tea is also a great no-calorie drink. If you can drink it unsweetened, you are ahead of the game. If not, try adding small quantities of sugar or a sugar substitute, but don’t go overboard. Remember that sugar is a form of carbohydrate, which will turn into fat if you consume too much. Be careful.

Daily Exercise
If you’re really gung-ho, go ahead and exercise 6 days a week, but don’t feel guilty if you tire of this schedule and scale back to a few days a week. And make sure to rotate through various body parts, giving ample rest to each one throughout the week. If you’re not excited about exercising, start exercising moderately 3 days a week. If you’re willing and able, move up from there to 4 days a week. Then up to 5 or 6 if you want. But if 3 days is as much as you can put into it, be happy with that. Even 2 days a week would benefit you. Don’t feel that exercise is an all-or-nothing undertaking. Do what you can, when you can. Any exercise is better than none. If you’re looking to get a ripped physique, you’ll have to live in the gym. If you’re looking to lose weight, you’ll just need to get there a couple of times a week. Combined with the diet, the pounds will come off easily. Under the other systems you are a failure for “only” putting in 3 days a week. I absolutely disagree with that thinking. It is also not a good idea to begin with a rigorous exercise regimen. Start off slowly. Honestly, even if you’re young, you should run your exercise plan by your doctor. It sounds cliché, but if your health is the main priority, why not?

If you find yourself doing a 2-day or 3-day program, don’t worry. It just adds a little more importance to your diet program, as you are burning less calories per week. You can definitely lose weight without daily exercise, to the chagrin of most fitness experts.

You can transform your body in a few weeks
The idea is to get in shape, to lose weight, and to hopefully add some muscle. If you start off with those six-pack abs in mind, you are setting yourself up to fail. Progress will come in small steps. You might lose as much as 2 pounds a week, but aim for a pound a week. Your first week you might lose a lot of weight, which is to be expected, typically in the form of retained water. Don’t ever think that losing a pound a week is a failure. This isn’t The Biggest Loser TV show, where people under grueling regimens lose 8 pounds a week. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. You are making life-long changes. Two pounds is the upper limits of what you should lose in a week. That means your body is experiencing a net loss of 1000 calories a day, and that’s a lot, especially if you only need around 2000 calories to survive. Eat six small meals a day and I guarantee you won’t be hungry. In fact, you will most likely find yourself eating some of those meals when you’re not even hungry.
Keep your carbs low, protein high, fat low
That’s a lot to think about. It’s also largely unnecessary in many cases. As I’ll explain later, carbs, fat, and protein are all forms of calories. It seems absurd to only watch one form of calorie or worse, to consume too much of one type while cutting back too much on another. By looking at the big picture, we’ll keep all of them in check without having to look at each one individually. You have to realize that the low carb craze was a fad that thankfully died out, yet a few hangers-on remain out there. While there is some evidence that cutting carbs short-term results in more weight loss, long term there is probably no weight loss benefit, and perhaps even some damage if you cut them too much. See my blog about watching fat, or actually not watching it, for more info.

In short, if you’re following a weight loss system and you’re struggling with success, take a look at ways such as the ones above in which you can tweak it to fine tune it to your own needs. The authors of those systems want you to stick to them by the letter, but in the real world only you know what you’re capable of achieving.

I started off with Body For Life, but found several features of it simply didn’t mesh with the fiber of who I am. I tried, but ended up reading several systems and creating a sort of “weight loss system salad” in which I picked out the elements which were best suited for me. I lost 60 pounds in all, and in fact lost too much weight and had to gain some back!

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re overwhelmed right now. You have a lot of things going on that are stressing you out.

Been there.

Having gone through a divorce, been a single working parent, gone through bankruptcy, went through graduate school… I really do know the feeling of being overwhelmed. There are many ways to handle being overwhelmed, but at the end of the day there is only one way to tackle your problems - head on.

Knowledge is power. That is so true when you’re juggling several problems at once. The more you attack these problems, the more likely you are to feel empowered and get through them more easily.

When I was younger, I used to get overwhelmed when I had a lot to do, or when I had several bad things happening at one time. That’s only natural. My mother always had the answer, and it’s something I’ve always remembered. She’d tell me that problems don’t stack up on each other. They’re all individual, no matter how many there are. Problems are usually horizontal and not vertical. So if you’re having a crazy day at work and you have 50 things to do at once - you start to feel overwhelmed. The first thing you have to do is calm down. Then take the absolute most important or pressing task, and just do it. Complete it 100% and get it out of the way. That might seem obvious, but let me repeat the most important part - complete your task 100% before moving on to the next one. Leaving things unfinished can make you feel just as overwhelmed as if you didn’t start it at all! So after you finish the first thing on your list, take the next thing, complete it, and so on. The worst thing you can do is try to juggle your tasks and complete them all at the same time. If you handle each task one at a time, you will feel a sense of relief each time you complete something. You won’t feel that way while trying to juggle your tasks, and there’s a good chance you won’t get anything done!

This also applies to problems. Think of the overwhelmed teenage girl… she failed her math test, her boyfriend broke up with her, she failed her driving test - the whole world seems like it’s crashing down. But you have to remember in times like this - these problems have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They’re independent problems and require their own solutions. So just because EVERYTHING is going wrong, don’t look at it as one big problem. You might have several problems to deal with, but they by no means are additive to one another.

If you’re having a lot of problems - and nothing is pressing - the first thing you need to do is get yourself out of that rut and cheer up. Sure it can be easier said than done, but you can tackle problems a lot easier if you’re refreshed. Forget about those things for awhile and go do something fun or relaxing. After you feel better, those problems probably won’t seem so bad, and then you can start tackling them one at a time. Just don’t procrastinate, and don’t wait until you feel up to it. Cheer yourself up, yes. But don’t take two days to do it!

Maybe you’re one of those people who always feels overwhelmed, and never seems to get anything done. Let me tell you a simple way to get your daily tasks in order. Grab a piece of paper, or download my worksheet. What we’re going to do is make three columns, and then we’re going to draw a line in the middle, so that there you have three sections at the top and three at the bottom. Now label the first column “Could do,” the second column “should do” and the last column “must do.” Some of you are probably saying, “I’ve seen this before,” and you’re right. This is not my invention - in fact it’s a common way of prioritizing your tasks. Obviously the things you must do are the most important tasks that cannot be ignored. The items you should do aren’t as pressing, but you would be happier if you were to get those done. The items on the “could do” list are optional, but again would improve your life if they were completed.

One problem with the old “should-could-must do” system is that we tend to do the things we LIKE more than the things we don’t like, so the even if the “MUST DO” column gets done, the things we don’t like on the “could” and “should” do lists seem to carry over day after day, sometimes for weeks or months before we get around to doing them. That’s where we’re going to alter it a bit. The top half of our list we’re going to label “like” and the bottom we’re going to label it “Don’t Like.”

Now you’ve probably figured it out by now, but when you start working on your daily tasks, you’re going to start each column with the items you don’t like first. The reason is very simple… if you only did the things you liked, you’d never get the things you don’t like done. And those tasks you don’t like will grow like a cancer - weighing down on you and taking an emotional toll, especially when that list starts to grow. Remember in the section about not letting a lot of problems overwhelm you - well here’s another way to avoid that - to get the things done you don’t like first. And I’m telling you - when you start chipping away at those things you don’t really like to you, your sense of accomplishment will soar. And when you move on to the things you do like, you won’t have the distractions of other incomplete tasks on your mind. So doing the things you don’t like to do first will actually make you happier, you’ll get more done, and you’ll avoid the sense over overwhelming responsibility - because you’ll have a clean slate tomorrow.

Being overwhelmed includes feelings of helplessness. By tackling your tasks or problems head on, one at a time and in a predetermined order, you will find a sense of power and direction in your life.

I must preface this by telling you upfront that I have a boatload of tangents to go on. Bear with me and enjoy the ride…

I’ve always been interested in the Apple vs Microsoft saga. It’s interesting to see the usual tables turned when it comes to the portable music player market. Apple has roughly 70% of the market, against about 3% for the Zune. It’s not unlike the browser and OS wars, which Microsoft dominates at 70% and 90% repsectively.

I kind of owned a first generation Zune in late 2006. I say “kind of” because it was given to me, and then taken back. Indian givers! Very long story there. But nonetheless, I had it for a while and was familiar with the first generation model.

Let me start by saying that I’ve always been the kind of guy to not do what everyone else is doing. I even remember as a kid when Star Wars came out in 1977 (did I just age myself there?) and all my friends were going to see it over and over… to the point that I refused to see it. I got sick of hearing about it and decided I wouldn’t allow myself to like it.

I guess I just hate hopping on the bandwagon.

Like the iPod. But read on.

Not that I’ve always been right, but I always pull for the underdogs, especially in a bandwagon atmosphere. The irony is that sometimes the underdog is one of the most powerful companies in the world.

Circa 1994. The hype about the next generation of Windows was already mind-numbing. I thought I would puke if I saw one more article about what would be called Windows 95. Everyone was on the bandwagon. I was already a Windows user, but still - the avalanche of speculation was simply too much. As an avid PC user, I wouldn’t even consider switching to a Mac at that time (or forever, for that matter - mental note for a future blog entry).

Enter IBM.

They had been marketing OS/2 as a Windows alternative. At the time I think they were still more powerful than Microsoft, so surely they could hang in the OS wars. I thought. I picked it up the new version of OS/2 (called “Warp” apparently because it ran programs so fast) and I liked it. It wasn’t quite as good as Windows 95 (which wasn’t out yet), but it was different and fresh and did everything I wanted it to do. And it was better than the current version of Windows. It was easy to get on the OS/2 bandwagon because there was so much room on there. I championed it as best I could, and other OS/2 users were pretty zealous. Not only did I like the operating system, but I thought it would benefit the PC world to have some stiff competition for Windows.

As we all know, Windows 95 came out on August 24, 1995 and most people forgot about OS/2 Warp by the 25th. So what did I know.

14 years later, the tables have turned. This time I’m pulling for Microsoft… the underdog. If anyone is going to break the iPod monopoly, who else but the kings of monopolies to do it? If you’re still not sure, ask Netscape. If you can find them.

Speaking of Netscape and web browsers, I’m still pulling for the underdog there. I use Firefox. So really, between OS/2 and Firefox, I’ve gone against Microsoft twice. Just keeping the bandwagon score straight, mind you.

But then again I’m no fan of Apple, let me just say that up front. I don’t know if it was their proprietary hardware back in the day, or how the typical smug Mac user would spew his anti-PC propaganda. Maybe I just never liked calling my computer a “Mac.” I really don’t like that name. It sounds like the name of a dog or something. “Mac” - blah. Anyway, I used a Mac for several years and yes I did have some issues with it, but I understand why people like them. It wasn’t bad at all, don’t get me wrong. I do see the appeal. So I don’t look down on Apple users or proponents, at least until they start PC bashing. I just don’t want to be an Apple user, nor do I want to go out of my way to contribute to Apple’s success.

So in late 2006, Microsoft released their first generation Zune, most likely to the scoffs of all those smug Mac users from my past. Sure, it was inferior to the iPod, but I do recall showing it to several teenagers who owned iPods, who all said it was “tight.” I liked more about it than I didn’t like.

But yeah - it wasn’t quite ready for prime time. My biggest complaint was that it was just too big and, looking back, it did lack some key features. But that size - it was the mp3 player equivalent of one of those huge late 80’s cell phones.

So Microsoft dug into those deep pockets and put some money into the next release, the second generation Zune. It is a very worthy competitor to the iPod. It has an enhanced interface, large screen, wireless syncing, touch-sensitive pad, FM radio tuner, and all the bells you’d expect from a prime time media player.

If you’re already on the iPod bandwagon, chances are you aren’t going to jump off. If you’re looking for something new, don’t want to be the next yuppy iPod user, or are trying to decide between the two, I can highly recommend the second generation Zune.

There is the Zune Marketplace, which is a worthy competitor to iTunes. You can purchase tracks one at a time, or you can subscribe to a Zune Pass, which allows you unlimited downloads for $15 a month. A caveat is that if you cancel your subscription, you will lose those downloads. But hey you know you’ll download thousands of songs and listen to the hell out of them, so you know it’s worth it. And you won’t have the RIAA knocking at your door. It’s the cost of 1 CD per month for unlimited music. It’s a good deal. And surprisingly, you’ll often find hard to find tracks that are impossible to find on P2P services such as Limewire. And it’s legit. For example, I found a song by a band I saw back in LA in the 80’s called Hellion. In fact their entire album was available.

It remains to be seen if the Zune can actually make enough of a dent in the market to survive. I’m willing to take the risk. I don’t fall for “Don’t buy a Zune because nobody has one” or “They won’t last” because I don’t care. Nothing lasts forever. Remember when DOS was the main operating system? Remember going to a music store and having to choose between LP’s and cassettes? Remember record stores for that matter? Don’t be such a bandwagon jumper that you let someone else sway you.

If you’re an Apple or iPod zealot, don’t come to me crying about how biased I am. I AM biased, because I don’t like Apple, because I hate being on the bandwagon with everyone else, and because I actually LIKE the Zune. I freely admit my bias. There are plenty of iPod and Zune apologist sites, which this is not. I don’t care if Microsoft and Apple both go down in flames. In this particular battle, I choose Microsoft and gave some of the reasons why. It’s my opinion. You’ll live.

The world is full of lemmings, so don’t be one. Look around for once. Don’t just jump on the most crowded bandwagon. There’s still room over here on the Zune bandwagon.

For now.

You’re not perfect. No one is - even that hottie at the bar last night! Many of our flaws are something we have power over - smoking, weight loss, or a bad temper. But what about something you don’t have control over, such as a disability or even a physical feature you don’t like?These types of flaws - the ones we can’t control - are really the things that frame who we are, because how we deal with it shows the world who we are. Let me use an example… You have two men who are 35 years old and they’re both losing their hair. Guy #1 does everything he can to hide it. He grows his hair, he uses sprays, he wears hats - basically he’s embarrassed by it. Guy #2 not only doesn’t hide it, but he embraces it. He cuts his hair short and never wears a hat. He’s the first one to make a bald joke about himself if the situation comes up. Who are you going to respect more? The guy hiding his flaw or the one who embraces it and moves on? The second guy is not letting this flaw victimize him, but the first guy it.

That story is a bit humorous, but it’s a true story because I’ve been BOTH of those guys. When I started losing my hair, I tried everything I could to hide my problem. Looking back, I think it’s more embarrassing to think of what I did to hide it, than the actual problem itself. I later learned to embrace my hair loss and in a funny way, I think it has taught me many lessons in life. Think of someone like Christopher Reeve. After his terrible accident, he didn’t run and hide from the public. He put himself right there in the middle of the stage, alone, in a wheelchair for the world to see. Did you respect him LESS because of his flaw? Of course not! That man showed more strength from his wheelchair than he ever did onscreen as Superman.

Now I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t get that nose job you’ve been saving up for over the past 5 years. But almost everyone has something they don’t like about themselves. But think about this for a minute. If you had to choose… would you rather have something physically imperfect about yourself, or something psychologically or emotionally imperfect? I’d take the physical imperfection any day. Some people have referred to their flaws as a gift because it has forced them to overcome obstacles and put life in perspective.

So take the flaws you’re stuck with and wear them as a medal of honor. The good and the bad things are what make you who you are. You correct what you can, and accept the rest. You have a lot more to worry about in this world than to worry about physical limitations you can’t control.

There are a lot of new-age type thinkers out there saying that you can positively think yourself into any situation you want. While I firmly believe a positive attitude will take you far in life, I cringe at the thought of people thinking they can will their way into wealth and happiness. If that were the case, there’d be no poor or unhappy people on the planet. Sure you can believe you’ll be a billionaire and you can try to get there by sheer will, but chances are you’ll fail. So then what? Did you fail because of a lack of will? Not at all. And the people selling these ideas - they know it. If you ever see someone peddling a “system” or especially some luring “secret” to success, I can tell you exactly what their secret is: sell mediocre self-help e-books. Other than that, such secrets don’t exist. Be positive, work hard, make the right choices, stay focused… That’s all you’ll learn, and you already knew about those things.

Positive thinking and strong will are fantastic qualities to have, but you can’t rely on them alone. They should be the first step, not the ultimate goal. I played in a rock band in the 1980’s and I knew a lot of guys back then who were absolutely certain they were going to make it big. They dreamed about it. They could taste it, and they were driven by their goals more than any adults in the work force I’ve ever seen. Yet most of those guys struggled for years and years, and eventually gave up and moved onto something else. Some of them are still trying, decades later. You can’t tell me that positive thinking and strong will are enough to make you fulfill your dreams because I’ve seen those qualities - and in people with absolute resolution - and it didn’t get them there.

Now for those of you with a strong will and positive thinking, I suggest adding one more item to your arsenal - and that’s what I call the “inner voice.” It’s simply a conversation with yourself. You’ve probably had hundreds of them already. The only difference is that we are going to consciously do it for a specific purpose. It’s no surprise at this point that I don’t believe in prayer, but I do believe that people who pray have constant conversations with their inner voice, and attribute it to God. They often find the answers they are looking for, but in my opinion they are giving God credit and not themselves. That is fodder for another discussion.

Imagine talking to the most brilliant and qualified psychologist in the entire world - someone who had the ability to help you fix all your problems. What would you say to this person? Remember that a good psychologist will help YOU fix your problems. This person would be objective and ask the tough questions. He’ll play Devil’s Advocate.

So what you’re going to do is go and see this psychiatrist every day, and the great thing is that this doctor is free. Close your eyes and imagine you’re in this psychiatrist’s office. He’ll ask you to tell him what’s on your mind, and off you go.

Hey Doc, I’m really not happy with my job. The problem is, I make pretty good money but I don’t think I could find a job off the street that pays as much as I make now.

What do you think your psychiatrist might say then? He’ll probably ask you another question to get you to think more about it. He might say, “Could you afford to support yourself at a lower salary, doing something you love?”

Think about what you might say there. If the answer is yes, you’ve already helped yourself. You’ve just told me that you can change jobs and take a temporary hit to do something you love. NOW… if you said no, the psychiatrist would probably ask another question. What might he ask? And what might you say?
The only way someone can help you is by asking you questions to make you think about the problem you need addressed. There is no reason you can’t ask yourself these questions.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this and come out of it with the answers I needed. I believe everyone has the answers to their lives already inside them. When you ask someone for advice, they usually just ask you questions until you discover the answer. So all we’re doing here is internalizing the entire process - and cutting out the middle man if you will… to find the answers we need, that we already have in us. Give this one a try and I know you’ll find it rewarding.

I used to struggle with guilt. I felt guilty when I shouldn’t, and really felt guilty when I had good reason. So if you struggle with feelings like regret or guilt, believe me when I say I understand how you feel. But what if we could take those feelings of guilt and turn them into something positive? Make them work for us rather than destroy us inside? Actually we can. Let’s say you’re a parent and you yell at your young son for something, and 5 minutes later you realize you completely over-reacted and start to feel guilty. This is the moment you must decide to let that guilt help you. After all, a valid feeling of guilt is just your subconscious way of trying to correct your behavior. So this time we’re gonna let it correct us.

When that feeling of guilt creeps into you, you start to think to yourself that you overreacted and you hurt your son emotionally for something unwarranted. We can’t go back and erase what happened, but we CAN vow not to do it again. At this moment you need to stop and tell yourself you will NEVER yell at your son again, or at least that you’ll never yell at him again unless you have a good reason. And then you’ll repeat it to yourself. So after you go apologize to your son, and maybe spend a few quality minutes with him, you’ll repeat it to yourself again. For the rest of the day, keep reminding yourself of your mistake and your promise not to make that mistake again. Think of how hurt your son looked and how bad you felt. See, this is where people make the mistake of just forgetting about it or sweeping it under the rug. Some people don’t even want to admit they were wrong - so they don’t appear to be weak. But it’s a strong person who can admit they are wrong. You need to keep that mistake in the forefront of your mind, because you know you were wrong. And here’s the important part - while you’re reminding yourself, DON’T feel guilty! The point here is not to beat yourself up about it. The point is to remind yourself WHY you felt guilty so you can avoid those feelings again. You felt guilty because you did something wrong. If you just forget about it, you’ll forget to adjust your behavior. If you remind yourself of what you did wrong, you’ll have a better chance of stopping yourself the next time you feel the urge to yell.

When you start to feel guilty about something - something you have a GOOD reason to feel guilty about - stop and make a mental note of what you did, how you felt, and promise yourself you won’t do that again. And keep reminding yourself of these things. Of course you might slip up, and that’s OK. Just let the feelings of guilt be your guide to behavior modification. You will feel stronger in the knowledge that you can and will avoid that behavior in the future.

One final note… If you’ve been made to feel guilty your entire life, or if you feel guilty about everything, then you need to sit down and think of why you’re feeling guilty and if it’s even a valid feeling of guilt - or just a conditioned reaction you were raised with. Those are deeper issues than I’m touching on here. But chances are you know the difference between valid and invalid feelings of guilt, and the valid ones can still guide you.

If you’ve played one of the various online games such as World of Warcraft of Everquest, you have probably dealt with video game addicts first-hand. Maybe even you are addicted. This article will address video game addiction and some things to consider when trying to break free of it.

I have played, and been addicted to, both Everquest and World of Warcraft (referred to as EQ and WoW, respectively). In the latter case, the addiction lasted longer, and relapsed. In some respects, it’s a salute to the game maker, who has made a game so good that players find themselves practically unable to stop playing.

One immediate problem is that in gamer circles, a game’s addictiveness is considered a positive trait. Read some of the well known gamer forums and you’ll see rave reviews about how addictive games are to the reviewer. They actually use the term in a positive manner.

Hardcore gamers want a game they can’t put down.

In the case of World of Warcraft, there is no real end to the game. Even when your character hits level 70 (the current cap, which will be raised in the next expansion), there are always more things you can do to improve your character. There are trade skills, better armor, better weapons, reputations to increase, and gold to be made. Not to mention helping your other characters (called “alts”) level up as well.

You can’t finish the game because there is no end.

That’s why Everquest was so well named when it arrived in 1999… There is no final battle. There is no ultimate ending. It just goes on and on…

This is how gamers are so drawn in. Not only is there an immeasurable amount of things to do in the game, but also because there are millions of other players online, making it a social environment. Some people have virtually no social lives outside of these games. I know I certainly made a couple friends online, and there were people far more engrossed than I.

So not only does game play itself keep gamers coming back, but their social investments bring them back as well. There are guilds, which are groups of people who have meetings, plan in-game events, etc. Some members of these guilds literally plan their lives around guild events within the game.

Real life simply becomes a series of bridges between World of Warcraft sessions.

There have been horror stories of extreme addiction, such as the Korean parents who were both Warcraft addicts and whose daughter died due to neglect that stemmed directly from their addiction. Or the young man who died from playing for nearly 50 hours straight. In-game players have often bragged about how WoW ended marriages and relationships. Some players have also stated a preference to the World of Warcraft than the real world. I’ve seen “real life sucks” stated in the game by other players. More than once.

Again, having been an avid player myself, I recognize just how easy it is to get sucked in.

Getting hooked into games such as Warcraft is easy, because it’s very fun early on. The graphics and music are stunning. Building a character up through the early levels is quite easy. It takes only a couple minutes to get from level 1 to level 2. Progress slows considerably later on, and then when you hit level 70, it’s not a matter of leveling up any longer, but of making your level 70 more powerful. Progress gets slower and frustration begins to set in. Instead of looking forward to playing a fun game, it becomes a habit, almost to the point of dreading it. “Oh man I have to win 5 more battlegrounds today,” or “I dread having to go farm materials for tailoring today,”… yet they do it. The game becomes one long, never-ending checklist of things to do.

Things that have absolutely no meaning in the real world.

Sometimes a player will manage to step back enough to take a look at his behavior and realize how far they have gone. A few simple questions helped me see my problem more clearly.

• Who in the real world cares if you played 50 battlegrounds to get your Gladiator’s Helm?
• What could you with all that time you’re playing… to do something to improve your life?
• Has this game affected your life and relationships negatively? Is it worth it?
• Why are you playing this game so much? Am you trying to escape from something?
• Do you get irritable when you try to cut back?
• Do you think about the game while you’re doing other things?
• Do you “sneak” on the game, or conceal your playing in any way?
• Are you playing the game during times you should be doing something else?
• On the usual Tuesday WoW offline times, do you spend your free time reading about Warcraft and basically waiting for it to come back online?

Chances are if you’re reading this article, you’re wondering if you or someone you love is hooked. And if you got this far, you probably already know the answer.

Unlike drug addiction, or even gambling addiction, it does seem that many video game addicts eventually become burnt out and give it up. Not always. And it could take months or years, and oftentimes they simply switch to a new game and continue their addictive behavior. There are dozens of other online games similar to WoW.

From my experience, and from that of my friends who have also played Warcraft, the two best ways to stop are from burnout – and simply realizing that you are wasting valuable time in your life… and also cold turkey. Cold turkey is psychologically tough because you will have the urge to play for a few days. Once you realize how much more you are getting done during your newfound free time, and how many things there are for you to experience in the real world, you start to realize how worthless it is to immerse yourself so intensely into a video game.

Another idea is to give someone you trust your user name and password and have them log into your account. Then have them change the password and the email associated with the account so you can no longer log in. Have them cancel your account and swear not to give you the password in order to re-subscribe. I don’t suggest using the parental control area to limit playing. The only way to break the addiction is to be completely away from the game.

Fortunately, breaking the spell of Warcraft is “only” psychological. You don’t have to physically detox, so going cold turkey will not kill you. It might make you irritable. Like problem gambling, video game addiction is a problem with impulse control. The causes of this impulse control is something you’ll have to address at some point.

After a few days without Warcraft, the real world comes into much sharper focus. You’ll feel an intense sense of relief, and you’ll find many more things to fill your time. Relationships will improve, chores will get done, and you’ll get more sleep. You can start working on a checklist of things to do to improve your real life, instead of the character you played in WoW.

You have to make the decision to do it. Don’t cheat and “hop on for a few minutes.” If you feel you are addicted, you must act immediately and fully. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones. If you feel that breaking the addiction is beyond your control, you may have to seek professional help. And you should never be embarrassed to do so. Do what you can break free of the addiction before the addiction breaks you.

Video game addiction is something you can and will overcome. It will also give you more appreciation of the World of Real Life, which is full of beauty and excitement that no video game can replace.

For further reading, see my post about the reasons people become addicted to the World of Warcraft.

OK so I’ve been quite critical of the far right of the political spectrum, particularly the religious right. Just to be fair, I’m equally offended by the far left, and particularly many of the “elders” of the left, who have roots in the 1960’s young cultural movement… Hippies, flower children, beatniks, et al, were responsible for the explosion of teen sex and drug use in our country. But why don’t they own up to it? Here’s a rant I wrote back in 1999 that I still stand by today…

Many of the problems in America today can be traced back to the so-called peace movement of the 1960’s. The hippies of the 1960’s were a bunch of stoned whacked-out youth who happened to have some great music. And like to complain about “the establishment.”

The Woodstock concert is remembered as an event of historical significance. It was significant for the talent that played, not for the people who attended. There were half a million stoned hippies rolling around in the mud for a “greater cause.” But that cause for most people wasn’t the war - it was drugs and sex. If they were so peaceful, then why did they tear down the fence and barge in, forcing the promoters to lose so much money? I guess freedom at someone else’s expense was OK for them.

Look at the problems in our country. So many of them have roots in drug use, which goes back to the hippies who in many cases introduced or popularized them.

Then the hippies grew up and became parents. But instead of growing up, many became permissive and wanted to be “cool” parents. Their children grew up to mock authority, to take drug abuse lightly, and to devalue morals. And now these hippies are becoming grandparents, they see the problems their grandkids are facing, and now they say “it wasn’t like this when I was a kid.” It probably wasn’t, but they planted the seeds themselves.

But these hippies will insist that they came from a great era where peace and love ruled. They will find a way to blame Republicans or minorities or the schools - or anyone but themselves.

Vietnam was their cause, and a good one. It was a war that should have never been fought. But that war has nothing to do with drugs, permissiveness, and defiance.

Bottom line…
The hippies of the 1960’s have forever stained this country, and they don’t have the courage to admit it. Hippies were the first to ever use drugs or even bring them into this country, but they were on the front lines of the explosion in popularity which did not exist before that era.

Waffles At Noon is not just about disbelief, skepticism, political moderation, and satire. All of that is done to help wake people up… to let go of beliefs that hold them down. Though there are articles such as my Jäger drinking log, which is purely for entertainment, my overall goal is to help people in some way.

So with that in mind, here’s an article I wrote for a website I ran about four years ago. I had a lot of positive feedback on it, so I hope you find it just as useful.

A lot of self help books, tapes, and websites exist out there with the promise of helping you achieve your goals. I have to laugh when I realize most of these “successful” self-help gurus simply made their money peddling their drivel to the lemmings of the world. Most of those end up in the bargain bin because the people who do read them realize that those promises aren’t fulfilled in those books. The worst are the websites that go on and on and ON forever about this big “secret” that they can sell you, and once you have this secret, you’ll pretty much be Superman. I can tell you what their secret is: Sell crappy self-help books, and promise that their contents contain the secrets to everything you could want in life. Cha-Ching!!

Take a look at Jim Carrey’s take on your over-the-top paid programming guru:

Anyway…Achieving your goals is more than positive thinking, and more than those lofty-but-generic goals like “I’ll improve myself every day.” You need a specific plan, and a specific goal in mind. I often ask people what they want - and their goals are vague. Just saying, “I want to make $10,000 a month” is not enough. In fact, that’s more of a RESULT of something than an actual goal, because $10,000 isn’t going to just appear in your bank account every month. You have to EARN it somehow. So let’s say you decided to start your own website, and with that you want to make $10,000 a month. So your real goal is to make $10,000 a month with this magazine, right? So what I’d like you to do is take out a piece of paper. At the top of the paper, write down your goal. Write down the one thing that would make your life better right now. It doesn’t have to be financial. It can be a better relationship with your kids, or it could be cleaning up the mess in your home. What’s the one thing that your life needs the most now? Something that is within your control to change…

So at the top of your paper, write down this goal. Don’t write down a result – such as making $10,000 a month – but write down the one thing that will make this goal happen.

Now let me ask you this… what is the one step just before that goal that will make it happen? If it’s your magazine, maybe getting a mailing list to send it to. If it’s a better relationship with your kids, maybe the final step toward your goal is working less overtime, or if your house is a mess, maybe the final step is cleaning out your garage after everything else is done. What we’re doing here is thinking backward from the ultimate goal - to the step that is required just before that goal.

After we’ve written down our next-to-last step, we need to think backwards one more step. In our magazine example, maybe the step before the mailing list is finding someone to print and mail the magazine. For our relationship example, maybe step we’ll take before working less overtime is to have a talk with your kids and set up a time to do something together. If it’s your messy house, maybe the step before tackling the garage is to have the carpets cleaned.

We’re going to keep working backwards, step by step, until we end up to where we are right now. Our last step in reverse order is to make the list you’re making now, so you’ve just completed step one on your list. Remember, our list reads from bottom to top, so the top of your list should have your ultimate goal and the bottom of your list should have step one, which is making this list on it. Number the steps from bottom to top. Now since we have just completed step 1, we’re going to move on to step 2. From now on, until Step 2 is completed, I don’t want you to worry or even THINK about your ultimate goal. All that matters is getting Step 2 completed. So our list becomes NOT a list of steps, but a list of small goals that become progressively more important. What you’re going to do is get obsessed with step 2. Focus your free time and energy on this step until you make it happen. Don’t look back to step 1 or ahead to step 3. Don’t let yourself become distracted, and DON’T look at the list and become overwhelmed if you have a lot of steps. We’re taking one step at a time, putting all of our energy into each step, and once that’s completed - we’re moving on to the next step. Each step is a goal in itself, so never worry about anything except what’s on the agenda right now. Not only will this help you focus, but you won’t feel overwhelmed, and you won’t be focused on a goal that seems to far away to achieve.

Now unlike some of those phony positive-thinker gurus out there, I’m about to say something negative. You’ll probably fail along the way, and that’s OK. A failure along the way is NOT the end of the world. In fact, it could actually help you do a better job when you do finally reach your goal. Say you’re halfway up your list when something doesn’t turn out as you expect. Say you have 10 steps on your paper, and you’re working on step 5 and something happens and step 5 is not achieved, even though you did steps 1 through 4 successfully. You’ll need to take a look at step 5 and figure out why it was a failure, and what you can do to make it work.

The path to success is never a straight line. It’s often more like a maze, with lots of curves and dead ends. When you hit a dead end, you can just give up… or back track and try another path. You will eventually work your way around the problem and move on. That’s how every successful business in this country rose to prominence.

When I was a kid, I used to love to do those mazes you get in puzzle books. Well when I hit a dead end, I didn’t just give up and put the book away, I went back and tried a different path. A book of mazes is an analogy to a set of goals in life. You keep trying until you finish, because you KNOW there is a path to success. That’s exactly how your steps are going to work. A curve or dead end is not a bad thing, and it might just make your goal that much better.

Just keep your attention focused solely on the step at hand, complete that step, and move on to the next one. Before you know it - you will have reached your ultimate goal, and when you do, I’d love to hear about it.