The usual “Hi, how was your day” and then off to the most important piece of technology in my life…my personal computer which I use to access my World of Warcraft account. Log in, your password is checked, verified and you get to the login screen. Easy, choose your created character (or create a new spawn) and BAM! You are in one of the biggest communities online with hundreds of people to interact with. Whether it is in a group quest, guild or just meeting people at random.

Here, I am one of the few elite gamers that can pretty much do anything that is expected of me. No rules, no degree, no criticism, someone telling me I’m doing it wrong, feed the dogs, do the dishes, make the bed etc…the list is endless. This is my sanctuary.

The question is, “Is it really?”

I recently had to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Is this really the best for me and more important, my relationship with everyone around me? In the past 16 months I have started and grown one of the strongest South African guilds on one of the servers and became a stranger to myself and many people I know. I used to be an extrovert of note, now I am hesitant to approach new people. Odd? Not really if I take into consideration I average about 6 hours a day playing this MMORPG.

I came to the realisation that this is not what I want to become. With my career winking in my direction from the one side and my wife from the other, I decided that I want to be more than a virtual character protecting a non-existing realm and paying someone else to be able to supply me with the weapons of my own destruction. I want to be a bigger success, get fit again, do some exercise, and play some sports, breath fresh air as opposed to this confined room’s atmosphere. I want to become something someone else never was. Unique. Unlike a Warrior, Paladin, Mage, Warlock, Druid or Rogue I want to become…a person. Human again and staying up late to watch movies and not to finish an instance that took 10 people 9 hours to complete. I want to go out and meet friends again, interact with someone from my own country and not some power levelling Korean running 6 screens and 5 separate characters just to sell them on e-bay to make a living and speak broken English.

In the end it all boils down to self-control. If you can’t control it, let it go and cut the bad parts away. I can’t control my habit of playing and like any drug, it will eventually destroy me. What about parental controls you may ask? What is the point of a parental control setting if you control it? I think I should cut this part of my life away and see how my life changes after a few months.

I may be a better person, I may not be, I may even be the next billionaire? Who knows. I only know that we were not created to stare at a 19” screen for that long. Work or Wacraft, you decide. I made my choice.