If I have one piece of advice for any younglings in this thread. This is related to Japanese, give me time to cook.

Give up the video games. There is bound to be some video games addicts in this thread. There will come a time where even if video games dont lose their luster, you will desire things in life more than video games. Knowing Japanese, having a Japanese girlfriend, children, knowing an instrument, being an actor, having interests / general knowledge that arent just video games.

While I still enjoy video games, I realized among my friend group it became a competition. Who can play certain video games first, and then write their 3 paragraph reviews on how “they” discovered this game and you should play it. I started to realize it was ego. They wanted to be the one that recommends us something, they wanted to be the “expert”.

It all started to feel vapid to me. Everyone acting like they are some youtube reviewer. Whats the point? I really dont care about detailed critiques about video games anymore. Im just trying to have fun. And then something clicked where I realized I dont want to talk about this shit anymore and its not rewarding.

I want to live in Japan. I want a Japanese wife. Know Japanese and have meaningful skills. It really doesnt matter if I beat Silent Hill f at the end of the day, if I dont go after any of my real goals. Video games are designed to have the player win. Learning Japanese? Going to Japan? Learning music production? Now thats an ACTUAL hard video game. That is not something designed to let you win. Its a real reward and real challenge. You up for it? Why waste all this time doing fake challenges? Especially when I dont even care to discuss video games anymore?

Since deciding to go to Japan, I completely dropped the gaming and made learning Japanese my video game. So much more rewarding. I may have waited too long to go after my goals, right now Im Goku in critical condition and not much time left to save the world. It may no longer be in the cards for me to have half Italian half Japanese babies anymore, but damn it Im gonna try.

If are younger, dont wait so long like I did. You got time. Go for it or you will be scrambling like I am now. But at the same time, better late than never. I didnt think I could quit video games, it wasnt even my intention. But since heading Eastbound, they naturally got pushed out since Im having so much more fun actually going all out after my real dreams. GO FOR IT! 頑張れ!!!