The last few years have been awful. This means that the New Year’s resolutions we make to ourselves as we enter 2022 are more important than ever.
That’s why for my New Year’s resolution I’m not telling myself I’m going to lose weight or write a novel or eat less pizza (you’ll have to pry my pizza cutter from my cold, dead hands). Instead, I’m going to make a promise to myself that will do me a lot more good: play more PC games.
I’m not joking either. This will be my goal for 2022. And it’ll do me a lot more good than forcing a FitBit on my arm or wherever you’re supposed to stick them.
PC gaming is a comfort
The most important reason for making this resolution is that since I was young, PC gaming has been a comfort. Sure, it’s often a complete pain in the wherever you stick a FitBit, such as when you try an install a game via the Xbox Windows 11 app on any other drive apart from C:, but throughout the years, it’s been wonderful escapism as well.
From the first PC games I played on my beloved Amiga A500+, to immersive graphically impressive titles I have sitting in my Steam library, PC gaming has allowed me to escape the sometimes stressful and upsetting real world. It’s let me set sail for mythical islands whispered about in pubs by wannabe pirates over mugs of grog, fly across the world in all manner of aircraft, and visit far-off planets. Most importantly, it’s allowed me to switch off. When I’m playing, I’m not thinking about work or bills or the end of the world; I’m not doomscrolling on my phone.
Instead, I’m liberating an island from a dictatorship, planning an elaborate assassination using an exploding rubber duck or building the theme park of my dreams. Sometimes all at once.
It’s an act of mindfulness and mental breathing space. For some reason, playing games is often dismissed as a childish hobby, but I’ve found it to be more effective for improving my mental health than more ‘grown up’ mindful techniques like meditating – and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Something I’ve found during this past difficult year is how important it is to look after your mental health, so for 2022 that’s what I am going to prioritize.
Making time to play
3 Tips for getting into PC gaming
1. Laptop or desktop?
If you want to get into PC gaming, you’ll need to decide if you want a gaming laptop or gaming desktop PC. Gaming laptops are portable and powerful, while PCs offer more value for money – and can be upgraded.
2. Know the specs that matter
Sometimes specs can be a bit confusing when buying a gaming PC or laptop (and checking if games can play it), but you really just need to make sure it has a modern processor and decent graphics card (Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series and AMD’s Radeon 6000 series are the most recent).
3. Have fun!
The most important thing is having fun. With PC gaming you have access to an immense amount of games – as well as many community-made mods. These can improve and transform the games you play.
While I love playing games on my PC, I’ve found it harder than ever to make time to play them recently. This has been a shame, as it’s meant I’ve not been able to take the time out I’ve needed mentally, while also having – you know – some fun. Which is also important.
But, real life has an annoying habit of getting in the way. I’ve not had a chance to play as much as I’d like to – and that in itself has been stressing me out.
It means I have an RTX 3090-powered rig that’s not been used for much outside of opening up Word, while my Steam, Epic Games Store and other libraries continue to grow with an untouched backlog.
So, I have the hardware, and I have the games. But I don’t have the time. So, for 2022, I’m going to make the time. Carve out a little bit of the day every so often to escape, and chip away at that backlog.
Achievements
Another important aspect of this New Year’s resolution is that it’s actually going to be achievable. For too many years, I’ve made resolutions that were too ambitious, so even if I did well, I’d inevitably fail and beat myself up about it. That’s not healthy.
With this one, it’s something I actually can do, and that’s going to once more help me feel positive. In the end, the New Year’s resolutions we make should help us, even in the smallest ways, not make us feel inadequate.
So, that’s why for 2022, I’m going to be playing a lot more PC games.
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