Passion for the Game of Life

Kevin Roberts had a heart-wrenching account of his struggle with video gaming addiction and his recovery from it. An alcoholic may try to stay away from liquor, but how do you stay away from computers and mobile phones in today's day and age? He found the answer for himself and communicated it well in his superb book "Cyber Junkie"; find a passion for life, find a passion for people, get a real life instead of a having virtual one.

Kevin has started self-help groups for the video gaming community and has reconnected with his passions for music, languages and teaching. He also described significant others, who were recovering alchoholics themselves, who helped him on his recovery journey. So he has made it his goal to repeat the same feat in others. That is indeed it! That is the way out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. We are here to pull each other up, and as we are fighting for the mental peace of others we are discovering that peace is penetrating us in the same way. This is the Law of Oneness at work, whatever service we provide to others, we really provide to ourselves. Find for yourself that if you are passionate about something or someone, the voice in your head gets something to do, at least temporarily.

Kevin described his therapy sessions when he hung out in a cafe with the Alcoholic Anonymous folks he played chess with him. They drank tons of coffee and smoked endless numbers of cigarettes in the process. I was thinking for myself, isn't that just trading one addiction for the other, but then I realized that this trick is similar to the aim of finding passions in your life; yes, drinking excessive amounts of coffee and chain smoking is yet another addiction, but it is at least a first step towards having a passion for life. Hang out with people you care for, find your creative outlets and if you can especially do this by filling yourself up with coffee then so be it.

Kevin also linked cyber and gaming addictions with the tendency to have ADHD or having a social anxiety disorder. An attention starved brain lights up with the never ending electronic and virtual triggers and instant gratifications of the video games. Similarly, when you are socially awkward, the elaborate set-up of the virtual worlds are tempting to get sucked into. It is a fantasy world of your making and finally you can master a world with the same finesse as your extrovert friends master the real world.

It seems pretty clear that the struggle with addictions and compulsive behaviors will only increase over time. Technologies will ever evolve and with every decade that goes by, the virtual reality that is so carefully crafted to our longings and fantasies will outshine the stale "real" one. The bar is being raised on every generation, but please don't get upset about it. We will rise to the challenge. These gimmicks are just there to make us wake up from our collective dream. When you start seeing a crack in the Matrix, soon everything implodes into nothingness, as you one day may discover for yourself.

Kevin described the mental break-down of a gambling addicted friend who suddenly heard "real" voices in his head. The fantasy land we crave, the running away from life all serve one goal and that is to cater to the voice in our head. Well, the voice in your head is not you as spirituality has claimed for thousands of years. So if you get this insight, even if it is the hard way by running into a wall, you will be a step ahead of the "ordinary" folks who still have to get to that stage.

The road towards freedom is three-fold. First you discover that running away from life, though so tempting, is a road to hell. There is someone important in your life who will scream loud enough for you to listen. It might be your parents, your partner, your children, your childhood friends, your boss. Someone will get through to you. And when this moment of truth hits you, a clean-up process and spiritual self-discovery journey will start that will last a life-time. Step 2 in this process is to reconnect with life. You then realize that your cravings are way too powerful and that they may never go away. The only way to sideline them is by drowning them with stuff that is even more important to you. You are in fact surrounded by soul siblings who pull you up, or even more powerful, soul siblings who need your help instead. Similarly, you suddenly discover that you have a gift to share with humanity and that your passion for expressing this creativity inside of you is stronger than all your cravings.

The first two steps are indeed the discovery of a Tao traveler. You suddenly see that life is the most amazing virtual reality show ever invented. Not from the perspective of catering to the demands of your " I", but rather from the perspective of taking your attention away from it. Along the Tao you sideline the voice in your head in the same way as the recovering addicts sideline their cravings with the help of coffee, or caring for others and caring for life. The Tao traveler is in the same virtual reality game called life as the addict is, only you operate on a much higher spiritual dimension.

Step 3 is to outgrow all your passions. The Tao will show you that there is nothing to cling to anymore. Your fires burn out like the fuel tank of a rocket that is shot into outer space and as they drop of all that is left is the ongoing motion propelled by love. Love for what you do, love for your all your soul siblings and love for God. You graduate from passions to serenity. The voice in your head becomes still. Do not loose sleep over how this state might be reached, it will grow on you. If you follow the cues of the Tao, if you embrace life day in, day out with everything you got, you will graduate from the game of life. Peace will naturally penetrate larger areas of your life with every year that goes by. Do not aspire to become "normal" again, you can become so much more potent than that. The "normal" people are the ones who haven't yet reached stage 3 in our spiritual journey. Get ready for a magnificent journey of joy, love, peace and serenity. Let your problem help you find your passion for life - the Tao - and let Her lead you straight home. It is as easy as 1 2 3.