bite sized: pressing reset

Hey guys, it's Nate and it's time for another bite size. So yeah, we're just gonna, you know, this is bite size content. It's gonna be a little more exploratory, a little more rambly, all the things as a fun little sort of like icebreaker. Even though we don't need to do this. I was recently exposed to a song. I think the. The artist's name is. He's. He's a Korean beatboxer. I think he goes by the name Wing. And the song is called Dopamine. And what's really fascinating is it actually has like this very like. It sounds for significant chunks of the track. It sounds like it like a studio produced EDM sort of type track, but it's all vocalization and beatboxing and it's all like. And it's not even looping. It's like just. He's just. He. He can sort of layer sound effects sometimes. Like he does like. I don't know, it's pretty wild. But I thought that was pretty cool. But it also turns out that there's a song that I had heard a while ago. It sort of showed up in, in like YouTube or Facebook reels or something. But it's also called Dopamine and it's a girl and I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but in one channel, I think the left channel she sings in French and in the right she sings in English, but she sings them simultaneously. Like. So she recorded the separate tracks and she sings them and plays them simultaneously. And it is fascinating. My French, my conversational French is terrible to the point where it's. It's practically non existent. But it was just really. It's. It's also very cool. It's. But different. But anyways, yeah, so. But. And you're like, what does that have to do with anything? You know, obviously I'm going to assume you've seen the title of this bite sized. I titled it Pressing Reset. And you're like, what does Dopamine have to do with anything? Like, why? It's like. Well, I thought it might be useful to just have a little bit of a conversation about sort of maybe Pressing Reset on all the Dopamine cycles, not just in video games, but in life in general. So we haven't really done it, I think for a few years now, but I know for a couple years Josh and I would. Would sort of trot out this thing called Know Something November. And I think it started as no screens November, whatever. But it sort of became like, no something November. And it came November became this time in the spirit of like no shave November. Right. You know, which is like just. I, I don't shave. I scrape, scrape the whiskers off my chin and know some of the ones underneath there. But anyways, yeah, I'm just, just why shave? Be a man and grow a beard. Facial hair rules. But all, all joking aside, sometimes there are people like, if you can't grow facial hair good, it's okay to just, you know, clean it up. But if you can grow it because yeah, yeah, beards are pretty cool. I like them. Do what you want. It's your face. I don't care. I'm not that invested in it. But anyways, so there was this idea of no screens November, no something November. And it was a time that I would take and I would actually encourage the community to take, to step away from something almost sort of like. And it's kind of interesting because we're in the Lenten season as is in the run up to, you know, as we. As one does. I, I'm not observing Lent this year. I have nothing against the church calendar. And in fact, I think in a lot of cases it can be really helpful sometimes. And so I think there's a way to actually practice Lent that is really helpful. I'm really good. I am just not doing it this year, but maybe, maybe next year. But I am sort of. And I guess that's because in, in a lot of ways I'm sort of abstaining. We're actually as a family where we. Megan and I talked and we're sort of. We've decided to basically take this month and there's no like extracurricular expenditures. So we're not buying extra toys for the boy. We're not buying things for ourselves that we don't need. And so it's. It's pretty much. And it's kind of this experiment in sort of establishing what our baseline financials look like. And that's more of just like a in home sort of evaluation audit sort of situation. You know, we're just kind of like, you know, more sort of looking through that stuff and sort of exploring it again. And because like, hey, you know, we, we just realized that there's room for improvement when it comes to budgeting, especially for us, especially for me. But so we're doing that and it just kind of has me in this space where I've kind of been just thinking about. And part of it is just like this year in a Lot of ways, it's. This year is. Has been about sort of like, I had a friend one time, he explained he had this sort of moment in his life where everything. He was like, if my life was a box, like, everything got dumped out. Like, he went through a lot of personal tragedy and a lot of heartache and a lot of hurt. I said as sort of like, you know, he sort of got up and he, you know, kind of put his life back together, and he was allowed to put. And God helped him put certain pieces back in the box. But there was a lot of stuff that kind of got left out and that has just like, that. That. And. And he's like, you know, not everything needed to go back in the box. There was a lot of stuff that just needed to be thrown out, just need to be gotten rid of. And I think that a lot of times that's just true for all of us, that we have a lot of stuff going on in our lives that we probably just need to just sort of get rid of. And so kind of this year, one of the things I'm sort of doing on a personal level, so I'm just exploring, like, a bunch of. I'm kind of trying to bring it back to basics and really kind of establish just, like, healthier rhythms and patterns. Like, one of the things it's like, you know, I've listened to audiobooks. I've had an active subscription to Audible for years at this point. And that started when I started driving truck almost 10 years ago, over 10 years ago. And I just kind of kept it. And it's like, it. It hasn't been, like, a huge financial drain, but it's like. And I. And I listen to a ton of different stuff, so it's always worthwhile, but you just take it for granted. It's like, oh, I need this. And then it's like. And you just think about all the different subscription services when it comes to television, when it comes to, you know, whatever, like, video games, and just like, you're like, oh, I need this. I need this. I need this. And so you have, like, all these things where these. This incremental sort of Greece, where it just kind of like, keeps ticking up and keeps ratcheting up and keeps ticking up and keeps ratcheting up. Just things kept getting added in. And then pretty soon, like, those things become, you know, like, I can't stop, you know, I can't, like, give up my subscription to this. I can't do this. And it's not like Megan and I have turned off every subscription service. Like, we kept. There's like, you know, we use Netflix and Hulu a good bit. And so we kept those because, like, we use them and we're not trying to, like, cut out every single thing, but it's. It's a lot more of, like, all the other little things that. That don't get used. We're just saying, like, hey, is this really worthwhile? And it's funny because when you do that, you just kind of. You're like, oh, I don't need this. Like, one of the things I did earlier in the year or earlier last year was I actually. I canceled my subscription on Patreon to a lot of stuff, and I didn't have, like. I wasn't like, spending hundreds of dollars a month on Patreon, but I, you know, it was like 30, 40 bucks, I think, at its highest a month. And then, you know, even when it was lower, it's like 20, 25. And I enjoyed all that content and I wanted to support, you know, those creators. At the same time, I was like, I don't. I don't need to. And it's not to say that I'll never go back to that and just, you know, but anyways. But there was a period of time for years where it's like Patreon wasn't even like, yeah, anyways, so. And which is kind of ironic because I just said, like, hey, we'd love to have you join our Patreon, but, yeah, hey, we. You know, if. If you're interested, we'd love to have you, but. Yeah, well, golly gee, great on the upsell there. But part of it, though, is that I just. I kind of. I've just been thinking, like, you know, and a lot of modern consoles, I don't know if we really have reset buttons on a lot of our modern, modern hardware. I actually had to do a thing today where I had to reset my iPhone. And it's. It's an older. I think it's a 13. I don't know what we're on now, and I've had it for a few years, but it's like, it, like, it was just being weird, and I had to. And I could, like, I was trying to, like, reset it, and, like, I was holding two side buttons, and that wasn't working, and I actually had to, like, Google how to. It's like, you know, it's up volume, down volume, and then you hit the power button, and it kind of like force quits everything. So there you Learn something. And I will probably forget that until I need it next time, which I will Google it. But anyways, the point is, like, the boxes of our lives get really full with a lot of stuff, and I think it's useful to just take time and sort of, you know, hit pause on all that and sort of really sort of evaluate and. And actually in sort of, like I said, hit reset and sort of give yourself the opportunity to start over again. Be. Because, like, I think that's the thing. It's like, in some ways, you can't go back and change. Like, this is not like a. Like, real life is not like a video game in the sense. And I think we would all. I think, like it a lot more if real life was a lot more like video games where you could go back from checkpoints and sort of, like, run things. Like, there was that. Oh, it's not the Time Traveler's Wife. I can see. It's Rachel McAdams is in it. It's like a romcom sort of thing. But a guy finds out that, like, you know, he finds out from his father that the men in their family have the ability to go back in time and, you know, they. They have this ability where they can sort of, like, skip back into their own timeline and make different decisions. And it's. In some ways, it's a really. You know, it's. It's. It's a really interesting thought experiment. It's also. Whatever that. But anyways, I don't know why I watched that movie, to be perfectly honest. I don't. I can't remember the title of it. I can see it. I can't remember why. I probably watched it with my wife, maybe, I hope. But all that being said, we don't have that luxury. You know, we sort of. We. We live our lives in a linear fashion, but that doesn't mean that there can't be meaningful resets. That doesn't mean that there can't be sort of meaningful breaks. I think sometimes, like, you know, I was looking at. Like I said, I. I had sort of been in this place with my own personal life where it just. I was really starting to feel overwhelmed. And, like, every time I tried to exert some order, like, it just felt like I. There was just never any time. And I still kind of feel that way, right? Because it's like, I'm busy. I'm an adult. I'm working a lot. I'm working overtime for the first time, like, intentionally for. You know, and so that takes up extra time and you know, I've got a three year old and there's all the different things. Like, you know, it's just life. It's, it's kind of like how. But the reality is like, in some ways I'm. Hopefully I'm, I'm learning how to make better use of that time and I'm learning that there's a lot of stuff that, you know, it's sort of like learning how to say no as an adult. I've, I've sort of learned how to, I think, be a little more judicious in the application. You know, there are, there, you know, obviously there are times, especially in Christian living, where we're called to stretch a lot more, you know, and give more of ourselves. But I think there's also like, you know, you can't say yes to everything. And so again, just trying to be a little more, you know, judicious is the word that I'll use and sort of how I exercise that. But yeah, but yeah, I just, it's, it's sort of an interesting thing where it's like I'm going through this and I want to encourage maybe some of you out there who, I think even with video games and video game consumption, it's really easy to get pulled into that loop. Right? Especially, I'd say especially in video games. You know, obviously your time spent in the medium, that's your time and you have to figure out, you have to figure out what's responsible and what's not. Like, you know, you have to, you have. And obviously, hopefully you're going to do that through the, the input and the feedback from family and friends and you know, maybe even a pastor or something like that, but because not everybody's got the same obligations or burdens on their lives. But the reality is like, yeah, you. But if you are feeling overwhelmed and if you are sort of just kind of like feeling like you're treading water, like, I would encourage you to just take a break, stop playing games, like sort of hit reset on everything and you know, figure out what needs to be put back in the box. Um, and, and this is something that I think, you know, I kind of trot this idea out every once in a while and, and sort of talk about it because it's something that I, I do personally and I feel is pretty helpful. Yeah, my beard hairs keep like, for whatever reason wanting. There's like one that just wants to like in the mic there and the little foam pop filtery thing. But I think that it's helpful And I think that's just helpful again, to sort of. To just recognize that, like, this is the general trajectory of life, I think for. Especially in Western culture, especially. Especially in American culture. And I would just say that. I think especially probably in gaming, you know, where there's always the new stuff coming out and you've got to keep up with the conversation and, you know, now more than ever, games, it's just. There's. There's so much. You can't play it all. You just can't play it all. And so I think that there's a way in which we can probably get pretty overwhelmed. And I think it's. It's just really. In those times, it's really important for us to stop, hit, reset and reevaluate. And again, not everything needs to go back in the box. You don't have to play everything and that. And I think, you know, sometimes it is really helpful and is really good and is really useful to just stop sort of and reevaluate. That's. Like I said, part of the reason that this is kind of on my mind is because that's what I'm going through. And I just wanted to, you know, if there's somebody out there who catches this video, I hope this encourages you to maybe do some of this yourself. To. To stop, you know, stop treading water. Stop kind of like, you know, or stop even sort of like, you know, I don't. I don't want to say drown, but like, stop drowning in this, like this busyness and this just this artificially sort of filling up your time and everything else. Like, you know, part of what we want to do here with the breakdown is to encourage and equip the church to engage the video, like video games, the medium of. And the genre and the different genres of video games wisely and well. And I think sometimes that means, like, you know, that again, this is sort of an exercise. And I think, like, specifically, you know, we can talk about video games, but I think in general, this. This is just sort of broader. This is just about life. So you don't have to play it all. You don't have to do everything. You don't. And there's a lot of things that you can get rid of because you didn't need them before. There's just a lot of things you don't need. I think. I do think, you know, some of this is, like, it's. It's probably pretty helpful in a time where, you know, everything is just getting more expensive. You know, that's that's kind of what's prompted some of our stuff here in the McIver household is just that life is, it's expensive. But yeah. Anyways, that being said, I just like I said, I, I wanted to share a little bit of what was going on with me and again, hopefully encourage anybody out there who might need, might need it just to like, hey, take a break, you know, set, set some things aside for a season, reevaluate and see what needs to be put back in the box and sometimes see what just needs to be tossed. But yeah. Anyways, guys, that's all I got for you. I hope you have a good night. Good day. Good. Whatever, Whatever time this finds you, hope you're doing well. Yeah. Until next time, you know, be good and do the things. Well, I'll talk to you later. You. By.