Ask HN: Describe your most life changing experience

Recently and most memorably? Becoming a parent. I'd been spending decades escaping stress and emotions by losing myself in videogames, and while the shift towards healing didn't happen right away (I was still escaping the new stress of living with a newborn, and my wife bore so much of that burden- if I could go back and counsel my past self, I'd ask me to go for a long walk without earbuds or phone and imagine what it might be like to gestate a human, give birth, and then not only keep the new person alive but work to give it the healthiest environment possible) I eventually came around, got out of my head and started making sacrifices to help my child learn and grow.

I shed a bunch of hobbies, unhooked from anything that begged daily time (Hearthstone was methadone to WoW heroin, and eventually I pulled that plug, too- no more complulsive daily quests) and which didn't help me heal from childhood trauma (daily walks, yes please), and started regularly seeing a therapist, something I've done on and off most of my life, and accept is helpful, and now have a motivating reason to continue: to minimize the baggage I pass on to my child. My parents had rough childhoods and didn't really outgrow that until well after I'd left home. We didn't have a lot of money to cushion (or exacerbate) the impact of dysfunction.

Like with alcohol, I still enjoy games but reserve that indulgence for special occasions, mainly as a way to maintain and grow friendships.

Moving to Maui without a plan at the beginning of 2020. Instagram - @amar.yana. Reach out there if you want to connect.