This year, March 24 marks 9 years since I first became an administrator on this server on March 24, 2014. I was originally approved under the TPaS (Telnet Picks a Super) program that was around at the time, with JagWire being the lucky winner. Since then, a lot has happened. I've learned so much from this server, befriended so many within this community, spent so many hours in voice calls with members of the community (whether it be over Discord or even Skype), and have witnessed some of the most bizarre and wacky shit that I would never have gotten to see elsewhere. For better or for worse, this server has kept me playing Minecraft for more than a decade, and the fact I haven't gotten burnt out from playing the same game and doing the same thing over and over again for nearly a decade is an incredibly impressive feat.
Despite all that though, I would like to take this opportunity to stress the importance of maintaining a healthy relationship with online communities (as in, don't grow too attached to them) and (most importantly) prioritizing your real life over them. Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way. There was a period of time from late 2021 to early 2022 where my life was taking a sharp decline as I began to sleep less and less (I was staying up sometimes until 6 AM, waking up only an hour later) out of fear that this server would collapse in on itself if I wasn't there to intervene. My extreme dedication towards this server also had the unfortunate side effect of severely damaging my academic life and I've had to delay my graduation to make up for it. That doesn't even account for the lasting effects of flunking several grade levels that have yet to fully realize their impact on my future, and I know it will.
Things have gotten better since then though. During 2022, I realized how much of a shit state I was in and proceeded to do a bunch of things to improve my state of living. This included quitting soda, de-prioritizing TF, re-prioritizing what actually mattered, quitting social media (I even deleted my Reddit account in September 2022), maintaining a proper sleep schedule, and adjusting my diet. The impact these changes made were almost instantaneous. I've generally felt a lot happier with myself and the frequency of depressive episodes I've had has significantly reduced to marginal and manageable levels. My academic life is also improving. There's still a bunch of work to be done to really improve my state of living, but these are great first starts.
Ultimately, my relationship with this server and its community since March 2014 have been bittersweet. On one hand, I have made a lot of close friends, learned a lot of important life lessons, had a lot of memorable moments with the community, learned a lot of important skills, and had a lot of fun. On the other hand, for the longest of time I had an incredibly unhealthy relationship with this server and stupidly prioritized it over my life, something which I am still recovering from the fallout of to this very day. While I wish that I had balanced my priorities when it was the most needed, unfortunately there's nothing I can do to change the past. The only thing I can change now is my future, and that's something I hope to do moving forward.
Ask me questions.
