My first ‘break’ in almost three years: What I learned, realized, and reflected on.

If you all haven’t already noticed, I took a whole five days off from this site as an experiment to see how I’d feel, test a sudden transition, and see if my overall life improved or declined over a week without spending any time at all on chess.com or Discord. This thread is to record what I've learned about myself, my limits, personal realizations, reflections, notes for the community, and more. If you have an attention span that allows you to read this, I think you’ll enjoy it and appreciate an interesting perspective of someone just like you. If you choose to post here, make sure you read through this first. Your comments are unwanted if they are off topic, spammy, or don’t contribute anything to this topic, which I worked pretty hard on. Thanks.

Why I did this

In my almost three years of posting actively for hours a day on OTF, I realized that I could not remember a time when I had not posted for ONE day, much less an entire break for at least a few days.. For most of these three years, and especially more recently, I realized that I was wasting so much time every day posting here on OTF. I wanted to experiment by forcing myself to stay off of chess.com and Discord for one week to see how my mind reacted, learn things about myself, and see if my life improved or declined throughout my break. Besides, I have not been enjoying OTF much lately because of the continuous mind-numbing threads (and people) that keep showing up. 

The process

I went offline like every school night at around 9:00, and messaged the few people I talk to consistently to tell them that I was taking a break for a few days. The next morning, I woke up, did my daily routine, and checked my notifications for chess.com before I drove to school — it had been my routine for many years now. Day one was by far the most difficult day of my break, given that I had made such an abrupt decision to change a huge aspect of my daily life by trying to completely cut out OTF. I opened the app on my phone at usual times (during lunch at school, randomly throughout the day, etc.), and found it difficult not to post or answer messages. Days two and three were similar, but a slight bit of progress was made. I (without thinking about it) filled my time up by talking to friends, reading, running, and doing other tasks. I still had urges to check in on what was happening, see what messages I had, and return to my ‘normal’ lifestyle, though.

But day 4 was a huge breakthrough. I was busy most of the day anyway, which helped further allow me to grow and not think about the internet very much. Day 4 was a perfect reminder that I could do better with my weekends than talk to immature pre-teens on the internet most of the day.

And then came the last day — day 5. I woke up yesterday and didn’t even think to check chess.com. The entire day, I checked chess.com 3-4 times, and came to a major realization that I simply didn’t need chess.com and OTF to survive.

Everything went pretty smoothly, to my surprise. The first two days, especially, were very hard for me, since I had gone from spending hours a day here to randomly deciding to not use the site at all. But as the days went on, the urges to open the app or website lingered less and less. I still think that 5 days is too little time for the experiment, but it was enough to realize that my life is better off if I limit my time here. But more on that in the reflection.

My very long reflection (pink, since it’s a love letter)

For the first time in nearly three years, I finally took a break. The first few days were extremely difficult to adjust to, but as time went on throughout this little challenge, I realized that I didn’t need chess.com for the first time. Instead of posting super actively, I played sports with friends, read more, and found better uses of my time. I talked to more people at school randomly, since I had more confidence and felt freer. But maybe that was just a placebo.

In the mix of all of the positives I got from doing this, it was still pretty hard. It sucked to find the willpower not to post, and much harder, not to answer messages or send out any of them. I missed talking to many of you, and especially the few people I DM every single day. I knew, of course, that this feeling was inevitable, given that my brain was (and is) adjusting to the rapid change 

The biggest thing I realized is that in the few times during my break when I did check OTF, I was not missing anything. It was filled with the usual spam threads, the same validation-seeking individuals, and the parts of OTF that make it lame and unentertaining for people of a certain age and maturity level. I had no FOMO at all because the whole front page was filled with spam and uninteresting content created by 9-12-year-olds. 

On that note, I’d like to say that I will be spending a lot less time here. If this silly 5-day break taught me anything, it was that spending hours in a community built on annoying users and threads isn’t needed in my life anymore, and that my time is better spent anywhere else. I’m at a point in my life where I’m both too old and too mature for a place like this. I want to set a higher standard for myself, which means limiting my time here. Besides, people like me aren’t meant for OTF, at least now. My harsh criticisms and honesty aren’t taken well by the younger generation of this community, and spam and unoriginal content is being more glorified than ever. 

As the community shifts to more of a kid’s playground-type online environment, there is no reason to expect that anything will change and continue to actively post threads and comment actively. I don’t need OTF, and OTF doesn’t need me. Nuff said. 

During my break, I felt freer not being confined to this place. I was in a lovely state of mind that allowed me to enjoy my day-to-day life by finding different ways to spend my day. I talked to more people, hung out with my friends, watched a new TV show, and was on top of my schoolwork. Outside of the difficulty of this 5-day break without posting or messaging anyone, everything I did had a positive outcome in the end. 

It’s clear to me that I’m not going to spend as much time as I have for the last few years here. In the midst of school, work, and a possible Valentine if I play my cards right, my hopes are that this website doesn’t consume my life, and is more of a background app for me to use when I’m bored.

I did miss messaging many of you (you know who you are, woohoo) and posting here, but I’m glad I did this.

Advice for the community

Many of you who’re reading this (assuming you made it this far, which is unlikely) are teenagers or even younger. I want to let you know that even though it will seem like it, chess.com doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. What I want to say is that if any of you realize you’re spending too much time here or are thinking of taking a break, that you should take about a week or more away from the site and see how you react. That goes for any site or anything in life. Sometimes taking a step back is a step forward in the right direction, even it’s incredibly hard to take that first step. If you do decide to take a break, realize that the first few days will be difficult. But if you give it enough time, you might realize that you don’t need this place to function. 

Take breaks, relax, and realize that you have a real life and purpose outside of this website that’s more important. That’s about all that needs to be said.

first-

Now time to read it-

I'm still reading

BASIX IS LEAVING?!?!?!?¡?- oh wait

Dang. RIP everyone's leaving or going less active.

The OTF retirement speech.

Left for 5 days... discovered inner peace... touched grass, read books… Came back to 12x “rate my pfp” threads and a 10-year-old claiming they invented chess. Character development fr.

It’s for their own good.

Your boy is all grown up. Soon he’ll be playing bingo on Friday nights and reminiscing on the days where he had the largest OTF thread.

What's stopping YOU from leaving, Basix?

Took a few breaks from chess.com social, too. I can confirm the same feelings of better mental health, happier and more productive days and, of course, more time, given the fact I was more spending hours in life, enjoying myself than online. Thanks for the thread, I appreciate all the work put into it, and Good luck with the future if you do end up leaving, or staying here on OTF, just know we wish you a good life wherever your ideas may land.

Hm

#13 Sorry for all the punctuation mistakes. I can assure you I have improved on it, but I wrote this in a rush and now notice a few errors..

Since you've been complaining about OTF so much, escaping to DMs doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Or you could make a club. A small club. You and your friends. I know you've been against them, but from what I've heard from you, it seems like the reason you don't like clubs is because of your experiences in them, and a small club is easier to manage.

That’s pretty much the plan. I’m probably just going to be more of an OTF lingerer who posts, but not very much. Using the site for messages with people I like to talk to is definitely the best way to go.

you should order this by day to make it slightly easier to understand

This is a lot like F1’s 1-month leaving story.

It’s only visible how it affected you much more than F1 since he wasnt that much active I think.

Anyway, what do you think about me, Basix? Im in clubs, 90% of job I do is in evening 22.00 - 0.00, 1.00, during the day I only answer DMs since its the only thing my phone is capable of.

Have you tried Lichess? I am kidding.

I would describe what you did as a fast. Most people only think of fasting as a diet trick. We can fast from anything. The point of Lent (apologies for religious reference) is basically this. I do believe 5 days is scarcely long enough and you will notice quickly your habits returning as they were before, without conscious effort.

I did read pretty much every word of this. Thank you for your effort and whatever help this brings to this, uh, community.

I did — it was just in paragraph format. I didn’t want to write a short paragraph for every single day, since I really didn’t have much to say in general.