Author: Johnny To
Publish Date: 2025-03-21
Last Modified: 2025-03-24

I did things because I had to, not because I wanted to.

As a child, I was taught to do things because they needed to be done. I didn’t care much as long as it made those around me feel happy that it was done. This continued from then on, I became a people pleaser. What a terrible thing to become, never thought for myself, just did what made other people happy.

My Early Life

I define my early life where certain memories of mine clearly divide a before and after timeline. For me, anything from being born up until I had done homework outside my doorstep with some of my neighborhood friends. It was a study group and we had a great time. If I remmeber corectly, up until this point I was in the 3rd grade. This was the time where I made sure to do all my homework, get straight A’s, and do well in school.

It was up until the fourth grade where I needed to have a home desktop computer to do essay assignments at home or whatever reason it was to get a computer. This is where I learned about PC games, and played games with a friend from school. 2007 was a good year for RuneScape, and I could not stop playing it. Runescape after school, Runescape on the weekend, Runescape was all I thought about! Of course, I still made sure to complete all my homework and do well in school. As the years went by, I’ve played dozens of different PC games and it became part of my identity. I was a PC gamer and I enjoyed every second of it. My grades were okay in 5th grade to 6th grade, although I did have to call my best friend in the morning to rattle me the answers to the assigned math homework in the morning.

Middle School and High School both blew by fairly quickly. The routine did not change, weekdays play PC games after school, weekend play PC games all day & night long. Summer vacation came and went each year. The plan was to procrastinate and play videogames all summer long until the last week. Then during the last week, slam all the 5 books I pretended to read and write essays about them for the summer vacation reading assignment.

This was my routine, I had fun, and I loved every second of it.

Best,
Johnny