The Perils of Mindless Consumption

Joseph Seed, the charismatic antagonist of Far Cry 5, drops a line that’s always stuck with me:
“We consume without purpose, and we consume without reason and we consume without regard for one another. We consume all and that is our sin.”

Now, Joseph is not exactly the guy you want to model your life after - his methods are as unethical as they come - but this particular insight? Hard to argue with. Excessive consumption, whether it’s food, media, leisure, or even exercise, doesn’t just clutter our lives; it corrodes them. Too much sugar can hand you diabetes. Too much passive screen time leaves your brain feeling like it’s been left on the charger for a week straight: hot, sluggish, and unhappy. Even too much good stuff can turn toxic.

I learned this lesson the hard way during my first foray into World of Warcraft. I’d been a fan of the earlier games and was lured in by that brilliant ad campaign - “I’m a night elf Mohawk” and “I can shoot lightning… from my hands!” Add a free trial and finally having high-speed internet, and it was GG for me.

I was enchanted. I wandered Teldrassil’s glowing forests, trekked to Darkshore, then to Ashenvale, soaking up music so beautiful it practically rewired my neurons. The first time I teamed up with another player, my brain declared: We live here now. Soon, my real life was an afterthought. I’d drag myself through work half-asleep just to log in for 8-10 hours of Azeroth adventures.

The guild I started thrived. My household turned into a mini gaming commune. Online, I was a leader. Offline? The dishes piled up, the house slipped into chaos, and warning signs at work flashed red while I ignored them. When the agency closed down, I didn’t job hunt. I raided. I told myself unemployment covered my bills, so why not? Depression and anxiety whispered that interviews were dungeons I couldn’t clear, and I listened.

Years later, watching Penny from The Big Bang Theory spiral into a Warcraft hole made me cringe so hard I almost folded in on myself. Eventually, everyone around me moved on. I kept playing alone until one day, staring at my reflection, I thought: Change, or just end it. Because this isn’t living.

That gut punch pulled me into observer mode. I realized I’d become the very thing I feared: the passive, sheep-to-the-slaughter citizen from Max Headroom, consumed by consumption. That moment was my respawn. I stopped hoarding knowledge and started testing tools, tweaking them until they fit me. That’s how the seed of Gamer Girl Coaching was planted.

Excess consumption happens. Sometimes it’s even blameless at the start. But eventually, the responsibility is ours: to notice, to set limits, and to redirect our lives toward meaning instead of endless scrolls and raids.