Friends, family, work, and recreation are all important parts of life. We all have priorities, some the rest as others, others can be quite unique. But, where's the line? How much of each thing do we focus on and if there are many facets, how much do we focus on each part? This series is about my journey to build my social confidence up through video games and other various means.

I am sure that this part has been dreaded. The moaning and groaning of being put through yet another talk of ethics, moral obligations, etc. Well, yes and no. I believe it's important to put a large part of your focus on friends, family and keeping food on the table. But damn it, we all need that alone time as well. Yet, even in gaming, I feel an obligation to my friends to game with them, even if there's a single player game I want to play. I also sometimes feel left out if there's a group of friends playing a game I do not have. It could be residual wreckage leftover from losing the group of friends I used to game with.

Being a gamer, balancing time between multi-player and single player games has been the biggest hurdle for me. Recently, the PC v. console aspect has been gnawing on me. I have games on both consoles and PC I want to play, yet the more social aspect for me is on PC. Especially with Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2, and a bunch of games I have on my PS3, and X Box 360 I want to play through/ finish, it's hard focusing. I'll let you know if/ when I work this part out.

No one says relationships don't require any work. The best relationships require little work. This is the case with me and my girlfriend, who I happily live with. We've had our struggles and spats over our 2 ½ years of being together. She gave me an ultimatum between her or WoW when I became, once again, obsessed with it. I of course chose her and we moved on from there. I can tell having a gamer boyfriend is not the easiest thing for her. Yet, I'm not that guy who will just keep gaming if she needs attention or has something important to talk about/ do.

It's hard to balance pleasantries and what's important. In my teenage years, in one of his infamously lengthy life-lesson lectures to me, my dad told me that it's like tending a garden. The family plant would need more water than the friend plant. The friend plant would need more water than the work plant. The work plant would need more water than the recreation plant. You get the point. Do I live by this philosophy and mindset now? No. Yet, it sticks with me now and helped me become the nice and easy going guy I am now, on a more ethical level.

I maintain relatively regular contact with a few high-school friends, my brother, dad and live close enough to my mom that I see her regularly. I have my reasons for being distant and pretty independent, and that's okay too. The way I look at it, if you feel content with how you balance things, then you don't need to change a thing. I don't feel that content in my life, very few people do.

Helping SuperMassive (thegamerpost.com) has helped me find some balance on a social and creative level. His words of, You give such great advice. You need to take it yourself, stick in my head and I realize how lucky I am that I tend to surround myself with good people. I work hard to be a good person, despite the fact that I'm not among the most outgoing and that leads to being more balanced and content.

I'd like to be able to write more. My lack of self-confidence, and therefore motivation, keep me from sitting down and writing. This series has definitely helped me, as has taking a good-friend to college over the last three days. I know I'm creative enough and somewhat knowledgeable enough to write the fiction I've had in my head for years. Just putting pen-to-paper (quite literally) is not the easiest thing and can be quite scary. Yet, it also can be thrilling and I'm looking forward to what I can turn out once I get myself writing again.