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There was a time in my life, way back in 2006, you know AGES ago when I could play WoW when-ever and how-ever I wanted to. There was not a whole lot of things that kept me away from the game, but now that I am married, working full-time and have 3 boys to wrangle, things are different. I know that many of you are parents, and have a lot of responsibilities. How do you manage to juggle your RL with your WoW life?

I still remember when all I wanted in life was an Xbox 360. Every time I went to a store that sold one, they were always out. It came down to me paying a guy that worked in the stockroom at a store that was getting a shipment for me to finally get one. I played the heck out of the 360 and made a ton of friends on Xbox live and that was my life for a long time.

My roommate played WoW and he was always talking about his mage. I remember making fun of him, hurling fireballs at stuff and fighting dragons, I was playing Ghost Recon, and earning achievements on the 360! I felt so much more of a gamer than he was. It is just one of those things when you live with a guy, and he does nothing but talk about this game, that you are going to get curious.

The rest as they say, is history.

Not only did he hook me up with a free trial of the game, he built me a computer literally of spare parts in his room! I remember the days of leveling my little dwarven priest, fear ward in hand, dreaming of the day I would hit 60 and do this thing called raiding. The problem is I had class, so I skipped a couple now and again, and while I never did miss work because of WoW, I did go through a period where I was missing my 9 am classes pretty regularly, and when you have 9 AM classes and work until 11 PM, that makes for a pretty long day.

Fast forward to today. I am sitting on campus and graduating in December. I am wondering if I should play or finally write something for the website. I can’t play much at home because not only are there dishes and cleaning up of the house to do, but my internet connection is pretty much the quality of two tin cans and string attached to them. I really want to play right now, but there are other things that need doing.

I know that Stompalina is going through a similar situation in her life. There is a new job, and more responsibilities there. She, like most of us are very driven and want to excel at everything that we do, from raiding to meeting Emmet Smith. (/jealous) The fact of the matter is, sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day to get the kids, fix dinner, do a pile of laundry, clean up a little and then log in. Something has to give, and often it is WoW that suffers.

We all need to find that sweet spot in our life. We typically meet some really great people through the game and enjoy not only the game mechanics and exploring the wonderful world that Blizzard has created for us, but also the social aspect and the friendships developed from questing and raiding together. I have wonderful stories that I don’t think I will ever forget from this game, and the pressures of life should not put an end to relationships that I have that are years in the making.

What I have found to work for me it to find that time for yourself. For many of us, we choose to log in to WoW and spend our time doing silly things like spamming “I’m an iceblock!” Heck, put it in your Outlook calendar. Maybe you need to set aside 4 hours on Saturday night to raid, or knit socks, whatever you need to do to make sure that you have some ‘fun’ time.   Make sure that whatever it is that you do to relax in life, that you make sure that you have that time. I have found that balance in my life, and that sweet spot is pretty nice. Now get on your level 29 Rogue and own some face in AB!