TOPIC: My Sincerest Apologies

I haven't done a post like this for a while. The last thread I made where I openly discussed my CM campaign as well as my current plans and general feelings about the job has been a few months ago, and I never went into great detail.

I'm going to start off with providing everyone that happens to be interested with some necessary context. If you have no interest in the general state of my life, feel free to skip this and go to the first sentence that I have written in bold.

As some of you may or may not know, I studied Journalism for the past year. It's been a blast for the most part, but it was extremely hard work as well. Writing articles and reviews really doesn't come as naturally as I had hoped, and the time to carefully research the necessary literature had been disregarded by me to focus on the community instead.

When I wrote my 7000-words Community Manager application (which took me four full days together with all the necessary research) I was actually supposed to dedicate my time on writing reports and learning for my tests. It was at that time that I made a choice: dedicate my time to a college course that, although immensly enjoyable, would only have the preferable result if I would fully shift my focus entirely to it, or do something that I have been anticipating and working towards for over a year that would not only be my "dream job" but also provide me the necessary experience that would hopefully benefit me later in my life.

I believe it's rather obvious which choice I made, and I was officially told I failed my studies mid-June. If I wanted to I could still provide all the necessary work in August and get all my college credit regardless, but this summer I realised that I simply don't want to put in the amount of work needed to finish my journalism studies whilst also focussing on this community.

However as much as my dreams to become a food journalist have currently stagnated I will still have to do something with my time that is not this community. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of me living out of either of my parents' homes and the bills won't pay themselves. Either I study and use my college loans, or I spend all my time working. As the latter is too great a risk for me to take I have predominantly focussed on the one question: what do I want to study?

The issue with this question is that I need to study something that I'll enjoy doing for a good part of the rest of my life, and I honestly don't have a simple answer to that. Last year it was immediately clear to me that I would study Journalism. There was no doubt in my mind that that is what I would do, and so I never properly pondered over the question "What if it isn't what I expect it to be."

Because I've never properly thought about it, this summer has been filled with more stress and anxiety than I have had before. I have less than half a month to decide what I will almost definitely have to keep doing for the rest of my life, and it's only recently dawned to me how important of a decision that will be.

All this stress and anxiety has been boiling for some time now, but it's finally reaching a point where I quite honestly can't take it anymore. This summer I need to make the most important choice of my life, but instead of giving myself the time and opportunity to properly think it over I instead find myself trying to find refuge within the community and other games. But because of this growing feeling that I'm fucking everything up, I don't properly do my job nor do I focus properly on my life. I'm quite literally in the exact spot where I shouldn't be - I'm neither helping the community nor am I helping myself.

Not just that, the stress of being a community manager has become a lot for me to bare as well.

Everybody continuously needs me for something. "Why did X get banned", "Why did this staff member do this", "What do I need to improve on" and the continuous stress of having to make extremely difficult decisions regarding several community members. And everyone literally judges you for it, as well. I can't tell people that I highly disagree with having demoted that one high ranking staff member, or having community banned that one guy that one day. It completely ruins the point of the community team - if I openly show a disliking for our own actions, then how can people have trust in us at all?

And so I have to apologise.

Tasks such as writing new policies, setting up a Discord and properly communicating with the community as a whole to find out what the best course forward is for all of us have been entirely disregarded by me these last few months. I've been playing a lot of other games like EU4 and Prison Architect whilst avoiding Garry's Mod more than I preferably would. I've become snappy at people. Instead of trying to talk things out when conversations get heated, I've insulted users and staff members. I especially should apologise to OnionRings, who I've shouted at twice, in one case quite literally for no reason and in the other case I was behaving excessively.

Since I'm apologising I guess I should also say sorry for deleting the Deathrun server a while back. It was a complete accident, but it was entirely because of me not paying enough attention and making errors I was specifically told not to make. I'm sorry for anyone that wanted to enjoy Deathrun at the time and I'm sorry to Annie and Windows for completely destroying their server.

Sorry for this long ramble I suppose. I just needed to get all of this off my chest.

Mr Red X wrote: If someone is going to pour their heart out in a post at least have some decency to read it before replying.

Honestly while I was reading all the way through that, it was only until the end that I realised it wasn’t a resignation post

Thank god

Mr Red X wrote:
If you cannot be bothered to read it then don’t bother to reply on here.

Anywyas Raeker, I don’t know what you are thinking of right now. It’s like you are trying to put your life into Zarp, a gaming community when you have a whole life ahead of you and a very good job you can get yourself into and continue with your life instead of laying around here. However, that is your choice and I cannot stop you from choosing that, it’s just my point.

I appreciate the apology to me for what you have recently done for no reason at all lol, anyways hope you sort shit out.

Mr Red X wrote: how can you accept his apologies if you don’t even know what he’s apologising for?

Raeker, this is a short reply but I just want to let you know that I mean this. You are genuinely a great guy and not only have you been nice to me but you are nice to everyone. Everyone has made mistakes and real life comes before a gaming community. You have done a lot for the community and if you feel like you need a break, you should take it.

You have done so much for the community that we can't repay you I think you should take a break and studied your journalist and I accepted your apologize

Don’t really know what to say, wish I could force you to focus on your life a bit more but I really can’t. Good luck and I hope things will go better from now on.

We need a megaweek

You shouldn’t feel the need to apologize, you have done more for this community than any other staff member I’ve seen.

Raeker, first off I would like to say your the only person to come out and talk to me about issues I’ve had in the past, you have complemented me on how I staffed on jailbreak and have treated me like a friend not just a player or another number on the server. Your an amazing guy and everyone makes mistakes I understand where your coming from with your classes and stresses I’ve had the same thing too. Once again your an amazing guy learn from your mistakes and you have done amazing things to this community!

good better be fucking sorry

No need to apologize, take a break and figure yourself out.

Legit a fucking legend.
Don’t apologize you are the most helpful and hard working person in zarp probably the next owner.
I’ll pray reaker4owner

When it comes down to it college will always be more important than a temporary Garry's Mod community. Look at what's important for your future and pursue that and literally always remember school comes first no matter what. Games are what we do in our spare time and regardless of how high your position is in the community, in the end, it still is a game and should be left in your spare time after studies even if that means having significantly less activity. Tbh even doing that you'd still have the same activity as the majority of staff in higher positions.

Raeker, take care of yourself first. Put yourself before others. You have done so much for Zarp and you shouldn't apologize at all. I'm sure we all appreciate your hard work <3

Raeker my lad, I've always known you're a legend and a complex personality, but every time you just beat my previous idea I had of you, amazing.
I'd like to say a couple of stuff regarding this, as I'm in a similar (but very "pettier") situation. I've noticed that taking your whole time and putting it in Gmod is very rewarding due to the people that are grateful and tell you you're amazing; one other reason, is because you realise yourself you can make a turn for the better.
The problrm with this, even if it's so psychologically filling for us... we also often have high aspirations for our real life as well, and this just doesn't help "plain" work. I've grown to hop on gmod after I finish my four to six hour studying, it's just something that helps keep track of real life in combination with Gmod... Fortunately, the community can most likely hold itself for some time, even with the lack of certain key-people. Fortunately.
I'd figure you'd burn yourself up eventually, and it's completely understandable and reasonable. Everyone has limits, and even if you push them, we always have to play around them (reality is a game of chess, isn't it after all?).
Now, regarding your future job... I wish I could say something that would provide an instant solution, but there's no such thing. I don't know what you like, what your personality is like, etc. I can recommend you go to a centre regarding picking jobs -- for the life of me I can't remember what it's called in english, but they're supposed to help you pick a future job based on your personality and talents.
You've probably noticed I haven't been in touch with you alot... I'm just trying to lift that weight off of you, don't think bad of me
Good luck, take a break off teamspeak and gmod for the remaining time just until you pick your very important shit; afterwards, treat this as a part time job for your own mental health and success in life.

Hey Raeker,
I don't really know you - at all, but I read this post in its entirety and honestly, the position you are in right now sucks. And I realize a lot of other people are saying this, but I feel as though you should start focusing on your life 100% right now.

I doubt the team would want you to focus so much on the community that you don't have time for your studies. And don't stress yourself out. You can't do too much of both, so try to find a balance. The smartest thing to do would be to get a schedule and make sure you dispose of more time to studies than the community so you can set yourself on the right path again. I realize that you don't quite know what you want to do right now, but you'll find out, and when you do- remember what I've said, and try to dispose of more time for school.

I highly doubt anyone will disagree when I say this; your main focus should always be making sure you're on a good path in life.

Also, addressing your mistakes. I feel as though I would've done something similar to what you did. When you're in a position where your life literally feels like shit, I find it somewhat acceptable to lash out. I still think you should try to contain it, but sometimes it's important to just let out some stress. And while it may be bad for the people who fall victim to it, they usually understand once you've apologized, and move on.

I hope you find your true passion in life and something that you really want to stick with. I also hope that you come back to the community more actively when you've sorted things out.

I've known you for quite a while, and if writing isn't for you, i would suggest you to be more open minded about your choises and talents. I've heard you speak and i believe a podcast would suit you quite well as an alternative.

Keep in mind that writing is a draining process: You start with a thought in your right brain; you take that picture you have into your RAM (that holds as much memory as a phone number) to translate it into analytical words. Since the RAM doesn't hold many bytes of information you'll output a few words before stopping because now you're going to redo the process again; hence why writers write a chunk, stop and then start again. You also need to have your prefrontal cortex (which is considered to be the smart & conscious part of your brain) be consistently active of the through out the day; so you don't let the "monkey" inside of you take over. This process is a skill that would take alot longer to reshape your brain into becomming as efficient as possible. It's quickly summed and there's more things behind the scenes though it's just to give you the idea.

Summed up - It's basically an extensively heavy process, which requires a large chunk of your brain to cooperate which in a sense, doesn't really come naturally as you initially thought. It's alot more demanding than drawing pictures for instance and requires determination & discipline potentially for many years ahead.

However I want to note that you shouldn't give up on your dreams. You might be having the biggest doubts in your lifetime but if you manage to get through them you'll be alot more proud of yourself instead of than giving up. I read most of the things you write on Zarp and I believe that you can do it with some more work and less spent on Zarp. Good luck either way.

Tip, life comes first pc stuff comes later, they can manage being without u i'm sure while u do ur thing

Sorry for asking about that Staxel review, take your time.