On "rage quitting" in life
Today, for the first time in my life, I was a victim of rage quitting.
But what is "rage quitting"?
To angrily abandon an activity or pursuit that has become frustrating.
For most of my life, I have played a video game called TEKKEN, which belongs to the fighting game genre. Literally, since I was a kid. I’ve played every installment, including spin-offs, and consumed all kinds of media created around this franchise. It’s one of my favorite things in life, and I feel a deep passion for its characters and the universe it presents.
About two years ago, around the time the eighth installment was announced, I decided to truly learn the game in-depth and start playing competitively as a hobby.
One thing about TEKKEN is that it’s an insanely difficult game in a competitive setting. Even within its own genre, it’s considered by most professional fighting game players as the hardest of them all—partly because of its deep mechanics, but also because a single mistake can cost you the entire match.
It had never happened to me before, but a few hours ago, the frustration of losing over and over again was so overwhelming that I slammed my PS5 controller on the floor.
The impact sent buttons and plastic shards flying everywhere. My reaction was almost immediate, even though in the match before the one that triggered it, I had already felt a strong urge to do it. It had been building up, and it finally happened. The controller shut off. It stopped working.
I immediately felt bad. First, because I had just broken the only controller I have to play, and now I’ll have to spend money on a new one at some point. Second, because what I had just done wasn’t right. It was an outburst of violence—a moment where I completely let my emotions take over. I blindly gave in to anger, and as a result, I caused harm.
Why did I let a game control my emotions?
Why did something that should be a pleasurable activity affect me this much?
Minutes passed, I calmed down... and then I felt okay. I felt better than I had before slamming the controller on the floor. I felt more at peace than I had in the last two or three days. And then I understood.
Deep down, I really wanted to do it. Not to break the controller because of a loss, but to destroy something—to release all the frustration I had been carrying. I wanted to break things, to smash them; to grab a bat and wreck my entire apartment. Just to feel lighter.
This had nothing to do with the game. This had everything to do with my emotional state, with the amount of anxiety and stress I’ve been carrying these past few days. It had to do with how much I had been repressing my negative emotions and how badly I needed to let them out at some point.
What happened today made me realize that, in life, we all experience rage quitting at some point:
- That moment when we quit a job on the spot because our mind just can’t take it anymore.
- That relationship we walk away from when chances run out and our heart doesn’t beat the same way it used to.
- That vice we finally drop when we wake up one morning, exhausted, feeling like absolute trash.
- That thing we decide to stop eating because of the negative effect it has on our health.
- Or when, after that first hit in the morning, that particular cigarette suddenly makes us feel sick.
There comes a moment when we just realize—and we walk away from that situation once and for all, without warning, never looking back.
Today, I rage quit TEKKEN, and I’m convinced that it kept me from deciding to quit my job. In the end, I choose to see the positive side of it, even though I know it sounds like a coping mechanism.
This past week, I tried not to talk about my feelings so I wouldn’t bring down the people around me. I convinced myself it was just a rough patch and that my frustrations with work and my sedentary lifestyle would eventually fade away like they always have. But after today, I realize that once again, change is necessary.
I also noticed that my recent posts have somewhat reflected how I’ve been feeling. I find that fascinating, and it’s undoubtedly a consequence of my decision to write every day. I think reading this in the future will be even more interesting.
If you don’t let it out, something has to explode at some point. Thanks for reading.