Thank you

I've been trying hard to write this for the past few days, but it's been really difficult to put into words.

I've recently realized that with my newish job being far more demanding, I have far less time and mental energy than I used to at the end of the day. I'm getting older and am no longer a college kid, and my priorities have changed a ton over the past two years.

I'm fortunate to have the "career" goal checked off at this point, as I think with my current effort level I'll have a successful career. But since it's a large time-sink, I can only have a few others to focus on. Also, once coronavirus is over, I have a million plans:
- Get married (finally) + honeymoon
- Visit my new nephew in Chile
- Visit Yuanbo's family who won't be able to fly to the wedding
- Visit as many English speaking countries as we can, to work towards our planned move out of the USA

I'm sure these things will take over a year, and I'm sure there will be many more things that we want/need to do.

Until I'm able to do these things, my plan was to take advantage of the extra time to get back into speedgaming and streaming. Unfortunately, I've realized that I can't do that AND all of the other things I want to do to take advantage of this time. Pretty much, I've decided that speedrunning has to go for now, for a few reasons:

1. It will take about the same amount of effort to get my Chinese study to a point where it's passive (can just enjoy Chinese media to practice) as it will to get back to the top level of SMS
2. Speedrunning isn't really fun for me unless it's competitive, and I don't have enough time in the day to get back to the point where I can compete again
3. It's time for me to do stuff for me and my future instead of "chasing the dragon" with my former glory
4. People don't really care to watch my stream if I'm not speedrunning (which is totally understandable) and I think in my desire to get back to streaming, I've prioritized speedrunning, even if it's not necessarily what I want to do with my time

I really appreciate all of the support I've received from this community over the years. I started as a self-conscious kid with no idea of what he wanted to do with his life, and I've finished (for now) as a confident adult with charisma and passion. The friendships I've gained are ones that will be with me for the rest of my life, and the fun along the way is something I'll tell my kids about one day. I am truly grateful for each and every one of you who have come and said "hey" while I'm streaming, and even a little grateful for those of you who said "RESET Kappa".

Definitely keep in touch, I know it can be hard to know if a streamer likes you personally or just is friendly to you as a viewer, but the reason I've tried to chase this "former glory" is because I really care about those of you who I've talked to regularly for years. I'll still be around on discord and twitter somewhat, and my DMs are open, and will remain that way!

Lastly, this is probably not the end of my stream forever. I still plan to pop online and play some stuff here and there and have one >>MEME<< speedrun still planned for before the end of the year, but it's going to be far from a focus of mine, and I definitely won't be running sms competitively any time soon.

Bye for now,
Jason