(Part 3) Top products from r/summonerschool

Hey Dude,

I get the whole Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde (mini-gnar / mega-gnar) thing you experience, and the frustration that comes out in game. I bet you can start a game with all the intention of being nice and kind to veryone, and by the end as things fall apart your raging in all-chat, right? And then afterwards, you're kinda embarrassed, but also frustrated and wanting to jump back into the game immediately to make up for the last game. I experience a lot of this myself, and have done lots to help correct myself.
There's a few things I'd like to mention:

General Thoughts

• I don't think it has to do with anonymity, like others have mentioned. I believe this is a naïve view of the issue. If you are anything like me, this same frustration comes out
  when playing competitive games face-to-face with friends (board games, sports, etc.). Obviously you aren't as vocal about it, but your competitive nature probably kicks in and you want to win above all else. The trick, I believe, is to re-wire your habitual response (since you are acting instinctually, you need to change your instincts) and perspective (to help you properly evaluate the situation). I'll get more into this in a little bit.
  
• The real issue is emotions, and doing a better job of letting those emotions serve you best in-game. Would you say you are an emotional person?
  
  RE: Perspective
  
  
• One thing that has made a big difference for me and how I view the game is the philosiphy of Stoicism. Marcus Aurelius is probably the most famous Stoic, with his classic writings 'Meditations'. Stoicism is one of the oldest 'self-help' movements, and is credited as the basis for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (psychological treatment for people with different psychological disorders, such as anxiety, OCD, anger). Stoicism is all about focusing on the things within our control, and accepting the things that aren’t. It’s a philosophy of having complete control over your mind and actions, regardless of your life’s circumstances. This book is a good introduction though perhaps not perfectly accurate, it will give you a good starting point. There is a good subreddit over at /r/Stoicism if you want to check it out.
  There’s a great quote at the top of that subreddit right now:
  
  >“Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.”
  
  
• Rethink how you react to the other players in the game. Don’t take their mistakes as direct slights against you, or as personal attacks on you, or as purposeful attempts to lose the game. They are only human, and are trying to improve at the game, just like you.
  
  >“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” – Marcus Aurelius
  
  
• Focus on things within your control. No matter how much you resist it, you cannot win every game. Even Challenger players lose games when they are climbing on new accounts. There are too many factors outside of your control in solo-q. The only thing within your control, is having the biggest impact on the game you can. This includes not only mechanics and laning, but also attitude and teamplay. Just as you should use your mind to improve your mechanics / laning, you can control your response to things within a game, such that you give your team the best chance of winning. Flaming and ‘int’-ing doesn’t help the outcome of the game, and makes it worse. I’ve had many games that we won, because I encouraged my team not to give up early when they wanted to. The proper response to in-game events is crucial. Tackle this skill just like you would practice last hitting. It is a skill that will help you win games.
  
  >“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius
  
  RE: Habits
  
  
• Most of what we do in our lives is habits. And understanding this is crucial to change. I’ll do my best to explain it here, but for a better understanding check out Charles Duhigg’s work “The Power of Habit”. I’ll reference his appendix, which can be found here. Have a read through that after this discussion for a more thorough understanding.
  
• Scroll down the page above until the first feedback loop with “Cue”, “Routine”, “Reward”. This is how our habits work. We are given a Cue, and we jump into a Routine prompted by that Cue, because we expect a given reward. This is all at a sub-conscious level. The trick is we can re-program some of these habits, through deliberate practice / change.
  
• Let’s imagine for right now that you rage in the following fashion:
  Cue: Your bot lane doesn’t rotate up to help you, while you are getting attacked by their mid laner in jungle in bottom river
  Routine: Your frustration builds up because you think about how different the game would be if not for your stupid bottom lane. You start getting angry. You want to relieve this anger by looking to blame the bot lane for their poor play. You start flaming.
  Reward: Though temporary, your emotions are relieved slightly. Internally, you feel slightly better because your emotions / anger have come down. At least until the next screw up….
  
  We need to re-write this script somehow. Here’s a basic idea of what I’d do:
  
  
• For 4-5 games, pay attention to the different cues that piss you off. Keep a journal / paper by your desk, and after you are done flaming / in the defeat screen, write down the different types of things that set you off.
  
• With these things identified, we can properly script our response to these specific cues. The most basic response is instead of thinking about what should have happened, had your team responded properly, instead focus on what you could have done better. Could you have gotten a kill in the trade? Was your decision making wrong? Allow the satisfaction of focusing on yourself, and avoiding raging at your team to be your reward (it’ll feel good, trust me). Instead of the following Cue-Routine-Reward habit being Death-Rage-Relief, try to make it Death-Reflection-Satisfaction. Practice making your first instinct after a death to think about yourself instead of your team. Honestly make this a habit. You can keep a score card to see how often you rage vs. reflect.
  
• The basic idea is that you can only perform one ‘routine’ at a time. So instead of defaulting to your ‘flaming routine’, you need to overwrite it with your ‘reflection routine’. For a series of games, I made it a habit of immediately typing ‘mb’ after I felt like I made a mistake in game. It immediately defuses the situation, and makes you take responsibility for yourself. It also gives you practice in not giving a shit if you make a mistake.
  
• There are many ways to re-write your routine for given cues. I have found that simply having knowledge of the cues and practicing your response beforehand to those cues (keep it basic) will better equip you in game, when your lizard brain takes over. Try taking a couple of breaths after each death. Read yourself a pre-written mantra such as “I only have control over myself and my reaction to the game”, or “What could’ve been is not important for this game, only what actually is, is important”, or “My team is only human like me”. Put it on a cue card to have easy access to read it (you won’t remember it), or on a sticky note beneath your monitor.
  
  Random Thoughts
  
  
• Would you intentionally sabotage the start of a game? Feeding each of the other lanes a kill to give them an advantage? Then why flame your team? It gives the enemy an enormous advantage before the game has even been decided! I’d say 20-40% of the games I win are comebacks, so never give up, and do everything in your power to help your team win.
  
• Ask yourself what you hope to accomplish by flaming your team or feeding. What is the reward you are giving yourself?
  
• Change won’t be easy, but must be effortful

There really are a lot of places to start, but since I'm not sure which one to suggest to you I'll just give you all of them. I've been meaning to type out a post that I can copy paste for those who want to get into meditation, so this is the perfect place.

As you go down the list it gets more in-depth:

• Headspace is an app that you can look up, it has several different kinds of meditation. I've never used it, but it seems to tailor it's stuff specifically to what you want out of meditation, so it might be perfect for this. You'd have to tell me if you try it because I've never used it, but it's very beginner friendly because it has a lot of guided meditations to walk you through it as you meditate.
  
  
• /r/meditation is a nice board. People there are generally very helpful if you are looking for a specific kind of practice or something.
  
  
• Actualized.org has a good meditation guide for beginners.
  
  
• If for some reason you really want to get into meditation seriously, check out The Mind Illuminated. It's based on buddhist practice, but it's written by a neurologist and based in science, so it's secular.
  
  
  
  And I'll actually just give you a very basic guide for meditation right here.
  
  
  
  People define meditation in lots of different ways, but I think the simplest way to explain it is concentration and awareness training. It might sound... intense? at first, but it's actually quite relaxing at times. The idea is to focus on the meditation object (the breath, most often) while staying aware of your surroundings.
  
  
  
  So, there are more steps to ease into this process, so if you try this and it's and you won't more help, that's normal and I would be happy to give you a more extended/complete guide. Keep in mind I am basically paraphrasing from The Mind Illuminated.
  
  START GUIDE
  
  Get into a comfortable sitting position and just become sort of attuned to the present moment. Even if your thoughts are in the future or the past, try and become aware that all of the sensations and thoughts you are having are happening in the present.
  
  
  Then, just focus on the breath (if you want to be more specific, try and focus on the feelings of the breath as it goes in and out of the nose). Anytime you find that you are not focusing on the breath, whether it be other sensations or thoughts, just bring your attention back to the breath gently. Don't be upset that you lose concentration, because that's just a part of the process. While focusing on the breath, if you can go a bit without getting distracted, try and open your awareness to your surroundings (sounds, sensations, thoughts) while still maintaining focus on the breath. This is akin to CSing or auto-attacking someone while still being aware of the mini-map or the rest of the fight. Try and do this for 5 minutes at first. I really wouldn't recommend much more at first, because most people get frustrated. If you are having trouble keeping focus on the breath, which is totally normal, see if you can make it to 10 breaths without losing focus, and if you mess up just start over again. No biggy.
  
  The purpose of this simple practice is to train awareness (basically perception of everything happening around you) while maintaining concentration (focus on the object of attention) to better improve your life, and especially activities requiring focus. If you think about it, all of life is basically just a sea of awareness (stuff happening) and us choosing to focus in on one thing at a time, so it's very practical to train these two skills.
  
  END GUIDE
  
  
  So that's basically what a practice would look like, and you would do something like that every day. There are a lot more steps and methods, and honestly it can be a bit tricky to find one that suits you, but I think the resources I listed are great starting points, and really there is no wrong way to do it, and it can't really be harmful. I find it quite relaxing a lot of the time, and my life is a lot better when I keep up my habit of meditating.
  
  
  
  I know I've kinda given you a ton of information here, but I wanted to cover all the bases so I could use this for future reference. Hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions let me know! :)
  

Yeeeeow nice post man.

If you're a bit of a reader, I think you'd like the following books:

Drive: http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805

Talks about where human motivation stems from. People are mislead by thinking that extrinsic rewards are the no. 1 motivator for people (e.g. money). However most studies are starting to show that intrinsically motivated people are the most productive and successful.

Talent code - http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/055380684X/ref=pd_sim_14_6?ie=UTF8&dpID=41MunW5Js4L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR216%2C320_&refRID=168Q5YDYYGJGSE9QPMCJ

The practicing mind - http://www.amazon.com/Practicing-Mind-Developing-Discipline-Challenge/dp/1608680908/ref=pd_sim_14_17?ie=UTF8&dpID=41xIyq0O4wL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR100%2C160_&refRID=097CJ40FQXQ88KG5TDAS

Both of these books are great for instilling the fact that greatness isn't bestowed upon someone, it takes years and dedicated practice cultivate a valuable skill.

If you'd like these books, send me a PM because I have the PDF/Audiobook of them.

Java, or Javascript? I know you said Java but often times new programmers confuse the two. For Java a good place to start if you're keen for it, is Minecraft. It's easy, well documented, and people will use what you make. For Javascript a good place to start is with literally any of the 9,000 frameworks that currently exist. I suggest Node. As far as resources for that, there's a lot. My channel is a very small one. As far as like, proper resources for Javascript I don't know too many. I never read any because I was a Java programmer long before I got into JS. That being said I DEFINITELY should've read a book before writing JS. Anything async fucked me for a solid day or two until I figured that out. I had no idea. I've heard this book is good

> Should I start learning how to attack with right click?

• If you feel you need it then you can, but many people use only one or the other. It's a matter of preference. There are advantages to using both in different situations though - right clicking is faster than a+click but some people find orbwalking easier with a+click. Try and find what works for you and stick with it.
  
  > What DPI and in game mouse speed do I use?
  
  
• I believe my mouse is set to 800 DPI in my 3rd party software (Razer Naga - gone soon can't wait) and I use an in game mouse speed of 65 on an Artisan Hayate mousepad.

I would recommend going to your local computer store/Frys electronics/whatever that has gaming mice and trying to find something that is comfortable for you.

League of legends does not require more than a 3 button mouse in any way shape or form (most pros dont use mouse buttons or change keybindings in any significant way aside from setting dumb cast to shift + qwer)

Essentially, this means that getting a mouse that you can use comfortably, which has no built in acceleration etc. is more important than having 60000 buttons.

These are my favorite mice

http://www.amazon.com/SteelSeries-Sensei-Laser-Gaming-Rubberized/dp/B007N6HS3G/ref=pd_sim_147_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=41BJ5Qgu%2BpL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=0DZP85FZEA96NB5DJ1BK

http://www.amazon.com/SteelSeries-Kinzu-v3-H01-0001708-Mouse/dp/B011WBXSH2/ref=pd_sim_sbs_147_7?ie=UTF8&dpID=41Zu8AzrRiL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR144%2C160_&refRID=1H6HNCWZSV6BTGW7XQV3

I agree with others here. Just to give an example of me:

I had a 12€ mouse and a 12€ keyboard and both worked perfectly fine for league.

However, I wanted to have some higher quality ones and got myself a mouse for 45€ and a mechanical keyboard for 80€ and while I can say they are definitely better, the extra money isn't worth it just for gaming. The overall feel and quality is.

So if you think your keyboard/mouse feel too shabby, don't hesitate getting a higher quality one - but don't expect you will climb divisions just because of your new peripherals.

Logitech LX7 is what I've been using the past 5 or so years. Maybe im just used to it so much by now, but I think the back/forward buttons are much more ergonomic than thumb buttons. (I put attack move on "back" and /laugh on "forward") Plus overall it's a super comfortable mouse. I've never had trouble with "wireless response" but I've also never owned a $200 wired gaming mouse

I like St. John's Wort. This brand is good: https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Way-Perika-Johns-Tablets/dp/B001E0YF2Y/

It's a mild MAOI, so it will increase your dopamine levels. It helps me focus.

Ride your bike in the sunlight and do body weight exercises. Stick to a sleep schedule and eating schedule. Structure does wonders for depression.

https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524796923&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+not+giving+a+fck

great read

That'll do it. I'm so worried about my mouse accuracy that I can't even begin to think of doing stuff like that.

I guess my impulse buying habits help me avoid having to. If only I could remember what button does what.

"Well, I can't. I tried many times to start a game and just mute all and play, but when someone makes a huge mistake like the jungler ganks at lvl 3 and dies in my lane or someone dies over and over or varus adc is splitting at min 40 and dies it's like I have to unmute and insult them for what they did, it's like I can't just accept that they made a mistake and I have to insult them but this usually stops if they apologize or dont say anything, and if it's not important I don't care."

False. You CAN. You're choosing not to. It's frustrating and even your habit you've built but habits can be broken and reformed. To me it sounds like you can be the jerk that everyone was to you, or you can choose to be better. Your choice though.

I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X

http://www.amazon.com/Razer-Abyssus-Precision-Optical-Gaming/dp/B002XLR0JI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1367987501&sr=8-2&keywords=razer+mouse

Theres a link for it on amazon. It's all you'll need for league

If you have a desktop computer you can just buy one of these
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003CFATNI/ref=s9_top_hd_bw_bwfnj_g147_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-3&pf_rd_r=MS1WKAGQN9W028A99V97&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=dd09b0f1-e13d-5362-9dd9-11c17e837bd6&pf_rd_i=13983711

Statistics, a subject in the field of Psychology. An example

I was actually referencing the book series of the same name (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1615647627/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_SljmDbGFKF9PM), sorry if that wasn't clear!

Hilariously, there is book called Fuck Feelings: http://www.amazon.com/Feelings-Practical-Managing-Impossible-Problems/dp/1476789991?ie=UTF8&keywords=fuck%20feelings&qid=1463804595&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1