Two years ago I learned a very important lesson, guidelines are there to help you not hurt you. One time I was hanging out with my friend John. Whenever my friend John and I hang out we enjoy gaming. One time over the summer we spent way too much time on games. Doing this came with many things, but most importantly a lesson learned. This lesson was important because it taught me that if you don't follow guidelines you will feel the effects of it.
I was over at my friend John's house playing video games when I got hit with a wave of exhaustion. After having this feeling I turned to John and asked what the time was. John said, “I don’t know bro, probably like 9:00”. “I don't think so, it's got to be later than that right?”, I thought, so I checked the time on my phone. The screen flashed and I saw the time in bold print, 2:45 A.M.
When I told John he wasn’t fazed because he didn’t have anything the next day. Unlike John, I had many events the day after. The most important one was that I had basketball. I could not believe I had forgotten about it. I told John we should wrap up the game, and after a few minutes of nagging him to get off, he agreed. I should’ve known it wouldn't be that easy. Me and John got carried away and finally logged off an hour later. By this time it was 3:45 A.M., and I was getting really tired. I crawled into my sleeping bag and I tried and tried to fall asleep but I just couldn’t, until… I finally fell asleep.

I woke up and my heart was beating super fast. My body was exhausted but my heart was beating at one hundred miles an hour and my mind was completely awake. I didn’t know what to do.
 I sat on the couch that I had set my stuff up on for a few minutes. I then got up and checked my phone, my phone said it was 4:30 A.M. 
I began to freak out, I looked to see if John was awake. John was not awake but rather snoring pretty loudly.
I calmed myself down after a while. I sat there with nothing to do but get cozy in my sleeping bag and think about good things, but good thoughts were not the ones that kept me awake. 
I was disappointed and felt that I had let myself down because I knew I needed sleep but I still stayed up late. I did let myself down, “I know better than to stay up this late” I reflected.
  I remember my dad saying “Too many video games will rot your brain”. Surely it would not and could not, but at that moment I felt as though my brain was rotting because my head was pounding and I could not think straight. 
The rest of the night was rough, I woke up almost every hour. By the time morning came I talked with John. He said he slept perfectly fine. “Of course he did, that boy needs no sleep,” I thought to myself.  When I counted the hours we played it was over sixteen. I never thought I would even get close to doing that much T.V. This is how I learned to never stay up too late and listen to my parents even when I'm having fun and don't want to stop. From this point on I will make sure to do just the right amount of video games.