The author broke a 222-day Wordle streak. Courtesy of Alesandra Dubin

I often organized my day around Wordle and had a daily alarm, so I wouldn't forget to play.

I had a 222-day streak, and when I finally broke it by running out of guesses, I was heartbroken.

However, I realized that the feeling of obligation had stolen my love of doing the puzzle.

Once my streak got long enough, I knew I was helplessly hooked on Wordle . For 222 straight days, I opened the New York Times Games app and dutifully completed the daily puzzle amid a slot machine-like spin of yellow and green squares.

Early on, it was genuinely a fun challenge, a pleasant little ritual as part of my evening wind-down scrollfest. But somewhere along the way, the game stopped being just a game, and keeping the streak alive became the whole point.

I often went to great lengths to protect my Wordle streak

I started organizing my behavior around protecting it.…