Resistance is Futile

[gankylosaurus]

I find it kind of discouraging to look back at my old posts on here. In case it's not obvious, I fell off the bandwagon flat on my ass. I'm not too sorry about some of it, because sometimes the "wasted time" is actually valuable, and makes me feel good. Other times, I end up wasting time doing things that I think will make me happy, but instead leave me unfulfilled.

Which is I why I started to take a new look at the games that I do play. I've mentioned before (a long time ago) that I really like games that follow a story. I prefer them because I like stories. They're another form of fiction as far as I'm concerned. So I stopped playing games that are repetitive and don't follow a story, because I don't feel fulfilled by these games (unless they're the kind I can play with friends).

But when I get into wasting hours of time doing anything non-productive, and I look around the house to see the place a mess, my homework undone, my reading forgotten, my novel still stuck in the third draft of the third chapter, I feel like shit. Sometimes this prompts me to clean like a madman, which makes me feel happy in the end because the place ends up clean. Other times I just call the day a loss and say I'll do better tomorrow, and go back to wasting more time and getting drunk.

I'm on the fence about coming back to being a regular contributor here. I don't know what I'm looking for here that I can't get on my own. Mostly I think I'm afraid of "failing" a fourth time. I think, also, that I keep thinking there's some magical formula I'm missing from my life, and that I'll figure it out by writing out my daily thoughts on here. But I'm starting to think that each day is a different struggle more than it is the same struggle. We fight the same battles day-to-day but the enemies always change.

Plus, even as much as I stress myself out and procrastinate, I still get good grades. Maybe this is just a testament to giving a damn, because I work hard when I do work, and this has a double-edged effect. On the one hand, I produce quality work; on the other, that whole stress thing. It's a big circle. I stress myself out, I procrastinate, I work hard (sometimes too hard) all in one burst, then go back to procrastinating, which leads to me stressing myself out all over again because I've put shit off again. 

A few things are still clear to me. First, I need to simplify my lifestyle. Second, I need to stay on top of things by working on big projects piecemeal. Third, I need to remember how to enjoy myself.

I also need a routine. The last time I had an effective routine, I kicked my ass to stay on top of it. I allowed myself a little time to screw around when my day started (that is, after waking up or after getting home from school/work), then I had to do the things I had to do. I had to exercise, clean, do homework, write, read, and do any errands before I could indulge myself in traditionally "fun" activities. Sometimes I just kept reading instead, if the book was interesting enough.

The one thing I won't give myself anymore is a time constraint. When I wrote a half-hour a day, I only wrote a half-hour a day. It wasn't very effective. Now I just need to at least look at my novel, or write notes. Just something to keep it in my head. This usually leads to me writing anywhere from fifteen minutes to three hours. It's been so long since I've gotten really into my writing that I've kind of lost what I was doing in the edit, as well as the passion to do it. Part of this is the story itself, which requires a lot of new writing in the middle portion, and part of it is because school and other hobbies ate up all my time. I'll own up to the fact that my priorities are all out of whack.

I'm thinking about getting into Reality Craft and tailoring it to blogging, writing, and maybe vlogging. I was going to write more about this, but it seems like a rather nuanced topic now that I think about it. Reality Craft is a pretty cool gamification mechanism for building good habits and learning new skills. So for now, I'll just say that I might use it to come up with an actual plan for my personal blog and to try to gain the skills needed to be successful down that avenue.

I just wanted to give an update for anyone here who might remember me, as well as try to talk out some issues and thoughts I had for myself. It's ironically more difficult to talk these things out in a setting where I know no one else will read it. At least here I know someone might glance at my words.