Personal Drift and Direction

As I go through my daily life, I find that I tend into slip into periods of drift, when I just fall into patterns of activity that don’t serve my own interests. Call it inertia or laziness, this drift keeps me from engaging in more purposeful, directed activities. So, instead of reading, practicing piano, writing fiction, or studying foreign languages, I’ll channel-surf my television, browse the Web, or do sudoku, kakuro, or hidato puzzles. Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with any of these things. Both television and the Internet are great sources or information and entertainment. And doing puzzles (especially the logic types) are wonderful mental exercises.

But television, the Internet, and puzzles need to be placed in their proper contexts, with limits imposed and adhered to. It’s all right to watch TV, but I’d be better off setting a time limit and just “cutting it off” when I’ve watched enough. The same holds for web surfing and puzzles.

One problem with drifting is the rationalizing I do that (1) I need this for “rest” and (2) this is constructive activity. But other than actual sleep, rest should really be a short break in my purposeful endeavors, not an endeavor in itself. Sure, I know that we all need some time for undirected recreation, but I don’t think that I’ll ever have a problem with allowing myself too little of it. As for the “constructive activity” argument, I can fully engage in those activities and reap their benefits without dwelling on them for too long.

The idea is to always see the bigger picture of what I am trying to do, without slipping into compulsive behavior that, on the surface, looks substantial but isn’t. Look, if I’m tired, then I need to take a little nap. Not turn into a TV/Web/puzzle zombie!

At least I have one thing to be thankful for: I’m not into video games, something that I’ve seen others become totally addicted to. On the other hand, I’ve been known to do those generic solitaire and minesweeper puzzles on the computer repeatedly when I was actually “beyond tired” and just needed a break from consciousness!