Ending Compulsive Behaviors

by Pa Rock
Creature of Habit

I was careful not to make any resolutions for the New Year because there are already too many things on my crowded agenda that aren't getting the attention they deserve.  There are still some trips that I would like to make, I have a couple of writing projects that have been stalled for years, and I have a vision of completing one of those "Fifty-Two Ancestors in Fifty-Two Weeks" family histories - and this, the first week of a New Year, would be the ideal time to begin that project.

But again, I literally bury myself in activities that require regular attention and take away from any chance to get at new projects.  And with every day that passes, my opportunities to get things of consequence underway and completed are also lessened by a day.

I recently made small bit of headway when I came to the realization one morning that I had quit playing the state lottery.  It hadn't been a conscious decision, like when I quit smoking, but rather something that just sneaked up on me.  Suddenly I realized that it had been several weeks since I had last purchased a lottery ticket - and I hadn't gone through withdrawal or anything!  You might think that playing the lottery is not a time-eater, but it was the way I did it.  I drove to town once a day to buy two particular one-dollar tickets, and then I played the lottery's second chance game which required getting onto the internet every few days and entering information on my non-winning tickets.  Quitting the lottery freed up some serious time, and I didn't even suffer any withdrawal!

And the lottery was literally nothing compared to the time that I waste on Twitter!  I am hopeful that President Biden will noticeably lessen my frustration and outright anger toward government and leave me with less reasons to rush over to Twitter and vent my spleen, so that addiction may take care of itself.  And if it doesn't, I can always resort to the approach that I used to quit smoking and just go "cold turkey!"

I also have a couple of times a day that are set aside for reading, a compulsive habit that I will probably keep because it is good for the mind - and the soul, and my daily walking with a goal of 10,000 steps per day - a health activity that I will also likely strive to maintain.

But I remain uncertain as to what to do about the biggest time-eater in my schedule - this blog.    I begin typing each day by 9:30 a.m. or thereabouts, and it is often after noon when I finally complete what I have to say for the day.   Too often over the last four years the topic of the blog has devolved into Trump politics, something that not only sucked up my time, but also left me feeling like crap for the rest of the day.

I began this blog in November of 2007, back when George W. Bush was President and the idea of a President Obama was just a blip on the political radar.  Since the blog's inception the Bush presidency has ended, the Obama administration has come and gone, and the Trump one-term presidency is well into it's final month.  Soon we will witness the swearing-in of the fourth US President since I began this daily writing exercise.

And early next month I will complete the 5,000th entry in Pa Rock's Ramble.

Not only is this a compulsive activity that needs to go in order to free up scads of time, it is also a writing activity that has more than ran its course.

I haven't decided what changes to make, but I sense that change is about to come.  Sometime very soon I will either drop the daily deadline - or drop the effort altogether.  Until then, I will probably begin on the ancestor project and include those tales in The Ramble as a way of killing two birds with one stone.

Somehow I have t figure out a new way forward, but I refuse to put that in the form of a New Year's Resolution!