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Well it’s a tad bit overdue but the year is still fresh. Only 10 days in and already 2017 shaping up to be an interesting year. As the New Year struck I was struck by an awful cold that left me out of commission for a few days. On my way to work last week my car’s driver side power window motor died leaving my window stuck down for a few days, not a lot of fun to drive in the cold and snow. Finally, this past weekend I drove back to my parents house, about 4 hours away from me, and in the middle of a white out my windshield wiper fell off making the last few hours a real challenge But it’s not all bad, the year can only get better from here!
Buy Less and Play More
This goes for games as well as books. I have a bad habit of buying more than I can play or only playing a game for a few days before moving on to something else. I rarely finish games and it’s part of h reason I started my personal backlog challenge. So the goal for the year is to play/ finish more games and books than I buy which shouldn’t be that hard because there’s nothing coming out in the nex few months that I’m looking forward too. Though I said the same thing last year where the only game I wanted wasn’t suppose to release until July, I ended up buying at least one game a month anyways.
When It Sucks Stop Reading/Playing It
This one goes more for the books side of things. Every year I set a reading goal oer at Goodreads usually around 20 books. Last year I tried 25 books and I was able to meet my goal, even exceed it by 6 books. The thing is some times it felt like a chore to read and the looming fact that I had to read at least 2 books a month to finish made reading just a little less enjoyable. I’m finding the same as I’ve been working though my backlog. Originally my goal was to finish every game. I thought if I liked it enough to buy it I should be able to finish it. I’ve found that not everything is great and not everything interests me enough to finis it. I think this year I’ll just play games until they no longer interest me. I also have to get better at putting down books when I know they aren’t good instead of forcing myself to finish them.
Change Things Up.
I read a lot of fantasy last year. In fact more than half of the 32 books I read last year were fantasy and quite frankly I’m sick of it. So I’d like to read a little more outside my comfort zone. I’m thinking some murder mysteries, some drama, maybe a romance, and I need to read way more non fiction this year The same goes for games, I feel like I played a lot of the same kind of game last year and while it’s fun to play things I know I’ll like I also have a wonderful library where I can take some chances on other games for free. And PS Plus gives me access to some different games every month and I never try them out. I’ll try to do more of that this year.
Many Welps 
“When It Sucks Stop Reading/Playing It”.
This is something that took me a while to learn. I come from that generations that if you quit reading a book or abandon a project, you’d get a lecture about “finishing what you’ve started” etc.
Although I see the merit in sticking with something, I have a finite amount of leisure time, so if something is working out or isn’t fun, then I see no reason to endure it. So now I consider starting a new game or TV show or even book, a bit like interviewing a new employee. They need to give me a reason to be interested.
Finally at 49, I can now happily put a game or whatever aside if it isn’t ticking the right boxes.
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This is a concept I’ve had problems with too, though mostly of the comparison guilt variety that I couldn’t seem to stick with things like most every other goal-oriented mastery-seeking achiever in my vicinity.
I came across an analogy in a book that helps me best when the automatic guilt trips in my head start. The bee doesn’t stick to one particular flower for life. The bee’s goal is to get nectar and it stays with one flower long enough to get what it came for, before moving on to the next flower and the next.
So the reasoning in my head that I’ve been working on: when I get tired of a game/book and want to move on, I got what I came for, it’s ok to move on and I don’t need to “finish” it before I check it off.
I can always revisit again when I need the thing that it provides me.
Granted, it doesn’t help me convince friends to join me anywhere because they perennially accuse me of losing interest a month later after they’ve invested the moolah. Such is life, always tradeoffs.
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Reblogged this on DDOCentral.
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