Thursday, September 25, 2008

Fallback

I've noticed something interesting about the role that cleaning plays in my day to day life. It is, in essence, the baseline means of getting what I call achievement points. Achievement points are a way of representing psychological energy, and are critical for motivating oneself. Also, what I mean by baseline isn't that it's the foundation for further gains, but rather it's the lowest activity on the list when I'm in need of them. A lot of the things that are more rewarding require me to first spend some points, but cleaning is something I can do when I've got just enough laying around for me to feel the need to do something.

Being sick has been an interesting experience in a lot of ways because it's let me see a whole number of behavior patterns from a state of mind that wasn't directly responsible for them. Today I'm getting a good look at being half-motivated. This used to happen a lot because I was motivated enough to realize I needed to do something, but I hadn't beaten back anxiety enough for me to actually do what I knew I needed to. In this scenario I usually fell back to cleaning because it kept me busy, felt like I was doing something, and didn't require me to leave the house.

Right now I'm sick enough that I can't get anything big done, and I don't really have anything to do, but I've got too much energy to just lay around in bed all day. So, I find myself at an artificially induced state of half-motivation, and once again I find myself cleaning. I'm a little bit worried about this because it means that as I get better at playing the motivation game I may leave cleaning behind, and I like the idea of keeping my place clean. In the end though I'm just glad that I have a fall back activity that doesn't involve mindlessly grinding away in a fictional world.

Although, due diligence, I did just place my pre-order for WOTLK. So, it's not like I'm ever going to stop being a gamer.

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