Squanderlust

I’ve got squanderlust. It’s a word I made up by mashing up two words. Squanderlust is like “wanderlust.” But instead of moving about the world and discovering new things and places and people I seem to be drawn to letting my time leak away here and there on things that don’t add up to much. Things such as (but not limited to) social media— especially Twitter.

I’m happy to press a button for a little hit of dopamine, like a lab rat getting scienced. Even just the chance of getting that surge of joy is enough to get me coming back for more.

I’ll. . .

Spend 15 minutes looking for a song I barely remember to get that satisfying thrill once it finally comes on.

Spend 20 minutes crafting a tweet that gets two likes.

Spend over a half-hour (broken into 100 chunks of about 20 seconds each, and spread unevenly over a half-day) checking to see if said tweet gets a third like.

Spend hours playing Texas Hold ‘em (with people I don’t know and for no money) just for the excitement of gambling.

I won!

Spend an evening learning how to make my own gifs, because I decided I needed to know how to make my own gifs.

Spend hours upon days writing and revising blog posts that no one reads. 

It’s easy to let time slip away.

. . . And I’m realizing that this post is kind of a rehash of this post from 10 weeks ago. And I also just realized the problem isn’t that I’m drawn to getting the good feeling of accomplishing small things, it’s that I frequently choose things that don’t seem to amount to much of anything. Or worse, I don’t choose at all and let habit take control. So it’s (once again) about my indecisiveness and self-control. And also there’s a stubbornness in me that refuses to accept that I’ll never get better at anything if I insist on diffusing (squandering) my energy across a wide swath of interests.

I’ve decided that the phrase “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” can also apply to posting blog entries that I don't feel like are quite ready but am sick of working on.

(sorry)