I define the “All or Nothing” concept as the curse that makes me either not do anything at all or go “all out” but never in between. I also believe that this is why it is often difficult for me to start an assignment or studying for a test. Before I start to focus, it’s very difficult to get started. Once I start to focus, I continue until the project is perfect and complete or I think I understand the material on the test completely (provided I have at least some interest in the topic). My philosophy is to “either do something right or don’t do it at all.”
Why is it so difficult to focus on many things in life but each of them in moderation? I know that once I get into one thing, I drop the previous “addiction” and move onto the next. Right now it’s at posting on online forums and blogging. Of course these “addictions” always come second in priority after spending time with family/friends (mainly friends, because I’m in college now and living away from my family). If I ever become indulged enough in something like World of Warcraft and choose that thing over hanging out, somebody shoot me (or maybe just give me a shot of reality). If I started playing such a game, I would probably just farther prove the “all or nothing” concept, but I definitely don’t want an addiction like that lol.
Now that I’m getting back into the groove of blogging, I understand why it was so addicting before. Yes, I think it should be safe to call myself a blogger again at this point in time, because I have been posting fairly regularly for a while. It seems like whenever I’m doing anything, I’m constantly thinking, “Hmm…is this bloggable?” Whenever I think of anything, I start a blog post for it. My reaction to everything is, “Let me blog about it!” I typically have an average of about 10 drafts at any given time that I started when I thought about a “bloggable” topic. However, I would say that fewer than half of these drafts are actually finished and not eventually deleted after being deemed blog unworthy or never finished and out of date for publishing purposes. Anyway, now I understand why I used to post so much when I first started my blog. When I kind of stopped, I couldn’t only post occasionally. I just posted once in a blue moon. I guess this might also explain why you can find so few personal blogs that have consistent posts every week or two. They typically either update every couple days or very infrequently altogether.
I remember a while back when I was obsessed with paid to post online forums and spent many hours per day posting on them, even though the pay was definitely not worth the time I spent on them. After a couple weeks on such forums, I stopped posting altogether, because I felt like the discussions that took place on them were not the highest in quality, since people just posted to earn forum “points” that they would get paid for. I somehow reminded myself of these forums again and started posting on a few of them. Fortunately, this time around I only check each forum a few times per day. Maybe this is just because I’m a busier person right now than I was the first time I signed up for such forums.
Previous addictions included chess-live (an online chess server that is now dead) that I was convinced was the secret to my downfall and Guitar Hero that I played way too much last semester, because I had no job and no challenging classes. I don’t spend my time on either of these two things anymore, because once I got over the addiction, I ceased to waste time on them completely. As far as I’m concerned, this is probably a good thing, because I should be able to find a more useful addiction. Just think about how great it would be if I got addicted to studying for actuarial exams.
All in all, living under the “all or nothing” concept could either my greatest strength or my greatest weakness. I could argue for it to be my greatest strength, because I make sure to get things done properly once I get started. I just need some interest and motivation to spark my initial focus. In a working environment, this could prove to be a valuable asset, because I would put in my best effort to finish my projects as long as they are worthy of the effort and not out of date. This is similar to me finishing blog posts that might potentially be worth reading while deleting my outdated drafts that are no longer appropriate for publishing at a later day. Even blogging can be a good addiction, because it can become a way for me to exercise my coherency, express myself, and eventually get paid when I can get this blog approved for paid posts. As long as I can become addicted to the right thing, my “all or nothing” motivation will push me to finish what I started with top quality. The problem, however, lies in focusing on the wrong things, such as chess-live or Guitar Hero. If I can find some way to improve my selection process, the “all or nothing” concept could greatly work to my advantage.
This is post 3/7 in my weekly series of my Winter Survival 2008-2009
Or, of course, a less expensive and more practical alternative could be my regular Target earmuffs, compliments of Athena. By the way, I don’t really use my headphones as earmuffs that often, since I rarely use earmuffs of any kind unless it’s under 25 degrees (farenheit of course). I thought I would just throw the idea out there, because I seem to use both at about the same level of frequency, and I thought the headphones were pretty effective for doing the job, even though that wasn’t what they were made for.
This is post 2/7 in my weekly series of my 
This is probably the first hand-made article of clothing I’ve ever had, so I figured I would show it off here. I just thought it was pretty cute and very practical for really cold days. After all, they do say that most of your body heat is lost through your head on a cold day. I’ll need to remember not to wash this so it remains as soft as it is right now.
