Hey, Gretchen and Liz! Thanks for another helpful podcast which I’m going to shamelessly borrow from. I know, I know—I do this all the time. But when you hear stuff that makes you say, “That’s so totally me,” well, you have to use it, right?
(My son tried once to get me to create a game; I thought something to do with a Chihuahua and a ball of yarn might be fun, but no dice.) Which is not to say, as detailed below, that I don’t waste my time with other things. So Liz was spending so much time on the game that she knew she had to stop playing it, but she couldn’t stand the thought of deleting it off her phone because she’d lose all her levels. (Or whatever they are.) She asked her then-six-year-old son to delete it for her, which he did. All was well, we thought. You go, Liz!
Except that all was not well. Wednesday we had the big confession: Liz had re-loaded CC onto her phone and had once again fallen down the rabbit hole and started obsessively playing the game again. She would go into her room, shut the door, and madly do . . .whatever it is you do. She said that her timewasting on the game was actually impacting her career.
So she told her husband and son about it, and her son, who’s now seven and a very canny kid, said, “Mom, let me delete the game again off your phone and I’ll give you the world’s greatest hug and kiss,” and she said, “Well, how about tomorrow?” and he said, “The offer is only good for today.” I mean to tell you, how could any mother resist? So Jack deleted the game and gave Liz her hug and kiss. (You really should listen to the whole podcast, but if you just want the CC story it starts at 26:20.)
Two things here which are very relevant to me:
1) As I said above, I don’t have any problems with game-playing. To me it seems mind-numbingly boring. Why on earth would you want to bother? BUT, guess what? I have my own Candy Crush-like addiction. Know what it is? Political news. I started reading online news sites back last May and my intake has only increased. The minute I come in the door, or when I have a chance to check my phone, I want to know: what just happened? So I go onto one site, or check with one podcast, or google one writer. Hmmm. Very interesting. But what does some other source say? And what about this other one that’s linked to this one? On and on. It’s like what happens to me when I allow myself to go onto my Facebook wall. Oh wow! Look at that! I have to see what happened to her! But who’s that who’s friends with this friend? Do I know him/her? I pretty much never go there, because it’s just like quicksand.
But I need to know what’s going on in the real world of politics, don’t I? I’m spending my time better now than I did back in the days when half my life was consumed in reading murder mysteries, right?
Well, not so much. I do need to be informed. I don’t need to read the same story told six times by six different authors. I need some kind of Candy Crush intervention. But nobody can delete the Internet from my phone or laptop. So I’ll have to figure out how to get control of this. I’ll try to let you know what I do.
2) Liz’s story illustrates the fact that big resolutions mean nothing without daily, hourly, minute-ly enforcement. Sometimes you can do something dramatic (throw away the potato chips!) but it can always be undone (the grocery story is a mile away!). Liz can tell herself all she wants that she can’t play her game any more because Jack deleted it from her phone. But . . . she can always re-load it. The temptation is always there. It’s the same thing as the alcoholic pouring whisky down the drain. The liquor store is right around the corner. (I don’t mean in any way here to trivialize real addictions, such as to alcohol or drugs. You know what, though? The mechanisms are exactly the same.)
So I’m always sharing some struggle or other on this blog, some Big Idea that I have for managing my time, or staying off sugar, or walking at least four times a week, or getting out of bed when I first wake up. (There seem to be an awful lot of italics in this post.) I wrote recently about how encouraging myself instead of berating myself seemed to be helpful, so I’m trying that. The idea of one’s “future self” (another Gretch and Liz idea) is good, too—as I’ve said myself, a number of times, it’s helpful to imagine as clearly as possible how I’ll feel later about what I do now.
All very good ideas. But all have to be executed. (Hey, with my great interest in the political scene, maybe I could envision the executive branch carrying out the rules I’ve set for myself over in the congressional branch, while evaluating the legitimacy of the rules with my judicial branch. Um, maybe.) I do find it helpful to tell myself the truth by thinking specific words. “You don’t need to do this.” “You’ve read enough articles for now.” “No, you’re not going to go back on that site.” It sounds weird to think of directing your thoughts in this way, but it actually does work. The book of Proverbs says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
So I’m finishing up this post on a Friday night. Maybe I’ll check on a podcast update here when I’m finished, but I’ve probably taken in enough articles for one day. The republic will survive without me!
What’s your Candy Crush?