Ever felt that your obsession is a waste of time?

Post Reply New Topic

I find my time with my Little Red Buses fulfilling. I don't feel that my obsession is a waste of time.

Only if I've spent a lot of money on it, buying books or whatever.

Heck no.

My current obsession is with my endangered species catfish which has lasted over 2 years, i do not consider this to be a waste of time as i will try and breed them, there natural habitat is under threat from dam building.I would like some more but about £200 a fish this is not possible.

I have no regrets about any of my past obsessions as they have made me happy, besides alot of people purchase expensive cars,designer clothes,e.t.c to impress other people.

It seems like everybody else understands something I don't, or maybe I'm just between obsessions.

I'll be getting a Master's degree in it shortly.


At least it will bring financial security.

In elementry school my 2 obsesions wher wrestaling and Nascar. It felt very much like a waste sine thier wher no other fans of those 2 at my school, However I have since developed more intrests.

When I was 14 I relaized I need to have obsessions because they keep me calm because when I didn't have an obsesison for ah while I felt bored and resless and I didn't feel good inside at all.
Is that why we have obsession?

On occaision yes, though I have to say they have often turned out to be quite useful indeed on occaision.

I have never become bored with my pastimes as a whole, although the various projects that are a part of them I do sometimes get bored with.

Exactly!

That is also my experience. Before I realized I had AS, I didn't know why I couldn't just do two things at once, you know, get home from work and practice piano for an hour, then do something else for an hour etc. I tended to get home and ONLY want to do the ONE thing I was most obsessed with at that time.

The one thing I have done as a coping skill over the years is to force myself to only buy things cheaply enough that I can resell them for a profit. That way if I get sick of a particular obsession, I am only stuck with the stuff until I decide to unload it, then I come out ahead. I never sell anything, so someday I will either have a windfall when I do, or my heirs will make a mint.

I am one of those people with AS that changes special interests like most people change socks. I have general areas that I come back to over and over, but will get imersed in some different subset of that area each time I return to it.

For example, with music, first I am obsessed with guitars, then electric guitars, then amplifiers, then acoustic guitars, then hollowbody electric guitars, then effects pedals. Then I decide its keyboards and run through the gamut there, digital, analog, Hammond organs, etc. etc. then its on to drums, then back to guitars, then I let it all sit for a year while I obsess on VW's or etc. etc.

It would be cheaper if I were only obsessed with collecting bottlecaps or something, I really do hope I start selling some of this crap, I can't keep all of it, but whenever I try to sell something I get interested in it all over again, someday I will stop that I hope.

take care,

Jester

I didn't used to think I wasted time with my obsessions. Lately I've been looking at my life though. I'm about 3 weeks from turning 20 and my life is pretty.... well it's ridiculous. I'm not at all like what a 20 year old should be. I'm like a child in that I spend my time pursuing novelties and my interests. I've been examining my life and I'm starting to get ready for a change because I can't do what I'm doing all my life. I just use my obsessions to take the place of a normal/real life. I have to change soon or I'm probably going to regret it down the road.

That feeling like a child thing I can relate to. When I turned 16 at the end of last August, I was a bit 'iffy' about it because I still felt like I was 14!

Current obsession: This website. Honestly, I was up until 4:00am the other night with no food at all since 8:00pm!

It was quite a few years ago I was working construction on a nuclear powerplant in texas. I got to be friends with a mexican carpenter who had first come to the US with nothing, speaking no english. I guess he was doing ok, he drove a new truck.

He was making a genuine effort to understand my circumstances; "You don't have a car...you don't have a house...you live in a tent...Thats not too good, for a white guy."

Nuclear power plant? Wow! Apparently America's got one really close by to the San Andreas fault line. Idiots.