The compulsion to finish everything...

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... regardless of whether you liked this thing or not

I mean - if you read a book/play a game/watch a movie/listen to a music album and you don't like its content that much, do you still have this internal compulsion to finish it in spite of your being not that fond of it, like I do? I am winning a lot of stuff in online contests and many of those things are said novels (I won about 200 various novels so far ) but there are also DVD's, music albums, as well as PS 4 games among them .

And here comes the question from the title: do you share with me the same compulsion to always finish listening/watching/reading/playing etc.? Like you know, doing this up until the very end of the book/movie and so on, even if you actually didn't like the content of it? I always feel that I have to - just have to do this, as if not doing this would be some sort of... waste ("I won it/got it otherwise (though very, very rarely because the overwhelming majority of the things I own are my contest prizes), so I should use it in this or that manner, otherwise it would be like... wasting this thing").

Do you share this sort of compulsion with me, too? Now, for example, I'm forcing myself to finish the "Ratchet and Clank" and "Age of Wonders: Planetfall" games on my console, although I don't like them too much and the same is with my listening to the music albums I won.

Do you share this trait with me?

Not really. There's lots of DVDs I started watching about 5 years ago and I got bored halfway through and still haven't watched the rest. Some I even gave away before even finishing watching them.

For the past two decades now I've been having a harder time finishing things even if I do like it, especially books and video games.

I have some theories that this is because:

- Loss of motivation due to depression

- It makes my life too complicated. Really.

- My life won't be any better or different after I finish what I started.

- If I do finish it, the temporary feeling of accomplishment/relief that it's done will be quickly replaced with wondering what I'm going to do *now*.

- Or I will be disappointed with the results of what I did, in spite of the time and effort I put into it.

- I'm just lazy.

Yes, very much so. If I'm watching a film and not really getting into it or enjoying it, I still almost always persevere right to the end, which includes a compulsion to watch all the closing credits, which for some films can be well over five minutes. Part of the motivation for this is no doubt also financial - if I've bought a dvd, no matter how long ago, I'm loath to have wasted my money by not watching it. Right now, I've had a dvd of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for several years, and I'm almost certain that I won't like it, but am intending to watch it anyway (the bloody thing is almost three hours long as well).

There used to be a quiz show on the BBC called Mastermind. The host's catchphrase, when a contestant's time ran out as he was in the middle of asking a question was, 'I've started, so I'll finish'. That just about sums up this matter!

On the other hand, not being able to start certain tasks and procrastination in general are also issues for me in some areas.

some DVDs i slept through and never re-watched them. i didn't throw them out or give them away though. they are patiently waiting for me to get my act together and sit my @$$ down in front of the screen and watch them. normally i finish what i start.

Thanks for replying; my very book pile of shame itself is lying on my desk at the very moment - there is "The Wuthering Heights" among the novels, for example, as well as "The Seven Sisters" by Lucinda Riley, as well as the third volume of the adventures of Harry Potter and some collection of horror stories by a Polish writer, Mariusz Wojteczek - and like two other books more I believe that's what Japanese folks call tsundoku