Saturday night I was sitting on the couch thinking about actually doing something productive. With my computer in my lap, and a bag of peanut butter M&M’s on the floor within hands reach I quickly found myself vegged out. As an hour passed, and the computer now on the floor, I thought – hmm…. why did I even try to do anything productive, with peanut butter M&M’s in the room I was doomed from the begging.
Such a mind numbingly, tantalizing, seduction that I am powerless to resist. If it wasn’t for the fact that my stomach can’t physically fit an entire bag of peanut butter M&Ms in it, I would eat every little M&M in one sitting.
After eating the last M&M I could possibly stomach I began to think about other things in my life that could be considered an addition, or just something that I just can’t seem to make it through the day without. I thought about how, even when I need to sit down and concentrate on something, I have to do it with noise in the background. Needless to say the second I sit down, the TV comes on and with the distraction I never accomplish anything close to what I needed to, or could have, without the TV on.
Thinking deeper into this obsession for noise (since I’m a habitual thinker) I’ve come to realize that many of the things I do, which distract me are all due to fear. Over the past years of constantly struggling and fighting for the dreams I can’t let go of. And, finding the uphill battle to feel more like a flat valley in which I’m never going to reach the horizon. I’ve become quite comfortable in my current state. As I find small hills now moving towards mountains and hopefully the pot of gold (or whatever it’s suppose to be, I’ll take the rainbow too), I’ve become afraid of what actually accomplishing my dreams might hold. What if people don’t like my music, or the way I write, or maybe they’ll just expect so much of me that when I don’t live up to their expectations all of my faults will go viral on the internet.
Realistically, we will all have ideas and goals that we expect ourselves to live up too. We all have people in our lives, and people that we will still meet, that will have certain expectations. There is no possible way in life to make everyone happy. I don’t think there is even a way in life to make ourselves happy about ourselves all of the time. Sometimes we give into those addictions, to those fears, to just lounging around the house when we should be working. But, that’s life, and sometimes those little things we give into remind us that the little things make life exciting and unexpected.
So, in the end, my M&M’s are still going to be by my side, and some nights I’m going to end up vegging instead of working. But, now, some nights I will actually learn to turn the TV off and work. And, as I get into my book, or song, it is just as tantalizing as my M&M’s!