Some Addictions can be Good for You

I use to be a self destructive person. I was what people call a troubled teenager. Like all teens, I was pretty much rebellious and non-comformist, but I was a little more extreme than usual. The combination of my parents divorcing and hanging around with the wrong people had me in a dark path. I was probably clinically depressed. You can say that I was very emo. Though in those days that would be called a goth, but I like to think that I was just intensely melancholic.

I still have those “melancholic” feelings and lately I’ve been feeling pretty crappy.  See, I’m kind of in a slump. I’ve been unemployed for a couple of months and been through interview through interview without any success. Also, I’ve been feeling a little angry and questioning if it was worth being certified by Comptia and Microsoft. The fact that I’m still paying for the loan that I took for taking the courses and the training has me very pissed off. Basically, I’ve been having feelings of just “giving up”.

But today I read this blog post by Scott H Young that cheered me up. It’s about measuring your persistence and that’s something I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Everyone has given up on a lot things in their life, but there’s always that one thing you don’t and you probably can’t because the “persistence is forever.” One thing I haven’t given up on is my personal development. I’m pretty much obsessed with it, but I prefer to call it a healthy addiction.

Through time I learned that I have to stick around this stuff. I learned this because when looking back, I can see that there’s been improvement. That’s why I subscribe to a lot of personal development blogs and read all I can about it. Even though most of the time they’re talking about the same things like GTD, 30 day trials or goal setting techniques, sometimes they give you a new perspective or a new idea for solving x problem.

There are addictions and there are “healthy addictions.” The trick is to pay attention and measure the improvements. Most habit changes for a positive impact in your life have to happen first in your mind. That’s why obsessing and being addicted to personal development is definitely a good thing.