Passions kept from you?

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Has anything been able to keep you from spending time on your special interests/obsessions? For example tons of schoolwork, a job, a relationship, etc? Or do you continue pursuit of your interests, even at the expense of other important commitments? How would/do you feel about not being able to pursue your interests freely? Have you ever lost your passion for something because of other things or people discouraging you from it?
And if the interest is research-based, what do you do if you run out of new reliable information on it?

My passion is writing. But my job and school work were related to management. My work never gave me any creative satisfaction. Whenever I felt a wave of creativeness come over me I had to suppress it during busy schedules. Now that I am not working anymore and quit school I am planning on pursuing one of my interests for a while before looking for work again.

If your passion is strong enough, you find/make time for it inbetween the other things in your life. You learn to be efficient and not waste time, but make the most of it. True passion drives you.

School keeps me from hockey. It's driving me batty. I actually like what I'm taking in school and my professor rocks, but I'd still rather be on the ice stopping pucks. My class is only offered at one time so I don't have a choice to take another section and drop-in hockey just happens to be at the EXACT same time. Sigh.

I lost my passion for music. Or maybe I didn't exactly lose it, but it got blocked. I tried to study music in college and it changed my whole perspective on it. I was self-taught and they made me feel like everything I did was wrong.

Right now, I'm into doing things online. Looking things up, posting in this forum and my housekeeping forum, reading another forum. I mean REALLY into it.

When we have internet problems or when someone else needs the computer, I get upset. I try not to show how upset I am over internet problems and I try not to show being upset at all that someone else needs the computer, because it's only fair to let them use it. I'm usually able to pull it off fairly well, unless I'm right in the middle of something I am deeply interested in. Then if a kid needs it right then for something important, or if they just want to check something before bed, I try to be gracious and say "Let me know when you get done please".

What bothers me is if I have planned to do something online that evening and I tell everyone in advance, especially my youngest daughter. She will say that she has something to do and plans etc. Then, she's bored with what she was doing and wants to get online and watch something. If we have already agreed to a different arrangement, I usually make her stick to it. She gets mad, I feel guilty, and that ruins my enjoyment of what I'm doing. I know that it's important that I make her stick to her agreement, but I'm also doing it because I want the computer. Because I'm on here more than anyone else, I always try to give it to anyone who asks for it when they want it. Usually my family gives me notice. "Mom, I need the computer at 8, ok?" I'm usually good with that. Again, I try to act like it doesn't bother me. I didn't used to act like it didn't bother me, but I realized how that looked. I think I pull it off well now. I hope I do anyway. At least they know I'm trying.

But I'm upset.

When I was a kid, yes. Espicaly by a certian teacher. I was so excited to discover that the second chapter of our science textbook was about animals, and was litteraly counting down the days until we would finish the first one...only to discover we were going to skip the chapter about animals. She did other things to mentaly abuse me too. My parents tried making me earn my computer time but that made me have a nervous breakdown or at least was one of contrubiting factors.

If only it were that simple. Try mixing AS and ADD together and see how well this works. I tend to swing from one extreme to the other. When my passion drives me, many other important things fall by the wayside. Then I have to put the passion on the back burner for a while, clean up the mess, and start over. That's a very typical pattern with severe ADD.

With both AS and ADD it's been my experience that efficiency is fleeting. It may come for short stints, but never lasts long. I beginning to understand that the "solution" is to work with the waves of efficiency and inefficiency. For me, there is a pattern to it. If I try to force myself when I'm on a downswing, that can cause burnouts. If I pour it on when everything is flowing well, and let up when the flow starts slowing, I do much better.

Whats worse is when I can't find anything at all to be insterested in. I hate that!

The exact same thing happened to me!!




You mean like if you get bored or something? Or like overloaded after doing -too much- of stuff you like?

You mean like if you get bored or something? Or like overloaded after doing -too much- of stuff you like?[/quote]

I mean when I've lost interest in one thing but haven't found another thing I'm that interested in. Being between interests.

Not really, my obsessions are mostly small things I can do in between or even during revision. I'll often get out my practice lock to tinker with on the side of some Bio papers, reading a book is another easy one and, finally, I have an impressive collection of pressure vessels and piping all cut to be easily fit together that I'll tinker with(mini air guns are fuuuuun) as well as some more complex bits. But this is all pretty small scale, I've seen a few people on here who's interests involve huge projects (the largest of which being a bloke who collects and assembles car engines, he had a thread a while ago) I imagine something like that really cuts into time and money.

Is it typical to clean up the mess? Uh oh I better start getting my act together.

Hardly.. when I get absorbed in something, I tend to lose track of time, other people and other activities. I am currently into studying cell biology...yesterday I read for about 8 hours, whole book, and started another one. I didn't go out, I didn't eat, I didn't feed my cat...