changing obsessions?

Post Reply New Topic

What do you do if you get bored of an obsession. An example would be i based my job on an obsession, but now I am no longer intereseted in that obsession.

My obsessions change frequently. When I get bored of an obsession I usually move on to another one. I have several obsessions but I have less interest in some of them. In fact I'm becoming less obsessive in general as I now have a broader range of interests to occupy my time. I think it can be useful to occasionally move on to different interests.

I would get rid of it asap! I also had jobs based on obsessions and what I did by then was to find a new job based on a new obsession.
Sometimes its easier said and done to get away from it fast. I had an obsession last year it took me months to get rid of.
That was horrible and teared me apart to the extreme!! ! Sad that something you once loved can get such negative impact on you...

Last edited by xalepax on 20 Jul 2009, 12:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

...................y

My obsessions can last years (for example, SpongeBob SquarePants, my biggest obsession, has lasted 4 years), usually I can't do much when they change, they just naturally change. But I'd still try and enjoy the dying obsession before it officially changea.

That happened to me once

I don't consciously get bored of obsessions, but at a certain point I just become aware of a 'change' in my mind and feel them slipping away, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. It's as if a switch has been tripped; although I might still have a lingering interest, the obsession has gone, and there's nothing I can do to get it back unless it does so of its own accord.

There are always a few countries I am obsessed with at any given time (Italy has been the main one since as long as I can remember). At the moment, the others are Russia and Moldova. In the past, I have been obsessed with America, Spain, Slovenia, Bhutan, Tibet, Mongolia, Tuvalu, and some others.

And I'm normally obsessed with a particular TV show at any one time as well. At the moment it's Friends. Before Friends it was South Park. The South Park obsession lasted from about February 2008 until August of the same year. Then there must have been some kind of transition between the two obsessions, but the next thing I remember is that by September I was obsessed with Friends, and that was nearly a year ago so that has lasted a LOT longer than the TV obsessions normally do.

And there's normally some other subject I'm interested in (currently virology), often related to history, geography or science. In the past, this has been volcanology, meteorology (weather, not meteors), and some other stuff I can't remember right now.

Anyway, when I stop being obsessed with something, it's normally because something else came along to replace it so I don't have time for the old obsession anymore, so I don't get an amount of time between obsessions with nothing to fill the gap.

It appears I've written loads, so I guess I'd better stop now.

I based a thirty year career on an obsession. The obsession didn't so much dissipate, as the jobs in that field did. Once the industry began to die, so did my love for it. Unfortunately it took me the last fifteen years of that career to find another obsession that could actually be a career path. Getting established in the second has been a hellish living nightmare that continues to this day.

When it comes to my obsessions, I constantly change which ones I'm into due to my mood swings. However, there are some that still keep my interest, like Godzilla (I've always loved Godzilla movies as a kid, but I didn't start getting obsessed with them until three years ago), certain video game franchises, and Dragon Ball (although I don't like GT, and I thought Evolution raped the series).

Out-of-topic: SpongeBobRocksMao, did you see the Ultimate Spongebob Sponge Bash last night. It was an event that has shown fan favorites, celebrity favorites, and ten back-to-back premiere episodes of Spongebob. I know that the U.K. has Nick, but I'm not sure if our T.V. schedules are the same.

Well, my obsessions do change, but that doesn't mean that I don't cycle through some regularly. For example, math, computers, and computer programming are all things I come back to. Poker looks like it's going to be permanently added to the cycle, as well as religion and philosophy. Other things disappear never to resurface. Pokemon would be an example here. I still enjoy playing Pokemon occasionally (it's got some pretty good RPG aspects on the technical side), but I am never really as into it as I used to be. Generally, my temporary obsessions only last for a few weeks, whereas my primaries last for months. When I am not in my primary obsessions, I still enjoy doing them. I just don't feel a need to do them.

Alas, I based two careers on obsessions. The first burnt out in a few years. Very sad to lose it and lost a life-long activity with it. Turned another obsession into a career, which entailed several years of post-grad schooling. This one gave me great opportunities and a really good living. I spent twenty years in it (kind of amazing for something I immersed myself in), but the last years were a little uncomfortable, because I'd lost the passion. I am only just starting to regain enjoyment in those two fields again, but they are not obsessions anymore, just interests. I love the passion of full-blown obsessions and would think twice about building a career around one, because the pain of burnout is so sad. I do know of a person who built a career around her obsession and is still going strong after 40+ years, however, so it pays to know thyself.

Mine don't change so much as... become less pronounced and make room for many more. I don't have limited interests or obssessions, just ones which I'm more interested in that others. Such as:

Philosophy
Theology
Architecture
Space travel
Terraforming
Writing
Airships
'Animal' Intelligence
Ancient civilisations
(Crypto)zoology

Though those aren't the only ones...

I would say space is a new one of mine, though I haven't spent time on it yet, so it's one I'd consider getting into.

My obsessions change or sometimes I go back to past obsessions. I usually get sick of photography. When I had my own photo exhibit I was really bored and not into it. A few months later and I'm into photography again.
Story writing and reading are my main obsessions now. I've started to get into medieval times after finding a book in the shop about King Arthur.

With me, what changes is the special interest that is the main FOCUS for me, the one I ramble about/give monologues about and think about all of the time. I never grow bored of my special interests, nor do I ever completely abandon them. However, there comes a point where the current rambling special interest either reaches a stage where I no longer need to talk about it nonstop, or I find a new special interest that makes the previous rambling one take a backseat.

For example, A Beautiful Mind was my big special interest from around January 2006 to March 2007, with a peak from September-December 2006. When I joined this forum, I was at the peak of my obsession, hence my user name. It was all I'd talk about, pretty much, and I'd quote it incessantly. Then, around April 2007, it just sort of phased out into the background. It's still one of my biggest special interests, but I no longer need to ramble on and on about it. Why did it lessen in intensity? I have no idea.

Recently, I've had an instance of the second type of changing obsession. My primary special interest from late 2005 until a month or so ago (A Beautiful Mind shared its peak time with this special interest) has recently taken a backseat to a new special interest that I just discovered about three months ago. Slowly but surely, I talk less about the old obsession and much more about the new one. I'm still highly obsessed with the old special interest, but I no longer need to give monologues on it. For me, this is a very slow process. It doesn't happen right away; I just begin to notice that my conversations start to lean towards the newest special interest.
-OddDuckNash99-

Sometimes I feel like have to move away from mathematics but I can't my life revolves around it, I based a whole education on mathematics but I still don't know what to choose yet , what field to choose within it. When I do move away it's usually on a topic that is mathematically related like mathematical economics / physiology / physics etc. I will never turn away from the language of the universe , it explains way to many things unreasonably well.