Obsession

Let's be honest for a minute. If you have ever been to church, more often than not, 15 minutes into the sermon you are trying to decide whether you want Mexican or Italian when you get out. Especially with my ADD. But a few months back I heard one from the youth pastor of my church that stuck with me. Reason being that it's a key flaw that ruins our life, yet hardly ever gets addressed. I'm not going to preach his sermon to you. Just thought I would give credit where credit is due. I am, however, going to tell you how I feel about it and how it can relate to my life, and yours.

Everyday this happens to me. I can count on it. I will be driving and someone is going to do something stupid. Bet on it. You will win every time. The problem isn't the fact that I get angry. The problem is I obsess over it. Here is the difference. The definition of obsess is to dominate or preoccupy the thoughts, feelings, or desires. Key word in that definition being dominate. My thoughts become dominated by this guy who did something stupid while driving. And all I can think about for the next portion of my life is how terrible of a driver this guy is and how he shouldn't be driving. What an absolute waste of good thought time. Here is a guy who might have just made a mistake and I caught him at the wrong time. I've made a few driving mistakes in my time. Maybe he is truly a jerk and just wanted to make me mad for no reason. Whatever the cause, I will have anger burning inside of me for the entire duration of this obsession. Why?

I thought about it for a while and found the answer. We obsess over the smallest of things (and large) because we all want instant gratification. Did that guy seriously just get away with that? Where are the cops? I hope he wrecks. We want others to get what's coming to them when they offend us. I guess it's human nature. I use the example of driving here because, if you are an avid reader, you might notice that I talk about it a lot. Traffic is my kryptonite. Hate it. Can't stand it. But we obsess over many other things that have no real effect on the rest of our lives. And most of the time...we obsess over complete strangers that we will never see again. Strangers. People we don't know. Sometimes, people that don't even realize they did anything wrong. So who wins that battle (if you would call it a battle)? The guy who is thinking about other things.

It's not always strangers though. Could be a roommate. Could be a spouse or boy/girlfriend. Could be siblings. Could be your best friend. Just something they said or did that made you angry or offended you. And you can't stop thinking about it. Here is the best option to end the obsession. Let it go. Now, people always say it's easier said than done. I disagree. How do you go about letting things go. Do you just say it, or do you actually make a change in the way that you think? Letting go of things is really easy to do. How, you might ask? Just tell yourself that whatever is bothering you is going to happen. Don't act like it's something new every time. And don't seek instant justification. If I was in a press conference with God, I think I would ask him why we care so much about what happens to other people. Example: A guy doesn't work hard and just sits around all day making millions of dollars, yet I work 40 hours a week and I am scraping by. It is my natural instinct to loath that guy making money. Why? He is not me. Nothing he does even effects my life. But I still feel resentment towards people like that. I obsess over it. All that does is bring me down. My obsession does the opposite of bringing success upon myself. It brings me down. So do what you have to do. Let it go. Here's a spoiler alert: the ratio of people that get away with offending you and people who get whats coming to them is heavily weighted in the "get away with it" category. Don't try to change it because it won't happen.

Putting all of this into perspective, think about your life in the past 5-10 years. What were some of your best moments? Now, what were some of your worst moments? I can't guarantee it since I do not know everyone's story, but most likely your worst moments had something to do with obsession. Obsessing over a girl that broke your heart (guilty). Obsessing over the guy that took her (guilty). Obsessing over money. School. Work. It is never fun. And obsessing never solves the problem. Now look at where you are now. Did obsessing over that situation change your life? The answer is probably no. So all that time spent dwelling on things of unimportance...wasted

I'm a huge believer that we only have one life to live, so live it up. My life is about 1/4 of the way over (if I'm lucky). I can't spend an hour every day getting mad because someone didn't use their turn signal. I need to stop obsessing.



ps thanks PC