How To Obsess

Everyone has some kind of obsession, secret or not. It could range from collecting coins to watching television to making sure everything in your kitchen is labelled with little colour-coded post-it notes. Go figure. People have a ton of quirks you may not know about, but most teenage obsessions fall along similar lines. You know what I’m talking about.

How many teenage girls out there don’t have pictures and posters of hot male celebrities in their bedrooms, wallets, and lockers? I’m not sure how it works with guys, but I’m assuming they do about the same thing with posters of pretty supermodels and actresses. You know you aren’t fooling anyone. Internet is another thing we can’t seem to live without. FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter, MSN, MySpace. The list goes on and on. How do you feel after a couple of days after no computer access? And without your phone? Yeah. That’s what I thought.

There are two types of obsessions: the long term ones and the short term ones. In comparison, long term preoccupations are much easier to deal with. They make take up monstrous amounts of your time, but they don’t completely consume your life, and at least you’re doing something you enjoy. In contrast, short term obsessions are like drugs that you are forced to quit just when you are at the peak of fascination. They become your life, and when it’s over and done with, you feel like there’s nothing else worth living for in the world.

My latest infatuation was the Hunger Games, a popular series by Suzanne Collins. I’m not a big reader, but I literally had trouble putting those books down. I forgot about hunger and sleepiness. All I wanted to do was read. When I wasn’t reading, I was daydreaming about it. Even when I slept, I still dreamt of it. When I finally finished the series, I felt like I had just experienced the worst break-up in the history of break-ups. I stayed in withdrawal for weeks. In fact, I am still recovering because even now, my most anticipated event is the release of the first movie of the Hunger Games. It’s been a difficult time for me.

There’s a fine line between an obsession and a hobby. Both are things that we like to do that make us happy. The difference is that while we indulge in hobbies in healthy amounts, we overdose on obsessions, causing attention-deficit disorders, sleeplessness, lack of appetite, and withdrawal symptoms that include anti-social behaviour and a sense of emptiness. So what can we do about them? Not much. It’s totally normal to experience periods of temporary craze, but just remember that there are better things in life that are worthy of your time.