I'm a little bit extra-stuck today

So, yesterday (actually, I lied, it was the day before yesterday) I set out to do some deep cleaning in my room.  I didn't have any specific plans, but I knew it had to be done.  Lil Sis had left some boxes in there over the weekend (we had family coming into town), so I had to get those out of there, first.  It took a lot longer than I expected to evacuate the boxes, and by the time I was finished, I felt it was time for a lunch break (at which time Lil Sis comes home and sarcastically thanks me for moving the boxes into the middle of her room, at which I sarcastically told her "you're welcome" for taking them out of the middle of my room.  I, of course, wanted to apologize immediately, but I'm trying to stop sweating the small stuff, so I just felt like a jerk for the rest of the day.  Tangent over).

Then I went back to my room, and picked up one (I repeat ONE) item off of the floor, and put it away.  And I was trapped on the internet for the rest of the day.  I blame Hyperbole and a Half for drawing me in, but I stayed to blog, so was it really all that bad?

Anyway, I think it's because I've been doing so many good things that I've started sabotaging myself again.  Over the past couple of days, whenever I heard my brain say "don't", I made a beeline straight for that thing.  I needed to print up some paperwork, but our printer was broken, so I went all the way to the library.  I saw a book that looked interesting, and so I picked it up, even though OCD told me I wouldn't have time to read it.  I was on my way home, when I thought about a new friend of mine, who I knew is always cooped up at home, with nowhere to go, and thought it would be a good idea to go visit her.

That was the hardest Don't in the past week.  I don't drop in uninvited.  I don't start up conversations.  I don't go to people's houses alone, especially when that house is in a less-nice part of town.  I don't visit people I don't know very well.

So I went.  And I actually had a good time: she was happy to see me, her kids were adorable.  We had some good conversations (example: I need to get a bird feeder for our yard.  Apparently, birds will come to your yard and eat your mosquitoes for you.  How have I not thought of this before?) and I got to spend more time out of the house (the more time I spend at home, the easier it is to listen to Don't).

Today, I did another great thing: I finally cleaned my room!  For about twenty minutes... I threw away about three grocery bags worth of stuff (which included my collapsed boxes, and my container collection), and re-organized so that I have a floor and desk again.

Before...

After!  Hooray!

Even my guitar is celebrating!  Anyway, not nearly as much as I wanted to get done, so I figured I could reward myself with some writing.

In case you haven't guessed before now, I'm a writer.  I love writing.  I do it a lot.  My word count since May 21st is 53,498 (1,070 words a day) and that's only because I wanted to take time off to read every few days (that would be 29 books)(many of them are graphic novels, but that counts) (in case you hadn't noticed, I really like record-keeping).  My word count so far this month is 18,509, and we're only ten days in.  Enough numbers.

My point is, I have my blog to write, I've got a novel to write, and a good stack of library books to peruse through, all of which bring me joy (and maybe one day money.  I will be published.   I will do it).  And these are just the things I want to do.  I've got more cleaning to do in my room, and chores in the rest of the house.  The job search is continuing on (16 applications in the past month, and only two interviews.  Clearly, I have to stop being so picky...)(who knew that it would be so hard to get a job after college? *snort*), and I haven't posted a video on YouTube in months (oh, how I miss it.  My guitar just listlessly stares at me, day in, day out).  So clearly, I have plenty of things I could, should, or want to be doing.  But what is it I choose to do?

That's right.  None of them.  I spend hours and hours, looking at memes on the internet.  It's my current strongest addiction.  It's not necessarily a bad thing by itself, in the beginning, it made me smile, which is always nice.  But I'm beyond that now.  I look them up because I have to.  I have to see everything that's new.  I can't miss anything.  I have to.  It's become a tic: I'm never far from my computer, and every couple of minutes, I find myself back on those stupid websites.  I try to write a sentence--wait, let me see if there's anything new up.  I think about vacuuming my now-cleared-away floor, but I wanted to write a couple thousand words today.  So I get back on the computer.  And end up in the wrong place again.  Do the dishes?  No, memes.  Do the laundry?  Memes.  Write a new chapter? MEMES.  

Like I said, it's more than just a tic, it's sabotage.  Maybe it's because I'm afraid of failure, or success.  Maybe it's something else.  But I'm letting it get in my way.  Every other word I type, I think "wait, there's probably something new online, I need to check."

I have an anti-procrastination app on my browser, called StayFocused.  You can block certain sites, or give yourself a certain amount of time on those sites, and I have done that for the bad ones.  I only allow myself forty minutes a day on my meme sites.  But that just means that I read them faster, or use tricks like going onto other pages while they load.  I've supplemented with Facebook, going on there every other minute while I wait for new memes to show up, successfully consuming all of my time, and breaking up any useful stream of thought with the urge to stimulate that part of my brain.

And I'm tired of it.  Memes aren't as funny or interesting as they used to be.  I barely pay attention to them at all.  I just need to file them away in my brain, collecting them like I collect my cardboard boxes and empty containers.  I don't want to do this anymore.  It's not fun anymore.  And I can't stop.

I'm trying not to use words like "can't".  I know that 90% of my limitations are in my mind.  But my mind is kind of the problem here.  I'm working on changing the way I'm thinking, on switching out bad habits with good habits.  I've been forcing myself to Do when my brain says Don't, but it's a lot harder to Don't when your brain says Do.

So, here's my plan for now: I'm going to block myself from the meme websites altogether.  If that doesn't help enough, then I'll turn off my Facebook.  Now, the meme thing isn't quite as scary as Facebook, because I always find some way to kill time on useless things.  For example, YouTube was a big one, for a long time.  

But Facebook?  This is my connection with society.  All of my friends are on there, and I next to never get to see them in person anymore, because school's out, and everyone went their separate ways.  I don't want to be that over-dramatic chick that cut ties with everybody for a week, before she couldn't stand it anymore and gave in.  I also don't want to be out of touch with people.  It's how I communicate with everybody, and it's how I know what's going on when.  My single's group posts dates and locations of activities on there, and that's basically my only contact with the outside world, outside of church and my endless job search.

I feel like I'm just coming up with excuses.  Maybe it would be good to turn it off for a while, or only pay attention to notifications, and nothing else.  I'll have to see how it goes with my meme addiction.

Wish me luck!
Penny