Fellow blogger, Brandon, recently posted on his journal a personal dilemma that is, I think, common, “Too Many Hobbies, and Not Enough Time.” Well, it’s safe to say he’s not alone in that sentiment; I feel likewise. And he hits an insightful mark too, pinpointing a key (first-world) problem. It isn’t so much a lack of time but something else.
Brandon says,
“I think the problem is we have too much choice, and way too much access to things.”
It so happens that I read a book last Summer about this very thing. Called, “The Paradox of Choice” by Barry Schwartz. It offers relief:
“…Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.”
In general, I find the same issues Brandon talks about. Here in the U.S.A., the land of plenty, where we are relatively opulent, decadent, and affluent, we have so many options with, for example, entertainment.
It’s astounding, really, that in my lifetime, we progressed (if you would call it that) from waiting to see random silly candid antics once a week for only 45 minutes on “America’s Funniest Home Videos” to being able to instantly stream endless such YouTube videos 24/7 from our pockets. Or with music, 30 years ago I had to buy a whole CD or Tape for the one song I wanted to hear, but now I can stream practically an infinite number of the exact songs I wish, 24/7. Endless entertainment is commonplace, also applying to books and video games.
My most recent experience relating to this is, in fact, video games. As a kid, I basically got one game for Christmas each year, and sometimes one more during the year for my birthday. One or two games a year meant that’s all I could play. Sure, outside of school, I had plenty of discretionary time. But having only one or two recent games made it easy to fully immerse and enjoy them without feeling like I had to rush through to the next game on the glut of my adult gaming backlog.
These days, I simply have way too many un-played or unfinished games and not enough time. It’s a “good problem” to have, a reality I’ve come to more or less accept.
Last month, with my new gaming laptop and Christmas gift cards, I bought several new games on sale via Steam. Great. Now I just need to somehow find, make, or take time to play them, which as you can guess is in short supply. But if I had bought just one game, I know which one I would play — that one game! And when I had some time, it’d be easier to, you know, just get into it. But now I have the almost debilitating dilemma of decision: which game should I play first and for how long?
It gets better. Or worse. You see, on March 20th, one of my most favorite games will be re-released on Switch in a Definitive Edition, Xenoblade Chronicles X. I played it on the Wii U but didn’t finish it and didn’t even get a Skell (a mech), though I was about one task and a few hours from it. So now I’m eager to replay the upgraded game, savoring it once more and fully reaching the Skells if not also finishing the game’s main story (which, by the way, is expanded on in the forthcoming edition).
Somehow, I must ignore all other options: that long book I plan to read this year, “American Prometheus;” the handful of games I just bought, like “Skyrim;” the other games I’ve still not started or finished… With little spare time, I must focus on XCX:DE and stay focused for many weeks or months. Meanwhile, my YouTube Watchlist will grow. And my web article Read Later list will pile up. And these are tip-of-the-iceberg examples.
I think I agree with Brandon’s Journal and Barry Schwartz: fewer options, less choice, would actually be helpful, less distracting. A hard fact is this: we are not getting more time, only less. So the only way to solve the dilemma is to have less choice or fewer videos, books, songs, movies, games, and hobbies to fill the little time given us.
While entertainment, hobbies, and recreation have their place as part of a healthy, full, yet balanced lifestyle, I think we overdid it. Talk about a need for content moderation; it’s not so much about quality but rather quantity. “Less is more” keeps ringing true no matter how many times I hear it. It seems too simple though. Less entertainment means more time to enjoy it.
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