That's almost productive

        Christmas was wonderful. I new exactly what I was getting which was preferential this year. Sometimes surprises can be overrated when you have specific preferences. Incredibly specific. Maybe too specific.
We are still experiencing holiday aftershock which included my parents running up to visit some family leaving the house to me. I haven't had this much free time in forever so I was excited to get some fun projects done and took it upon myself to relax with fervor. I take my relaxing seriously and wanted these days to be eventful. Surprisingly I found it extremely difficult to maintain productivity. Instead I was held captive by a video game called Skyrim making my other goals hard to reach. Like Jack Bower's daughter in 24 I was constantly pulling off elaborate escapes just to be recaptured by the game until I decided the only way to escape was to conquer it. It was no longer a fun pastime but a battle for freedom. All night I fought the beast fading in and out of consciousness until I was blessed with victory allowing me to finally pay attention to my other tasks.
         In my life priorities are not as comparable to a straight line as they are to a herd of cattle. Instead of staying organized and accessible they need to be perpetually corralled making it hard to take care of them and occasionally I'll loose one or two over the fence. It seems like the more important a priority is the more I want to avoid it for a priority of lesser value. That means that on days like these ones where my top priorities are not very significant I end up doing even less than intended. My semi-important priorities are replaced with counterproductive ones until my usefulness is void.
         It is understandable why people set goals that are above their abilities fully knowing that falling short of that goal still leaves them in good shape. Sometimes setting goals that are too realistic give us too much slack to, well, slack. Some people have amazing self control but for the rest of us free time is wasted time and the more responsibility we are given and the time we seem to lose the more productive we can be. Even the things I choose to do to procrastinate accomplishing big tasks are more productive and worthwhile than the things I do with my free time. It is good to have some helps to make sure that your priorities are headed in the direction you want them to go without losing any or getting burnt out. It may not be perfectly satisfying to not reach high goals but it is much better than the regret of doing nothing. Not much sense in having "cows" if you aren't going to do anything with them. They can't corral, brand, castrate, milk or slaughter and process themselves after all.
Here's something I did with my 'free time'.