Obsession

Curiosity is the feeling of something pulling your attention. Leaning towards that pull will satisfy your curiosity.

Learning while being curious about the subject is a great way to make progress. It feels effortless. You don’t know how long the curiosity is going to last, tho.

If you have curiosity, don’t wast it. Let it pull you in.

Obsession is different.

Obsession is the feeling of not being able to help yourself but to do whatever you’re obsessed about. You must do it. To not to do it, you must fight it.

It’s curiosity on steroids. It might disrupt your daily life. Might have an impact on your health (sleeping late, eating habits changed, …), friends might be wondering where are you at, you might be only talking about it to anyone around you. Everything else feels like a distraction.

Obsession has a bad reputation. It’s not a great word.

But it’s how some of us do our best work. Achieve our best results.

Personally, I love to be obsessed about things. To lean into it. To let me trap me, and not to think about anything else for a while. I enjoy every second of it. I learn a lot. Most time than not, during those periods of obsession I learn stuff that will be useful later in life.

The difficult part is to try to control it. You don’t want it to become unhealthy. Not for a long time, anyway. You need to throttle your efforts.

Do that, and you’ll be impressed in how much you achieve.

And then, when eventually fades away? Let it go. It’s okay. Nothing is forever. Leaving behind what was an obsession only leaves room for another thing you’ll be curious or obsessed about.

A secondary positive effect (I love this concept) of leaving an obsession behind is that it will leave a habit. You will identify as a person who likes/does X. Let it be climbing, reading, program or motorbike riding.

I used to read 1 book a week for almost 2.5 years. That’s 100s of books. It was a challenge. I used to identify myself as a reader before. But now more so. The challenge is over now, but the idea of “only” reading a book a month seems super feasible. That’s a secondary positive effect of getting obsessed to reading.

Always lean towards curiosity.

Let obsessions trap you. Don’t fight it. Or only fight it a little bit. Just to keep it healthy.