Wants vs Needs

Now that the media PC is running "smoothly" (still stuff to be done but nothing that can't be done in the background) I need to think about why I became so obsessed with fixing it, so much so that it trumped my regular activities like webcomic making and house work (and also graphic novel production). I think mayb e it was a bit like my poor old car, The Rauni.

The Car
I kept that car going for just over 10 years, mostly because I believed that I couldn't live where I do without one. But you know, I was wrong. At the time I felt had to make keeping it going top priority. With a working car I could:

• get to my studies and back;
• go shopping;
• visit friends; and
• go to social events after bus hours.

There was and is a bus route that goes near my home (nearest stop is 520 metres up the road) but it runs mostly hourly and doesn't run at all after 8pm, and less on Sunday. However back then I was convinced that not having a working car would make me look less capable and create great hardship for myself. There was other stuff going on as well as the stuff above. So I really jumped through hoopps to keep it going. I'd get Centrelink advances, student loans, eat the cheapest food, all to pay for repairs and the yearly 3rd party insurance on it (rego fees are free when you're on a disability allowance). And that wasn't counting running costs (or the stress I had in driving it). Over all the old car became a nightmare of my own making, mostly because of my attitudes.

No matter how much I fixed it, there was always something else waiting to go wrong. And because I have no expertise in fixing cars (OK, I once got it to go over a mountain and to the mechanic's by inserting a damp towel in the air filter) every time it broke it cost me $$$ out of any savings I had to fix it. And I was resentful to have to travel on the bus instead. It seemed like an indignity. But then there came a time when I just couldn't afford to fix it or the 3rd party, but drove it anyway. And I got caught. That cost money as well (all long sorted) but it was the death knell for that car.  I sold it for $50 a few months later becaue I knew that a) I couldn't afford to get it repaired enough to pass inspection, b) didn't have the money for the 3rd party, and c) even if I did all that it was going to break down again. After it was gone I was so relieved. An now 3-4 years later I still don't have a car. Although it can be awkward on public transport, I manage. And I find that I can generally relax on the bus or train as I'm not driving. :)

Media PC
So with the media PC, it seems I developed the same sort of attitude. It is a convenience and luxury that I got used to, not a necessity that I'm dependent on. And yet I behaved like it was. That's a bit of a worry. I was prepared to go to the computer markets yesterday and buy another IDE drive just to get it going again. That would have worked but it would have cost me $$$ wiped out the day for anything else and I know that I wouldn't have been happy afterwards even if it had worked.

As it was, I had a dream about the thing which had someone put a different drive in the PC and it started working. When I did this, it did (after a fashion) but the important thing was that it showed me the PC wasn't dead, merely that the drive in there had become unreadable after an abortive Windows install (long story)! Ultimately I was able to test the drive on another PC, and reset it as well. Which meant I was able to reinstall Win (XP, Win7 doesn't run right on it) and Linux on it and have a working media PC again. Yesterday was instead spent at home doing housework, and finishing some comic pages I'd started earlier in the week until the "PC Crisis" drove that out of the picture. A much better outcome than hunting around town looking for a spare part! :)

But here's the bottom line - I didn't have to do either. I could have just left it alone for a while while I did other stuff, watching shows and films I'd recorded on my Set Top Boxes or live TV or even DVDs. I didn't have to fix it first, before anything else. And yet I did. I have to be careful about becoming obsessed like this again. Now that I have what I want, the stuff I do on it can be low priority. But what happens when the next "crisis" occurs?

Keeping priorities
I think this has taught me that I need to put things in perspective. The media PC repair wasn't urgent, and in fact I made it worse by trying "desperate measures" (like several failed installs of Win7) which lost sight of the long term goal or need. With The Rauni my need was reliable travel but what I wanted was my own car, and that's not the same. With the media PC my need was entertainment whereas what I wanted was my media PC and that's not the same either. As is I got what I wanted, but only after I eased up and removed myself from that want..

Being too focussed on my wants and not my needs leads to obsession and dead ends. Being focussed on my needs rather than my wants is the way to go
 

Today...

...I'm working on webcomics.

A New Scientific Article...

... in the 27th August issue, suggested six ways to help yourself, which I found of interest.

1. Belief in the medicine you're on often helps, even if it's a placebo!;
2. Tell yourself things are going to get better and they just might;
3. Meditate (in your own way) and you might live longer;
4. The difference between a lonely person and one that's not isn't their social life or relationships, it's how satisfied they are with those;
5. Hypnotism actually works on symtoms (but probably not on causes); and
6. Having a sense of purpose in life (regardless, mostly, of what that is) makes a difference to your quality of life.

I sort of knew most of those already. In some ways New Scientist reminds me of Popular Mechanics (where's my jet pack?!) but this seems more or less good advice.