My wife thinks I have become obsessed with poker, but I to some extend disagree. Instead, I have a mission. A mission to get a Royal Flush. I am allowing that mission to be a sponge to soak up my extra time, but it is to achieve a specific goal. So, after hitting a royal flush, I doubt I will ever again play heads up hold em (too much variance, and there are other games to prefer to play during the times I can invest fixed attention.) I am pursuing a strategy to achieve a goal, but I know there are other things that can crop up that are more important.
So, for example, when my wife needed help moving things into her classroom, I was there two afternoons in a row. There are certainly things more important than poker, but those have a variability in terms of when they need my attention. I have my finances on auto-pilot, for example, and I am working my way toward health, but that is a simple matter of correct decisions two times a day (my two meals) and exercising when it is scheduled.
This is a goal. It's on the bucket list. When I get this goal one day, I plan to take a break from all poker for a month.
In the future, I'll have some other goal on the list that takes up the lion-share of my ambient time, such as promoting gardening techniques, programming, or working on physical skills. Those will be the center of my otherwise unused days (and perhaps blog posts).
This brings up again the point of "energized time" versus "zombie time." Certain kinds of slow-moving tables at low enough states are perfect pass-time for when I feel too drained for anything else, but its not late enough to wind down for sleep. After a month-long poker fast post-Royal-Flush, I think poker will be a part of life. But no more so than doodle jump, sudoku, or candy crush for the average person.
I have other impressive things to do when this mission is over.
