Blog Post 1: Obsession Overview

'Sneakin', sneakin'! Hobbitsess always sssooo polite, yesss. Ehm..nice Hobbitsess. Smeagol brings them up ssecret ways, that nobody else can find. Tired he is, and thirsty he is and he guidesssess 'em and he searchesss the path..yess. And then they say: Sneak!"  (Gollum's Dialogue)

The picture and the dialog above is Smeagol’s/Gollum’s, a character from the classic movie “Lord of the Rings.” I find him as a very appropriate illustration of someone being obsessed, in his case, his "preciousssss" ring. With all these, some questions came to my mind, how do you develop obsession with something or someone? If you’re the one being obsessed, do you notice that you’re starting to get obsessed with something?

As a teenager and more especially, a girl, I had my own obsessions also. I didn’t notice it until such time I realized that my whole life is being occupied and dedicated to them. The term we’d like to call it is “fangirl-ing” when what I have been doing is not fangirling anymore, I was Idolizing. It simply means to admire or to love something or someone greatly or excessively. And that was very unhealthy. So I decided to lessen my dedication to it because it slowly became a distraction to me.

So, I researched what obsession is and found out that obsession is defined in many ways. One is, as the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, and others, often associated with anxiety. In other ways, it is defined as a word used by the lazy to describe the dedicated. In terms of love, obsession is when you are trying to control someone that you think you are in love with. You get them or try to get them, to do what you want them to do. If you break up with them you get all angry and want to destroy their lives and hurt them (inside). This is true obsession.

But there are different types of obsession. The healthy obsession which helps you develop your skills and abilities to get better at something. And if there’s a healthy obsession, of course there would be an unhealthy obsession. This happens when you’re getting obsessed by something or someone. It won’t benefit you, instead, it will only worsen your personality and then you will most likely have a problem.

Based on Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic's article What Makes Your Obsession Healthy or Unhealthy is Your Personality.

"It simply means they pay more attention than most people to something, even most people who are interested in something. This is when obsessions can be more than healthy: nobody who has ever achieved anything impressive or made an outstanding contribution to anything, has managed to do so without a certain level of obsessiveness."

Obsession is not all bad, if you're being obsessed WITH it. It benefits you with equipping you skills and developing what you already have. For instance, you don't become a perfect dancer unless you become obsessed with dancing and improve with your dancing skills. You can't be called a great cook until you become obsessed with cooking and then become excellent at it. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic also stated in the previous article: "the only way to love something is to be obsessed with it, but if you have the wrong combination of personality traits, you may end up being obsessed BY it."