Passion and time

I've gone into great lengths on this blog to be transparent about my wavering decision to play World of Warcraft. It's interesting, provides some virtual accomplishments, is the ultimate escape from struggles of life, and is something I feel better-than-average at.

Today I took a day-long series of training classes presented by other Microsoft consultants in the DC area. They're passionate people, doing things they enjoy and extending their technology interests into their hobbies and sharing the outcome of those outside projects with others.

This got me thinking. One element to the life equation that I've learned to ignore, or maybe just hadn't thought of deeply enough just yet, is that I should probably focus most of my time on the things that I'm most passionate about. My family and friends probably deserve more of the slice than I give them, but that's a topic for another day.

In relation to my interests, playing video games isn't my #1 passion. They're fun, and WoW is a really good one. However, tinkering with software, creating widgets and making computers do things would definitely come out on top. I have a great opportunity with Hands on DC to create some powerful software to help a group that I feel is important, and I haven't done much to take advantage of it. Thankfully my coworker has stepped up and is pumping out a nice application that meets the group's needs, but still, where have I been?

I have been playing WoW. In the past 11 days (since my girlfriend left for a work trip to Africa), I transferred Bleurgh, my dwarf rogue, to the Fizzcrank server, leveled him from 61 to 66, upped his fishing skill from 287 to 345, leveled mining from 1-315, cooking to 358, and got caught up with the max (325) on lockpicking. I also made about 500 gold and completed several achievements in fishing, exploration, and quests. I learned some nice cooking recipes and created a Zapthrottle Mote Extractor with my engineering skill so that I can get motes from gas clouds in Outlands. The short-term goal is to burn through quests in Outlands so I can see the new zone, Northrend, to quest and do instance dungeons there. Ultimately, I'd like to be 80 and get back into running instances with a good group. I joined a guild with my buddy Josh from Indiana, and we've been having fun keeping tabs on each other and occasionally working on the same things.

I've been playing a lot even though some key people in my life don't like it. And they have reason not to. I become more focused on those tasks than my relationships, I lose time that could be spent more productively, and my health suffers.

Oddly, all those negatives would also be the case if more accurately allocated my time to my passions. As a coder, I'll be just as antisocial, I'll just have "something to show for it"...maybe.

There's an opportunity to see if I can be passionate about WoW, however wasteful that might seem. I'm considering writing more about my adventures and participating more in the community.

It's all kind of jumbled in my head, as it is every time I think about leaving. Maybe my passion lies in resisting the draw and temptation of the game, and writing about my struggles.