Over the past week or two I have been really trying to get down to the root of this question?  Really, where does my time go?  What am I doing when I’m not teaching or preparing lessons?  This question arose because I was thinking that I wanted to post here more often.  I want to write more quality posts that hopefully all of you (or at least most of you) will enjoy.  Then this past Saturday I realized the answer.  The vast majority of my time is spent reading.  I am reading all the time and spend hours a day sitting in front of my computer just reading. I suppose it’s better than sitting in front of my TV all day, but it is still a problem.  I want to pursue other things, especially seeing more sights around Xi’an (which has taken a serious downturn over the past few weeks).  For example, I went to Nanjing two weekends ago and I still haven’t even begun to think about writing about.  There’s just not enough time!

Being an engineer, I am usually very organized and deliberate.  I swear I have at least a little OCD.  So after spending pretty much all day Saturday reading, I decided to make a comprehensive list of all the blogs and news sources I am currently following to see how much I am actually subscribed to.  I was surprised by the results.

1. ABC
2. Almost Fearless
3. Asian Ramblings
4. CNET News
5. CNN
6. Craig Ferguson Images
7. Digital Nomads
8. Exile Lifestyle
9. Expatriate Games
10. Flying Ready
11. Foodie Calls
12. Fluent in 3 Months
13. Free Pursuits
14. From Redwoods to Red China
15. Get Paid to Write
16. Get Rich Slowly
17. Green Tech
18. Hot Chicks with Douchebags
19. I Will Teach You to be Rich
20. Jet Set Citizen
21. Life Through the Lens of Bryan
22. Live Uncomfortably
23. Location Independent
24. Lost Laowai
25. Mark’s China Blog
26. Messin’ With Texas
27. Mine Your Resources
28. Muselife
29. My Several Worlds
30. Nomadic Matt
31. Off the Grid and On the Map
32. One Giant Step…Is All it Takes
33. Our New Office
34. Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist
35. Penny Arcade
36. Rundown in Progress
37. SHE in China
38. Soul Travelers 3
39. Simple Productivity
40. Tales from Technomadia
41. The 9 to 5 Alternative
42. The 4 Hour Work Week
43. The Art of Nonconformity
44. The China Blog
45. The Longest Way Home
46. Thrilling Heroics
47. Traveling to Live
48. USA Today
49. Vagablogging
50. Wall Street Journal’s China Journal
51. Wandering Why
52. Web Worker Daily
53. Xinjiang: Far West China
54. Yahoo! News

On top of all this, I am also currently in the middle of reading two books.  I have no idea how I let this list get so long.  I think it just snowballed from the first few blogs I started reading.  Those blogs would post articles about what other people were doing and writing about, so I would read those and subscribe to their stuff.  And those people would make similar articles about more people, and so on and so forth.  I’m not sure how this list measures up to most bloggers out there, but I feel like this is a heck of a lot of reading.  I am nearly at my limit, I think.

The problem is, I enjoy all of these sites.  Each one has unique and interesting content.  It’s not always spectacular, but the vast majority is interesting and done well enough to warrant taking the time to read it.  I feel that as I continue to read more and more from different people and services all over the world, I am informing and empowering myself.  Information is power these days, right?  Also, by following many different writers, I can identify what styles and techniques I think will work for me.  Not only am I learning about the world and its many different facets, I am also making myself a better writer. And that, in turn, is a benefit to all of you.

But there is always a limit to self improvement.  You have to put a cap on it at some point.  Or else the effort to improve yourself replaces the original motivation.  When you lose sight of why you started in the first place, and all you have left is the compulsion to keep going.  I started reading more so that I could bring informed insight to my own blog, and to make myself a better writer.  But now I’ve taken on so much reading that I write far less than when I first came to China.

I need to reevaluate how much time I spend reading and why I am doing it.  Do I really enjoy all this reading?  Or am I simply doing it because I feel the obligation to read as much as possible?  Where do you draw the line and say, “This is enough”? Really this applies to any path to self improvement you choose to take.  While it is not certain that it will happen, the possibility is definitely there that the drive to become better at whatever it is you are doing becomes all-consuming.  You find a path that you hope will enable you to enjoy life a little more.  But then you find yourself spending so much time on that path that life passes you by.  And you’re left with no goal or destination in sight; you can’t even remember why you started but the only thing you can think to do is keep going.

Maybe I’m being a bit too extreme.  But I think it’s easier to make a point and illuminate the argument by taking the situation to an extreme conclusion.

What I’m saying is that I’ve reached a point where I need to cut back on what I’m doing because I’m losing sight of my original intentions.  I think everyone should be aware of change like this and should be prepared to take a step back and put it into perspective.  Self improvement is by no means a bad thing, but taken to an extreme it can be unhealthy for you and for those around you.

Of course, I suppose I could just learn how to read faster.  I wonder what kind of blogs a Google search would turn up….  Damn!

Related posts:

1. Updates in the Blogoshpere
2. Reporting From Where I Shouldn’t Be