I've been doing a "word for the year" the last couple years. If you're not familiar with it, check out myoneword.org. The basic idea is to pick one word to focus on. Speaking of, my word for 2017 is "focus."
As I talked about in my last post, I had a lot of time to think while on our vacation. One of the things that came out of that was my need to refocus on a couple things. When I was in high school, I learned to play the guitar and piano. I haven't done much with it since then. Yet every so often, and much more frequently over the last couple years, I've had this pull to get back into it.
I also consider myself a life-long gamer. My dad started me on computers when I was 3, we got an NES when I was 5, and I've been playing ever since. Along with that, a couple of my goals in recent years was to get a copy of every NES and every SNES game that was officially released. Basically, it was my goal as a collector and retro gamer.
As I thought about that while on vacation (and for the week after we got back), I decided to refocus. The collection goal was fun, but it's not something I'm all that concerned about. I want to play the games more than I want to put the effort into collecting them. And I want to get back into music.
I decided to sell my NES and SNES collection. And my Game Gear. And probably my Game Boy Advance. There's always the eShop or emulation for actually playing them. And with the current wave of reproduction carts and fakes, that's something I really don't want to deal with as a collector - it's just not that important to me.
Don't get me wrong, it was fun while I did it. And there's definitely nothing wrong with it. But for me, for my desire to focus (or in this case, refocus), there are far more important things and different goals I want to accomplish more. And as I said regarding music, it's been a pull for a couple years. This is more of a soulful/spiritual longing.
In order to focus, I need to simplify. And if that means removing a bunch of games and other things and getting an instrument, then that's what needs to happen. Less clutter. Less stuff. More purpose.