# On becoming obsessed with something

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-becoming-obsessed-with-something/848222>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 20, 2020, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-becoming-obsessed-with-something/848222 "2020-02-20T08:40:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-becoming-obsessed-with-something/848222/21 "2020-02-26T22:44:01Z")

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> [@Mijin](#):
>
> But that’s the thing: the message nowadays seems to be that you _should_ be like that.  
> That if you were to struggle to think of anything that you’ve reached that level of obsession on, it means you lack drive and you’ll never be successful.
> 
> Most of the motivational messages seem to boil down to this.
> 
> Sent from my Redmi 5A using Tapatalk

That’s mostly marketing bullshit inspired by a relatively small number of people who became enormously successful early in life because they obsessed about something (usually tech, sports or finance related). They point to people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg who built massive wealth by channeling their obsessions, in spite of any opposition or often common sense.

No one brings up what happened to obsessed people like Captain Ahab.

And there is a difference between “obsession” and “having a passion”. The sort of examples people are giving here kind of sound like some form of OCD or spectrum disorder.

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**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-becoming-obsessed-with-something/848222/22 "2020-02-26T23:45:25Z")

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The other part about obsession that people don’t talk about as much is the oblivious selfishness which usually, almost necessarily, attends it. To be successfully obsessive you generally need someone who doesn’t get to be, doing the boring drudgery part of your life so that you are free to focus. Guess how that plays out, gender wise?

Having a great passion is very much admired in this, the most individualistic society in history. But it is in fact only marginally valuable, compared with being steady responsible worker bee. Imagine being Amish, or Inuit, or a medieval European peasant, or any other group for which collective work to support everyone is of highest value, indeed is essential for survival. How admirable would your castle made of bottle caps be to them?

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**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [February 28, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-becoming-obsessed-with-something/848222/23 "2020-02-28T19:00:30Z")

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On the fox to hedgehog spectrum, I am more of a hedgehog than a fox. But the world needs both and probably needs foxes more.

My PhD thesis concerned a couple of very special cases (dimensions 3 and 4, while 1 and 2 were obvious) of something I was convinced was true in general. For the next five years, I worked on it whenever I didn’t have anything better to do. Finally cracked it wide open and threw away the mess than my extremely ugly computational thesis had been.

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