Addictions are normally thought of as a bad thing in this world. However, there are plenty of times when an addiction can actually be kind of neat to have. As long as you keep it in moderation and know why you’re addicted to your vice of choice, it’s often not so bad. This is especially true if you’re addicted to something like comic books, video games or movies.
Please stop knitting.
Since these things won’t hurt you physically, they’re not like being addicted to bad things such as drugs. The best part about having a generally harmless addiction is that you can often pursue it without committing a crime or hurting yourself financially. In some cases it can even be profitable in the long run.
Ask Yourself Why
The first thing you need to know about how you and your addiction relate to each other is why you have it in the first place. Are you trying to buy back your childhood now that you can afford to do so? Do you have a great respect for the artwork of a certain comic book artist or sincerely appreciate a particular director’s vision?
Maybe you’re partially in it for aesthetics and partly into your vice of choice because it’s a great potential investment. No matter why you’re so into your medium of choice, it’s important to at least know the reason.
Take Some Time Away
Some people say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. A very good way to know whether you’re just having a fling with your favorite thing is to spend a little time away from it. For comic book fans, go on some dates for a change. If you’re really into a particular movie series, go try some of the stuff you see in the movie and see how it works in real life. Just don’t try anything that involves flying or doing outlandish things to try to win someone’s heart, because both could result in serious personal harm.
When you get back to your vice of choice, you might find that it was just something fun you were playing around with. But then again, you might just find that it was true love from the very start.
Accept Your Addiction
Accepting your addiction is really just embracing who you truly are. There’s nothing wrong with having a great love of something collectible and neat, even if it does make some people see you as weird. Maybe being weird is a good thing after all. If all else fails, you can start associating with groups that love the same thing you do.
There is also the caveat that, in a lot of cases, other people will one day end up emulating you. Consider that in the early ’80s most people didn’t think computers would ever have a place in the home. You can store recipes on it, but what else is there? If not for a few addicts striving to change some things, our entire world would be different today, and not in a good way. If you want to collect toys, comics, movies or other whatnot, you have the right to do it. You also have the responsibility to be true to yourself.
Finance It
Financing your addictions can be a challenge, and you might as well devote a portion of your budget to making sure you always have money for a nice supply of your medium of choice. However, there are going to be times when you just don’t have enough to get that limited edition or just-released thing that sets your heart aflutter. In a case like that, you want to go all in for your most beloved investment.
Take out a payday advance to cover the difference between what you have right now and how much your needful thing costs. While it might be a stretch for a little while, this isn’t about today. It’s about snatching up something you prize, and that you’ll be able to prize for the rest of your life. When your grandkids auction it for a million bucks, nobody will remember that you needed a bit of a loan to get it.
Keep Things in Perspective
Try not to devote your entire home to your addiction. While it’s certainly fun to devote a spare bedroom or some basement space to your hobby/obsession, you need to keep it reasonable or you’ll end up tripping over your prized possessions. If you have the money to build a second house just for your addiction, though, that might be really cool. Imagine your own private museum…
Summing it Up
It’s important to know yourself and why you’re addicted to what you love so much. If your loyalty has a solid base under it, you can devote a large portion of your life to exploring it in great depth. You can even devote a large amount of your finances to it, because many collectibles become great investments over the long term. Just make sure you hire a good architect to design your personal museum.