I was expecting to be more productive than ever when my contract with my previous employer ended. I figured I could parcel pieces of my day out across my various hobbies, getting more done than ever. Instead, I feel like I’ve gotten less done than I would if I were still at that job.

The problem is being unemployed itself. I know I need a new job, so any time spent doing something unrelated to getting a new job makes me feel like I’m spending it poorly. I would love to get paid to write about video games, or any number of other creative endeavors, yet that is not a profession so easily sought. I need a paycheck. I need to be capable of paying rent. I need to pay my bills. I need to be financially reliable to my roommates.

Yet it can be so hard to sit down and try to advance my skills. My computer sits within two mental realms for me, phasing in and out between work machine and recreational device. I open up a tutorial to begin learning Canvas in HTML5, and after about twenty minutes I’m going back to web forums and Facebook to check up on what I’m missing. Within thirty or forty minutes I’m telling myself that it’s alright to take a break, and next thing I know two hours of Boardwalk Empire have passed by.

Somehow I’ve just been unable to sit down and put in some real work for GamerTagged or RamblePak, though, which leaves me with another feeling of guilt. See, as I sit down to write a post or chop together a video, the voices of eight thousand people tell me it won’t land me a job. Which isn’t completely true. A friend of mine pointed Kotaku’s desire for a video editor and reviewer my way, and I turned it down for two reasons. The first is I don’t live in New York City and don’t want to leave my roommates hanging on the lease. The second is that she sent the link to me well over a month since the post was made, and I know how many people would be applying. I’d be too late.

Thing is, I don’t even know if RamblePak is something people really want. I know it is something some people want, and that’s good enough for me to keep doing it as a hobby. The dream many have is to make a living off of your hobby, but once you do that, well, there’s a sort of loss to creative freedom, not to mention a demand out of what sort of content to produce. There’s also a toll to be taken on personal energy.

If I were to invest all my time into RamblePak, then I’d have finished my Resident Evil 6 review long ago instead of just working on the first part. My guilt is now two-fold. I feel bad because I could have more content incoming, but at the same time, I wouldn’t have helped myself land a new job so I can help pay the rent more reliably, etc.

I suppose the purpose here is to apologize. I’ve been needing to write a review of Luigi’s Mansion for over a month. I’ve been finished Remember Me for a few weeks now. I’ve barely put time into The Last of Us. I should be providing a constant stream of content. Instead, no matter what I do with my time, I’m feeling guilty.

So like a stereotype of a depressed female, I find myself curling up on the couch with my snack of choice and spending more hours than I should watching television shows or movies. Somehow I feel the least amount of guilt there, even though it is the least productive thing I could possibly be doing.

I promise to be better from now on.