An endurance athlete I know has a mantra: Obsessed is a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.
He’s dedicated to training, nutrition, endurance and being better than he was before. He’s dedicated to understanding his body, heart rate, performance and recovery. Some may say obsessed.
Some obsessions are undeniably good. An obsession with quality, consistency, compassion, kindness, empathy. An obsession with doing the right thing or producing excellent work. Perhaps those obsessions can be taken too far, but rather that than not at all.
Obsessions can be accidental. Someone doesn’t realise they are obsessed with, or dedicated to, scrolling news sites, until the effect starts to be detrimental to their mental health. Obsessions with junk food, gossip, drama or judgment are passive obsessions, done lazily by the lazy.
Obsessed might be a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated, but obsessed is what the lazy become, with pursuits they haven’t chosen.
If you don’t choose your obsessions, they simply choose you.
