Running from my problems

The longer I play EVE, the more projects I undertake. Big ones like being a great solo PvPer, or winning the warzone for the Minmatar militia, or starting this blog.

Then you have all the little ones. These ones are the killers. Train this newbie up in the ways of faction warfare. Run a lot of fleets. Haul in ships and create a system for hauling in ships. Trade on the market to make profit on the side. Get to -10 security status.

Random screenshot of me trying the Hookbill, which I think is going to be a new favourite.

In the end, I’m stuck with dozens of goals, and I’m trying to fulfill them all at once, and the end result is I get none of them completed.

The realisation that I’ve bitten more than I can chew comes too late, and my initial reaction is to just bail.

Run from the goals I’ve set myself. Hide from my obligations. Pretend they didn’t exist.

The coward’s way out.

I could argue of course that EVE is a game and if you feel obligated to play a game, then it’s perfectly acceptable to run. But as too many of us know, EVE can become more than a game. And I’ve let it become more than a game. I have formed connections with people, and even if our faces and names aren’t real, the personalities are much more so.

And so I fear I must beat this trait of giving up out of myself. They say all great things start with the first step. Well, I’m well into my ‘great thing’ now, and I’m at the stage where I’m running and taking ten steps every second, but those ten steps make minimal progress. One step I took in the beginning equates to ten I take now.

What does this mean? It means I’m cluttering up my priorities. What do I need to do? What do I want to do? What do I have to do to achieve the objective?

I want to win a warzone.

Does this mean I have to help a newbie with FW? No.

Does this mean I have to haul ships into the warzone? Most likely, yes.

It’s simple when you put it like that, but what if that newbie becomes the next great leader of our militia? What if my corporation could haul in ships for me? Then the answers to those questions in terms of my goal are reversed.

I get paralysed by uncertainty, frozen in a cycle of “what if”s until progress hits rockbottom.

Unacceptable.

Sometimes, there is no other way to tackle a problem than head-on. This is one of those times. Rather than run with my tail between my legs until everything I have worked so hard for in the last few weeks is reset, I should forge ahead like a bulldozer and just drag everything along with me.

Before I even wanted to take the whole warzone, I had the grand ideal that I could show the Minmatar militia its true potential; a hydra, an immortal beast, controlled chaos.

I still believe it’s possible. It’ll just take more of a push than I have been giving people. My fleets are quite lenient, unfortunately. Is it a bad thing? Some would say no. But I have seen that casual atmosphere lead to severe issues of fleet members not shooting things you tell them to shoot. That can get ugly especially if the FC notices.

Anyway, now I think I have new first step. Readers might be confused as to what that is. Well, if this isn’t the first post of mine you’ve read, then the feeling of confusion should be comfortable to you. Embrace it.

Hey, I did say I think I have my first step. It’s still being formulated in the frothing cauldron inside my skull. No-one said these blog posts were meant to make sense.

So I’m going to stop running from the horde of obligations I’ve set upon myself. Instead I’ll turn around and embrace them all and just go for it. Go for it until I have nothing left.

Not even a single regret.