What are some activities or habits that drain my energy or motivation?

Not to be confused with Energy Vampires, those people that suck the energy and motivation out of you, but Energy Suckers are just about everything else. Unfortunately, there can be some overlap depending on how you go about handling different activities and habits.

For example, one of my favorite activities is playing Magic: The Gathering with friends. Usually this is a fun time, but every so often you just get into a bad round where nothing seems to be going right or you’re just not getting the cards you need to actually feel like you’re playing. You’re watching the person across from you draw card after card after card and just popping off on their turns while you’re stuck doing pretty much nothing. That’s one of those times where it just sucks the energy (and fun) out of you and you would rather just start a new hand or call it a night altogether. What can make it worse, in the “overlaps with Energy Vampires” area, is when you’re playing with someone else that happens to in a bad mood because THEY are in that unfortunate situation of not being able to do anything except sit on their hands, or this other person just happens to be a snarky asshole who likes to rub it in. I’ve actually stopped playing with some friends as often because they like to invite specific people that I just don’t vibe with anymore after too many nights of less-than-subtle jabs and taunts.

Similarly, this can happen with online gaming. Playing a specific game with people and when things just aren’t going quite right despite the normal challenges, it wears on you mentally. This is one of those things for why I never really played a lot of online multiplayer games back when I streamed a lot, and also something that baffles me as to why/how some people can slog through 8+ hours of their day playing a game that isn’t going to be fun. (Which is, sadly, what a lot of people do because they think it’s what they need to do if they want make it big in the streaming space.) What makes this more difficult is if you’re playing with random strangers and you again end up with, you guessed it, snarky assholes. (It’s one thing if they’re throwing shade at comedic times and also making themselves out to be the butt of jokes, but when they’re just full on harping on you alone and have absolutely zero positive attitude? That just sucks, period.)

Looking at other activities and habits, you can see the same things happen with them, and I’m sure I could go on and on about them but I won’t, or else I’ll just go on forever and seem stupidly nit picky. In the end, though, suffice to say, when something just isn’t going right and you’re struggling? That just sucks.