The pressures of modern entertainment consumption

I've been a little stressed out lately. What's causing this pressure? Work, perhaps? Well, a bit. I am pretty busy there, and I've been working on a couple freelance projects, too, that have been taking up quite a bit of time. No no. I've been stressed out by the books that need to be read, television shows that must be watched, and movies that have to be viewed.

It's kind of crazy that some many of us do feel this pressure. Your Tivo fills up, and shows sit there, projecting guilt onto you whenever you check out your recordings. You hear that a show is great, but when are you supposed to watch it? So you add the DVD to your Netflix queue, which is already 250 titles long, and you've had the same 3 movies sitting on your entertainment center for weeks now. But the queue keeps growing! You really should just cancel your subscription...but you do want to see those 250 movies eventually. And really, where else has that sort of selection?

So maybe you'll just take a break from that and read a book. Which you need to do, anyway. You have that book for book club--and the meeting is rapidly approaching--that you're only halfway through. Plus, you have a library book out that's due soon. You can't renew it, though, because you were on the hold list for it for, like, ever, so if you return, to get it back, you'll have to go on the end of the hold list. And you can see that you're about to get another book.

Really, it's enough to make a person want to crawl into bed and hide from it all.