I grew up in a house where my parents took my partaking in any sort of leisure activity as a sign of "boredom" that had to be immediately rectified with some form of work. I'm just now, in this moment, having the realization that that's probably a large reason why my entire life I've not been able to enjoy any sort of leisure activity for more than an hour, or at most, two. It's also probably the reason I'm always layering leisure activities on top of each other, like listening to an audiobook while playing a story based game.
I'm always hesitant to watch movies because they take too long, always hesitant to get into a TV show because it'll eat up the "entirety" of my leisure time, always looking for a game I can dip in and out of in under 20 minutes, and never reading more than a chapter or two of a book at a time. I have this clock in the back of my mind that starts automatically ticking away as soon as I start something I enjoy, counting down the appropriate amount of time before the punishment for enjoying myself kicks into effect. As such, I've bypassed so many things I may have otherwise enjoyed, and I've developed a very speed-based media taste. I can't really sink into things, and I've never really allowed things to be able to take time before they start to come together and get really good; because if I'm "wasting" my time on something that's not enjoyable in the moment then that's precious leisure time I can never get back. I've, in effect, squandered the little leisure time I had and now only have the "punishment" for having leisure time in the first place.
This is quite the epiphany for me. It's something I definitely need to unpack and work through, but I wanted to post it to here in case anyone has a similar life experience and needs the realization as well. Maybe it'll help.
This also probably ties in heavily to my previous post about never being able to find or enjoy a passion. How could I have had a passion I enjoyed and devoted long term effort to when there has always been a punishment clock ticking down in the back of my mind?