Why I went to the eye doctor & stopped studying chess.

So last week I went to the eye doctor, as per my girlfriends request. I hate going to the doctor, I associate it with something being wrong with me or if it's regular check up I associate it with robbery (I've paid up to £400 for a check up in London!). It turns out the hate is not unfounded, as the doctor gave me bad news and said I have a problem with both my eyes. Who wants to go to the doctor when there is a chance they give you such terrible news?! Right?

Okay, I may have over exaggerated when I said the news was terrible, it annoyed me for the first few hours but by the next day I was fine. The doctor recommended an eye exercise that I must do for 20 minutes a day for 6 months. At first I wondered where I would find these 20 minutes from and boiled over with anger about all the lost time over 6 months (exactly 3,600 minutes or 6 hours). However, this diagnosis turned out to be a blessing in disguise because for those 20 minutes my brain is not occupied with anything else other than the exercise, so being the great multitasker that I am, I am now using those same 20 minutes topractice positive affirmations and meditate over a few thoughts/things.

It was during those meditations that I have realised that I promised myself I would try to work 6 months and rest 6 months (Proof: Roller coasters are fun. When you are a kid.) Now, during the last 8 months I have worked 2 full months. The month of November (Proof: How I made $30,000 this month, by not playing chess.) and the month of February (No proof, :P). So I have to work at least another 4 months to stand by what I said. This is why, starting this week, I've quit studying chess (I'm still playing!), and I am focusing on work and building skills that may potentially lead to enjoyable work in the future.

Having said that, these upcoming 4+ months (the + is because I allow myself to borrow months from vacation and vice versa ;-) ), I will be working on:

• Something to do with tourism in Ecuador ( real work! )
• Attaining the skills to become a British Mountain Guide ( future work! )
• Maybe, maybe a psychology degree ( future work? )
• Sorting out my eyes ( hard work :( )
• Launch a single mobile app ( very speculative work )

That's it! Wish me luck. Also, stay tuned because I will be posting a few interesting bits and bobs on how I will carefully start up the business in tourism. The goal is to recover all the investment within 1 year. You may also hear more about the mobile app, if it ends up launching :)

PS.- Let's face it, if I studied chess year round becoming a GM would be a joke, it needs to be a bit harder than that, right? :) I think out of my 6 months off, I managed to study chess for just 3 months, with that, I am confident of breaking into the top 99% soon, I guess it gets harder from there.
Credits: Comic from the quirky little comic
Also posted at: http://unratedtogm.quora.com/Why-I-went-to-the-eye-doctor-stopped-studying-chess