It was less than a month ago that I told someone that I like Second Life better than real life. Then things started to cave-in on me and before long I was fleeing SL uncertain I’d ever return. During my past week in real life I spent some time reading SL blogs, I also dressed up my own blog. I had planned to stay completely out of SL, but did spend a few minutes in-world last Friday, and with my Alt I spent a couple of hours fiddling around installing and optimizing the new viewer. But for all practical purposes, I was gone.

I spent time unwinding, did some theraputic sleeping but mostly I spent time thinking about what Second Life had become in my life. And I concluded that my second life had caused an imbalance in my real life. This is not the first SL/RL imbalance, but this time I realized that I have to have create some rules to protect myself in the future.

Fortunately, life always seems to provide solutions to problems when you need them; that is, if you are looking for them. And throughout the week I kept thinking about something I read in Kimala’s blog. Basically, a way to be happy is to have lowered expectations. It’s a simple enough idea, but it resurrected some of the corporate motivational baggaged stored in my mind. You know, looking down on “those who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” (Teddy Roosevelt).

Geesh, I hate the corporate world and I’m at a point in my life where that gray twilight doesn’t seem gray at all; perhaps it’s is a lovely pale pink. My reason’s for coming to SL have nothing to do with my reasons for wishing to be here now. So, I’ll be choosing to “neither want much nor suffer much” going forward.

To achieve a new way of second life I’m going to need some rules. I’ve always had a tendency to take on more than I can handle, so I’ll need a firm rule to stop myself. Also, I love having many friends, but the truth is that some of my friends are users and I end up giving more than I ever get back, so I need another firm rule for dealing with this too. Finally, I’ve seen too much pain caused by real life relationships brought into or taken out of Second Life, and I will not be a party to any of that ever again. I’ve tried harder than anyone I know to keep these two worlds separated but from now on, I just don’t care what anyone else thinks, I’ll never mix the two worlds ever. So, here are my new rules:

1) Don’t initiate or accept any new projects.
2) Don’t invest in people who don’t invest in me.
3) Don’t mix real life and Second Life ever!

Friends have told me that one of the qualities they like about me is my love of people, and I like to believe that is me at my best. Unfortunately, for now, I’m more concerned with protecting myself from people. In fact, that conflict is the main reason I’ve been so unhappy lately.