Giving in

One symptom of my life being too legitimate recently is an increasing need to exercise self-control, a resource that recent research suggests is in limited supplies:

Results suggest that "people have a diminishable supply of energy that the body and mind use to engage in self-control," says study author Kathleen Vohs, a consumer psychology professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. "When people use this energy toward achieving one goal, they have less of it available to use toward achieving other goals."

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Results suggest loss of self-control resources isn't the same as being tired, she says. "The ability to engage in self-control is determined by prior use of self-control, not by how much sleep one had the night before."
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Sian Beilock, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, says it's interesting that "being taxed in terms of doing one task can have these spillover effects on another." People may think they can compartmentalize the different tasks they do during the day, but it turns out they are all connected, she says.
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For the rest of us, Vohs recommends being more mindful of priorities:

"When you want to engage in good self-control, the best thing that you can do for yourself is set up your day so you exert your self-control resources toward that specific task you want to succeed at."

Maybe this explains why I have been needing so much alone time recently. My social interactions used to be casual, more for pleasure and relaxation. As my life gets more legitimate, more of my social interaction is professional and highly visible. Consequently, I have had to exercise more self-control in dealing with others. However it is important to realize that exercising self-control in one situation, even in a relatively meaningless social interaction, could hurt the amount of self-control I could muster in another situation in which it might be more important for me to exercise self-control.

The article is right, it's a question of being mindful of priorities and not being a spendthrift with scarce resources. Instead of denying myself all the time, I should find healthier outlets so I can be around people without exercising so much self-control, perhaps athletics or music.