Ball of dung inquiry

In my spiritual tradition material pursuits that distract one from the important things in life are likened to a dung beetle's ball of dung which it spends its entire life rolling up insurmountable inclines. Today I managed to add a bit of dung to the ball so to speak. I spent somewhere around $78 all told, including shipping, on two separate Amazon orders; granted the order was for six books, but for purely entertainment purposes [is anything for purely entertainment purposes?]. Of course the real issue here is that I was stressed out about completing my syllabus in time for its deadline [which I did]. The material world, i.e. the phenomenological world, which amounts to our own self concepts from which we order our environments, is riddled with inadequacy. I mean was it really even stressed out about the syllabus -- probably not; the stress comes from my own frustration of being in a situation where I feel as though my talents and experience aren't being put to use. Of course, that's no one's fault but my own. I've been neurotically procrastinating on my Ph.D. for so freaking long I can't stand it -- fear is the mind killer after all. So why am I putting my, for lack of a more metaphorically affective word, shit in the vast indeterminate expanse that is cyberspace? [Damn that's a terrible sentence.] Because it amounts to a record. My hope is that when I have the urge to respond to stress with destructive behavior, however relatively benign, I will refer back to this posting. It shouldn't be too hard to find. It's the first of many.