Red Herrings

I've recently become familiar with the concept of Red Herrings. I really liked the definition on Wikipedia:
" In literature, a red herring is a narrative element intended to distract the reader from a more important event in the plot, usually a twist ending.

The term "red herring" originates from the tradition whereby young hunting dogs in Britain were trained to follow a scent with the use of a "red" (salted and smoked) herring (see kipper). This pungent fish would be dragged across a trail until the puppy learned to follow the scent. Later, when the dog was being trained to follow the faint odor of a fox or a badger, the trainer would drag a red herring (which has a much stronger odor) across the animal's trail at right angles. The dog would eventually learn to follow the original scent rather than the stronger scent.

In literature, the most commonplace use of a "red herring" is in mystery fiction. One particular character is described or emphasized in a way that seems to throw suspicion upon that character as the person who committed the crime: later, it develops that someone else is the guilty party."

Catherine Thomas gave a great talk about how seeking after self esteem is a red herring that can keep us from turning our hearts over to Christ, which will bring us the peace and self worth we're really seeking.
Here is the link:
http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=7722

I believe that anything that distracts us from fulfilling our mission in this life could rightly be called a Red Herring. I'm not talking about true recreation and rest, I'm talking about things that are simply distractions that don't have any redeeming value. So the next time you're spending time with whatever your favorite distraction is, you can remind yourself that you're following a stinky fish rather than you're real mission and then get back to what you're supposed to do.