New Day

Okay, new day, fresh attitude! I was feeling overwhelmed yesterday. Work was a lot, I had a hard conversation with my mom that brought up some stress, and my son (who is supposed to be gaining weight…he’s a little guy) lost a pound after we’ve put in so much effort to get him eating more. I now realize that zoning out (phone, TV, mindless snacking, etc) is my primary coping strategy for overwhelm. That’s why yesterday felt so terrible when I couldn’t just slap that bandaid on my stress.

I don’t really talk to anyone about my feelings of overwhelm because I feel like it’s a burden, but maybe reaching out to friends or my family would be a better coping strategy. Walks always help too when I can fit them in. I’m happy that I’ll have to find some new methods of managing my emotions.

It’s just kind of funny to think about all of these incredible things that humans have developed to ease discomfort and provide instant pleasure/entertainment/distraction that have created another huge problem for us. We created this monster! Now we’re so accustomed to getting these instantaneous, highly concentrated forms of pleasure that life without them feels blah. But the world is a fascinating, beautiful, strange place and I don’t want to watch reruns of the same show over and over or look at someone’s stupid pictures of their stupid vacation that makes me stupidly envious anymore. It’s all such a waste of time!

I’m ready to explore and embrace life through reading, learning, and actually doing things rather than being a passive enjoyer of all things comfortable and easy. I think this blog post unintentionally has a bit of an aggressive tone to it, but it’s really just self-directed frustration that I’ve let myself become so complacent. As I kid, I was so freaking interesting and interested in everything. I never got bored and was always able to keep myself entertained and amused. That's what I seem to have lost. I’m hoping that stripping all of this away will reveal that childlike creativity and wonder again.