Sword Edge Conundrum
A major aspect of our job IS to think... a lot.
But as the last week & a half has helped me to BETTER realize, thinking can (at least for me) be problematic. This latest challenge I have faced.... relating to the mean, inappropriate, and unkind actions of a problematic person to me at work.... has helped me to better UNDERSTAND how MUCH TIME I spend in thinking.... and more specifically how much time over the last week and a half I spent thinking, rethinking, ruminating about, and working through my thoughts, feelings, and hurts resulting from this person. And, I have began to realize how much of a damn waste of time that is.
I was so completely enveloped in my thoughts that I missed EXPERIENCES. For example, during the last week and a half, the transition of the outdoor foliage from brown twigs into newly emerging leaves had begun, and I had not even noticed it until this morning while running outside. Many leaves were well past just starting to emerge, and I missed that beautiful transition (although much growth still remains for the leaves).
* * * * *
I came to the realization that I DO NOT LIKE having so much of my time being engulfed in thoughts... primarily "thoughts" related to work, or "thoughts" related to challenging family members, or "thoughts" related to the unpleasant things in this world (politics for example). Life is too damn short to have so much of my precious time engulfed in these things.
BUT.... I am also realizing it is DIFFICULT for me to not fall into these sorts of thought patterns. Being a scientist, I also was concerned perhaps my ways of thinking reflected a pathology of one sort or another. I briefly spent time working through clinical characteristics of several psychological maladies......obsessive-compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder. And...... another bit of a "double-edged sword" was that I found, while I (like most folks) will likely identify with a few symptoms of each of the above conditions from time-to-time, but (fortunately) none of what I experience comes even near the threshold for clinical diagnosis for any of the above.
This now has me thinking it is perhaps more of a "risk factor" of my profession. And with/if that being the case, that suggests I can work to retrain my behavior and patterns to NOT overthink things.... or at least substantially reduce overthinking.
* * * * *
That is the "task" I am now working on for myself. Namely, to be more tangibly aware of my thoughts and my moods, and when I am in a "negative" space in terms of focusing on a hurt, or an unreasonable expectation of others (work OR family)..... I am working to reshape my thoughts to a) something I appreciate and/or love, or b) to being experiencing something more tangibly real.
There are so many ways I can do the "a" and "b" above. It is basically to try to change my thoughts to either positive thoughts or actions. I think it will be WORK to get my mind to initially do this as I have had so many decades now of "professory-ness" level thoughts of..... analyze, analyze, dissect, dissect, formulate, formulate......that it will require willpower to break the cycle to have a more peaceful mind.
Interestingly enough, I became cognizant of this "peaceful mind" goal when I was thinking last night of how so very DIFFERENT going and being at the Retiree's Cigar Group was for me. When I am able to go, now especially since I am am considered "one of the group".... when I am there... the time there is SO very wholly EXPERIENTIAL and so not rumination and thinking and analyzing. And, I so very easily slip into the fully experiential mindset while there..... it was revealing to me. This realization has put the Retiree's Cigar Group's importance to me even more so. And, I believe I can and will find ways to become less "thinker" and more "experiencer" in life now that I am more cognizant of what I had been doing and realizing it is not how I wish to live.
That is about it for today. I have lots more to say (as usual) but I need to do work and get prepared to let thinking "go away" as best as I can when I leave the U today. My primary foci to be away from "overthinking" has been a) this morning... where I listened to and experienced two daily Masses on my phone while I ran, and b) this evening I am hoping to focus much more experiencally with my favorite person in the entire world, my wife. I am planning especially to a) not bring work gripes home to talk about, but to instead b) relish the beautiful time we can be in each other's company this evening.......preparing dinner, relaxing, and chatting. We are even planning to swim this afternoon. None of this is atypical for us in the evening.... but I think for ME, with a greater AWARENESS of and APPRECIATION for the actual EXPERIENCE of being with her.... if I can keep my mind in that experiential realm.... it will be far, far more delightful.
PipeTobacco
2 Comments:
I think teachers/professors do tend to overthink and it's exhausting. (that and all the decision making, even small ones) I worked on de-personalizing any issues with colleagues and students. It didn't always turn out that way, not at first. I tried to remember that people act that way for a variety of reasons and most of them aren't related to me at all.
You did notice the leaves, and it really didn’t take you too long.
Do you ever wonder about the paradox of trying to control our minds with our minds? For example: an overactive brain is keeping us awake, so we try to use our brain to overcome and silence our brain.
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