A little OCD are we?
Every now and then my brain gets stuck in a loop, going round and round, blow-by-blow through an interaction involving a person or experience.
I know this happens, I am ready for it, and even so, the only way to jerk myself out of this loop of destruction is to distract myself with something challenging, shiny, expensive, or buff …
I realize that in my haste for reaction and distraction I cram on to my shoulders too much stuff to do, burning the candle at both ends and exhausting myself entirely (albeit not enough to sleep).
The question remains, how do I stop myself from obsessing over things I can do nothing about, like whether the meeting went well or if my contribution is enough or why the guy doesn’t call me etc. How on earth do I stop that record in my head without wearing myself out and into an early grave by cramming too much responsibility onto my shoulders.
This Easter I have been thinking about this, trying to figure out a way to change my behavior and have decided to take radical action (thanks to friends, family and physician for advice):
I have decided to renounce all material goods, shave my head and become a Buddhist nun.
….nah not bloody likely, what with my love for all things high-heeled and shiny not to mention physical contact, plus being a pin head a bald skull would look completely ridiculous!
This conclusion just proves that my other idea of living the rest of my life in the Outer Hebrides as a woolly goat would simply not work – unless of course I were a fashionable, high-heeled bejewelled goat with a handsome goat herder tending me… See now, that thought takes on a whole new level of interesting.
No, I have decided to scale down, removing all extraneous pressure so that my focus is entirely on my work, family, home and friends (maybe a little bit on guys too).
This is a huge decision and will take some doing, I am inherently ambitious, love to work and get easily bored. But I realize that I am on a path to nothing less than annihilation and that if I do not take immediate and radical steps I simply won’t survive.
So for the moment I am stepping down from all non-work related projects in order to try and get my health back on track and reduce my slight OCD tendencies.
I hope that this decision will not hinder me in the future from getting the wonderful opportunities I have been so lucky to be presented with. I love to be involved and want more than anything to make a positive contribution to my surroundings; I just need to slow down for a while.
