Digital Alterity

Today, before work, I had one of my little emotional outbursts. These happen periodically because I try very hard to stay on even keel as long as possible. This, in turn, leads to a buildup that will eventually become too much to contain. This morning, when I realized that there’s no way to go to my friend’s wedding without pillaging the small amount that we’ve got saved up for a house, the anxiety just became too much to contain, and I spent the time before work trying not to cry in the middle of the Reitz Union while trying to explain to Allyson all the stuff that’s getting to me right now.

I should have known that there was a problem brewing of course. You see, my inbox is about three inboxes high. When you’re a GTD wonk, this is a clear sign that something is terribly wrong. My inbox has been this way for two months. I haven’t been doing my daily sketches or my weekly comics. I haven’t been running. All of these things interrelate, and I’m extremely resistant to talking about any of them.

I’m having real trouble fitting everything into one day. I’ve had to realize that the time before work has to be time for me. Going to work is a very stressful thing for me because it’s means social contact. I have to talk to my co-workers. I have to help my professors with their purchase orders. I have to interract with people, and that is extremely stressful for me. I don’t expect other people to understand this because I’ve come to accept that it’s an anomalous part of my psychological makeup. Most people will never understand how hard it is to pick up a phone and call someone — even if it’s someone I deeply care about — because it’s just not that hard for them to do. So, exercising or attempting to otherwise shoehorn other things in before work is a generally bad idea. When I first started my new job, I was doing my daily sketches at lunch. And maybe I ought to do that again. I’ve been using that time to read and recover from a morning of interacting with other people though. Essentially I’m not quite sure how to fit in all the parts and pieces to my day while still leaving myself enough downtime to feel human. When should I exercise? When should I draw? When should I figure out our accounts? When should I make dinner?

This week, things are amplified even further for a couple of reasons. One, I’m reducing my calorie intake again because I’ve been slowly adding kilos to my mass. When I make changes to my diet, managing my depression becomes harder than normal until my body adjusts to the new calorie intake. Two, I’m not paying proper attention to the stuff that’s actually important to me. Even worse, I know it. I have a mission statement. I have a creative goal. I know that the single most important things I should be doing on a given day are:

• Drawing something from life daily.
• Writing something daily.
• Working on a comic.
• Exercising.
• Taking care of myself mentally/emotionally to ensure that I stay out of funks like this.

When I’m not doing any of these things on a given day, that is a failed day. And I’m not even filling that time with mindless video games on the Xbox or reading things on the Internet. In the past week, I have spent large portions of my time either doing something else “productive” or just mindlessly staring off into space. No outflow. No intake. Pure zombie.

I need to manage all of this better. I need to pick up the pieces, ignore how long said pieces have been sitting on the unvacuumed floor of my life, and work on making things better in the present. In essence, I need to:

• Be more open with Allyson about my feelings, fears, anxieties, and stresses — even if I can’t do that without crying or just plain sounding stupid.
• Go through my inbox, and get my GTD lists firmly in place again. I can’t let all this nonsense sit in my head.
• Call Leah, apologize profusely, explain that money is tight, find out where she’s registered, and send a nice present along with a letter expressing my gratitude for her friendship.
• Email Jen back. Jen is one of my best friends, and I need to take care of that friendship because it is precious to me.
• Set aside non-negotiable time to draw and write.
• Sort out my free membership to the gym right outside my office so that I can exercise whenever I decide without regard for the Florida rainy season.

And, most importantly, I need to let go of anything that doesn’t fit with those things. If the dishes don’t get done, they will smell. And that will be okay. If Allyson and I have to take money out of savings to order a pizza or just eat random pre-packaged garbage out of the freezer, we will do so. And that will be okay. If I don’t have a chance to update the money every day, we won’t know exactly up-to-the-minute how much is left in checking/savings. And that will be okay. If I can’t get all of the things delegated to me at work done while maintaining my cool, people will begin delegating to someone else. And that will be okay.

We all have our individual quirks and psychoses. I need to go back to actively managing mine instead of just hoping for the best while imagining the worst.

Technorati Tags: Depression, Anxiety, GTD, Productivity

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 9:15:14 and is filed under Productivity, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.