I have painfully realized that one of the biggest things I spend my time on is living inside my head. We like to feel busy and say things like there’s so much to do so we can feel our time here is worth something. Does this mean having a lot of free time makes life less worthwhile? Are you into the idea of being busy or actually busy? There’s not much difference, to be honest, and it will take a lot of objectivity to see the truth.

If you remove the time spent talking, thinking, or avoiding something from the time you spend doing it, you and boredom will become terrific friends. What keeps you busy is not what you have to do; it’s the distractions that keep you from doing it.

Let’s look at a scenario: I see my laundry basket piling up Wednesday morning. I start thinking about how to get them washed, but I focus on something urgent instead. By Friday, when I see the basket again, it’s getting scaringly high, so I decide to wash it tomorrow. I’m not a fan of laundry, so I spend all my spare time thinking about how it can be avoided. By the end of the day, I decided to push down on the basket. That way, there’s more room, and it doesn’t look like a lot.

So, I go ahead and enjoy my weekend, but by Monday morning, the first thing I notice is the basket, and I start to regret why I didn’t just do it on Saturday. But it’s a new week, so good vibes only. On Wednesday morning, the feeling of a week ago comes back, this time stronger. Now, I am very bothered but still not ready to commit. Then I decided not to add any more dirty clothes; the level is now bad but not horrible.

The next few days will consist of me wearing dark colors and putting clothes on the chair. By Sunday evening, my room was a mess: clothes on the bed, the chair, and anywhere else that was not the basket. But it won’t feel so bad if I’m not seeing it, so I spend time everywhere except my room. When I decide to sleep, I push the clothes aside and enjoy my night.

It’s now a new week. I try to do everything else but tidy up the room because that will mean confrontation with the basket. But I am lying to myself; it’s not a new week if I still have to deal with a problem from two weeks ago. So, work becomes more stressful—not that it is, but because I am actively trying not to think about the basket, I think about it more.

Every time I think of the basket, the mental energy it takes to reroute back to work starts to drain me. I don’t want to take breaks at work because I’m slower than usual, so I get a headache. My day can’t go as it does, and I end it with irritation. The next day is even worse than the previous; I can’t shake the feeling that I have so much to do. I still need to work, do laundry, and clean my room.

Remember, this started with only having to do laundry. So now I become mentally busy; even if I get work done, I still have things left to do and become uninterested. This new nonchalance slips into everything else until I start feeling overwhelmed with something that felt like a walk through the park earlier.

Instead of facing the basket, I make jokes on Twitter about how hard adulthood is and tell my friends how I have been so stressed this past week. But it doesn’t change anything; it worsens until I decide to do it. Now, it’s almost triple the size of what started the whole story, and I spent an entire day fixing it. I clean my room after and somehow blame being broke for enduring such grueling labor.

I blame everyone and everything but myself for it, but if only I had dealt with it when it was a little problem, it would not have escalated. I hope you can relate to the basket story, which isn’t precisely about baskets. It’s the little problems that end up taking all your time because you refuse to deal with them.

There’s a possibility you’re not busy; you just might be stressed because of compounding problems. Things don’t get sorted out in your head until you actually do something about them. We’ll talk about the boredom part next time, but for now, a little less in your head and more in your actions.

Totally unrelated but this song won’t get out of my head – My Oasis – Sam Smith ft Burna Boy. Take good care of yourself ❤️