Embrace a Little Disorder
Of late I have been experiencing a case of sensory overload, just feeling over-stimulated by everything. I can not fully figure out what is the root cause to this disorder. It could be poor sleep, horrible diet, not enough exercise, too many digital distractions, maybe my day job is just that tough, or it could possibly be plain avoidance. A little procrastination in one part of your life starts to pile up a list of demands. Demands that creates a mental residue of things that need to be addressed and vie for your attention. My initial thought was to clean up every part in my life, that would fix it! Despite if I agree with that statement or not, that would be a daunting task to take on. One that does not provide a lot of continual motivation. Can the 'obstacle' really be the way? I was reminded by Josh Waitzkin’s book ‘The Art of Learning’, he didn’t care much for an overly organized & pristine environment where everything felt precious. Instead he invited disorder into his life, purposely leaving pictures askew on his walls. Things that would drive other people crazy instead he embraced them, so he was not conditioned to only to work in perfect environments but be able to work effectively in any situation. Once I quickly remembered this like a crazy man I threw everything that was sitting around in my home office right on top of my desk instead of trying to methodically strategize in a orderly way. I wanted my desk to be as cluttered as possible. That comical tower of mass on my desk was actually more relieving than stress inducing. I might have found the way out and it was through the obstacle, the overload. At that moment I was finally armed with a better mindset to judicially go through everything on my desk and figure out what I really had time to commit myself to and what just needed to be thrown in the garbage without thought. I wanted to see how far this could take me, I picked up my phone and started typing this post, copied it to WORD, edit it, and now you are reading it. Embrace some disorder, be sloppy, get started and get it done. At the end I was able to sort through a pile of mail, calm my overly stimulated mind, and post my thoughts on it. ?
Edit: Two days later I revisited this post and tweaked the grammar & syntax. I am really happy to have had that burst of energy to write this and post it with confidence. Edit #2: 50 days later, I cleaned up some grammar issues. I feel so good to have written this post, rereading it has it own power to remind me how I got out of a previous funk.