Monday, January 30, 2017

What am I thinking?

Hurray for homo sapiens and our huge brain. We can do amazing things with that lump of meat inside our skull. Or, like the silicon-based computers our meat computers created, we can clog them with useless data and malware. We can get hung up on irrelevant things.

The other day, in response to an online rant about the price of something the writer was never going to buy anyway, a more clear minded person wrote:
Why give space in your head to that?
I totally agree, and it's something I'm totally guilty of. It's not just a matter of expending too much of my finite mental power on things that serve no purpose in my life. It's that I'm wasting too much of my finite life being upset. About nothing.

I used to get paid to worry about trivialities. My employers and clients rented that head space. But those checks stopped coming and now I can use that room for whatever I choose. How about filling it with things that enhance my life instead of crap that drags me down?

Yes, not thinking about things that upset us can start to resemble denial. But denial is ignoring things that actually affect your life. I'm talking about ignoring things that don't. Let. That. Shit. Go. And don't invite more of it in.

One of the advantages of being a semi-minimalist is that there's less I'm obliged to worry about. My life isn't bogged down with the care and feeding of a pile of material stuff. Now, if only I could apply the same minimalist principles to the invisible, immaterial stuff in my brain.

3 comments:

  1. I've just started to learn to meditate and that seems to be helping clear out some of the crap in my brain. I've been told praying can work like that; you know, the whole Let Go and Let God bit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Right there with ya. I think you saw my post about catching the car? Well, yeah. I'm living minimal, and money isn't a problem. But I keep running to things to worry about. I'm having to untrain that habit. Just today, I was noticing how irritated I get with the dogs when they want to wander and sniff during a walk. Why? Why!!!? Where have I got to be in such a damn hurry? Besides, the good little pooches just hang out all day waiting for me patiently. I've done a pretty good job letting the politics go, but there's still so far to unwind.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You know the song 'Teach your Children Well'? A dog wrote that referencing their humans. Best teachers ever.

    ReplyDelete