You know that saying about being your own worst enemy? I’d like to submit a new version of that called avalanching yourself. Why haven’t I been blogging in, I don’t know, forever?! I got myself stuck in an avalanche and unfortunately they haven’t found a way to shrink those adorable St. Bernards with booze barrels and teleport them into brains yet. I hear they’re close.
A little background. I have always been a person of many varied interests. I majored in political science in college while minoring in theater arts. I almost double majored. I like science and algebra, words, visual mediums, sports, you name it. I’m organized and emotional. If you were to dive into my brain you would find lists on lists on lists of the things I want to see, do, and accomplish. Imagine, if you will then, all of these things piling up in my brain forming a vast library of shit. to. get. done. And then like magic some free time presents itself and I think… ok brain, here we go, it’s our time to shine…what shall we do?!
Disaster. I think about all the movies I want to see. All the places I want to go. All the mindless chores and tasks I want to get done. All the books to read and all the blogs I want to write. And boom, I get completely overwhelmed and end up watching Friends on Netflix. I’ve watched so much Friends at this point that I have taken all the obscure quizzes on Buzzfeed and aced them all. One was just pictures of Ross and Rachel and based on the screen grab you had to guess why Rachel was mad at Ross. I got a perfect score. It’s bad guys.
It’s an extremely first world problem to be overwhelmed by your free time. I am well aware, believe me. But I think, that it may be a fairly common one. Most people spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week or more, doing something that doesn’t necessarily fulfill them or make them happy per say. We all have to bring home the bacon one way or another. On top of that we have certain social obligations – weddings, birthdays, I haven’t seen this person in forever and I can’t say no’s. These are things that while fun, can often feel more like work when they begin to pile up and you see your free time virtually disappear. And so, when that elusive you time does pop up it’s a free for all running through the card catalog of your brain in hopes of landing on that ONE thing you want to do. It’s often way easier after work and social obligations to veg out with something predictable and comforting which for me, is chocolate chip cookies and Chandler’s snarky comments.
In high school I was a pretty typical overachiever I suppose and I look back at it now and cannot wrap my head around how I did it all – homework, theater, sports, clubs, hanging out in diners and friends’ basements til the sun came up listening to records and talking about our angst. It was a grueling schedule and now, I work for 8 hours and come home and do nothing. It seems simple to say JUST PICK SOMETHING AND COMMIT. At least it’s something! And hey, person yelling at their computer screen, you are absolutely right. And while I’m terrible at that currently, this blog is a nice step. As a matter of fact, I actually watched The Aviator last night instead of mindlessly flipping through Netflix for 15 minutes before putting on, you guessed it, Friends.
You know what they say, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and make a decision once in a while you could gain a lot of weight sitting around yelling Chandler quotes at Netflix like a sad midnight showing of Rocky Horror for one person covered in cookie crumbs…” That’s right, right?
Do you avalanche yourself? How do you get yourself unstuck?
Lola Writes the Wave 