Things have been challenging lately. I’ve had a lot of change and upheaval of my priorities recently, and for the last two months there has been mindlessness. Now I find myself desiring a reorientation towards the mindful principles that brought so much peace several months ago. On July 20th, I wrote the following:

When I catch myself behaving mindlessly, I am usually doing one of the following actions:
– bouncing my leg
– fidgeting
– scrolling endlessly on reddit
– sitting with poor posture
– making judgements of the past and treating them with certainty
– making predictions for the future and treating it as certain
– having conversations in the present with people who aren’t nearby, just on my mind
– stalling, not choosing on purpose because the choice may be difficult
– experiencing cognitive dissonance (which I identify as a conflict between WHAT IS and what we EXPECT IS)

Today, I find many similarities with the mindlessness I am currently experiencing. Lets start with the positives:

• since July, I have ceased bouncing my leg entirely. I still feel an occasional urge to kick my foot in bed, but these are easily brushed away.
• I have gotten much better with my approach to reddit. Recently I completely purged everything from my feed except art, maps, sci-fi/fantasy, and military history. My goal is to become less attached to current events and remain more focused on the home front, and I already feel better with these new changed.

Now for the similarities:

• I still find myself fidgeting with my hands in social settings. It feels much more difficult to not do anything with my hands, because paying attention to people leads to my hands moving “automatically”.
• While I no longer doom-scroll on reddit, I do need to reorganize my youtube content in a similar way. Currently I have too much flat comedic content, and not enough interesting or productive content to be consuming. I’ve flagged a number of computer science playlists relating to my current career goals, but I could have a more comfortable youtube experience as well if I spent some time pruning my algorithm.
• I’ve struggled with a lot of depressing thoughts recently. Adapting to change and adjusting effort towards nebulous goals has left me feeling little progress overall, which leads to an increase in self-critical thoughts. Again, pivoting recently towards more concrete goals has been helpful with this, specifically writing down “Next Steps” on a small notepad and recording anytime I feel confused as a specific question, then taking the time that day or the following day to answer my own question instead of allowing myself to avoid it.
• the cognitive dissonance continues, but my wife recently printed out a list of common negative thought patterns, which has been helpful towards helping me notice when I’m engaging in them and subsequently stopping.

My goal over this next week is to be more engaged with this blog, and to spend some time at the beginning and end of my day winding up and winding down.

• In the beginning of my day I should be brushing my teeth, showering, and making myself a healthy breakfast while thinking about one or two things to take care of for the day. If I’m feeling anxious I should take some morning downtime to read a book outside.
• At the end of my day, I should be brushing my teeth, showering if I didn’t in the morning, recording my activities from the day, and spending some downtime reading in bed before falling asleep.