flip
flop
The mind is super interesting.
Its ability to shift and morph, create new beliefs, and conjure new realities by the second gives it a skill not even computers can emulate.
One second its waves are still, another they crash.
You feel happy one minute, and another sad.
It is li- okay you get the point.
Our minds go brrr.
Don’t worry, I don’t know what that means either.
But it just felt right.
And since this is my space to complain / inspire, it looks like we’re going to be talking about mine.
Oh and mine is wild.
I’ve noticed a trend in the weeks preceding this piece of writing.
I go from motivated Monday to failure Friday.
Yes that’s a bit extreme, but to be honest, it’s not all far from the truth.
My mind flops and flips throughout the week, getting dopamine from work, and then entertainment, ultimately being swept away from the latter.
Maybe I should use this space to talk about entertainment, ie. social media and its problems… but I have a feeling we all already know what those are.
So now you may ask, “well what the heck are you gonna talk about?”
Honestly, I have no idea.
I feel like awareness plays a big role though, in this system of mental checks and balances that we are constantly trying to stay on top of.
Forgetfulness of our trueness leads a whole lot of us into a place where we have no idea who we are, and that’s freaky.
But I’m not here to make you feel freaky.
At least, I don’t think I am.
Take a look at the above.
I went from I know, to I don’t know, to do I know, to who knows.
This is just a snippet of my mind.
A snippet of my mind in a time where I was actually trying to write about something interesting.
It flipped. It flopped. And ultimately, it burned that mental pancake I was trying to serve you.
This past week I was tasked to write a draft of my personal statement.
I failed a couple times, for a couple days, even.
Then I found myself at a park.
No, this isn’t one of those philosophical analogies I’ll feed you in the coming months.
I was in an actual park.
Sitting on an actual bench.
Trying to write.
You see, my brain, in places with WiFi, was able to take advantage of every single thread of curiosity that my range rover of a mind had.
Yes I know that made no sense.
My mind was able to catch any stray thought that came to my mind and act on it. It was able to respond to every DM, tell my metacarpals to check my email every 5 seconds, and think over the meaning of life every moment it got the chance.
At the park, though, this flip floppity of a flippity flop that is my mind couldn’t do that.
Devoid of internet, my mind was starved from instant gratification, forced to exchange its dopamine high for a dopamine low.
It calmed down.
It “took a chill pill.”
And another chill pill.
I came back from the park not two hours later with a first draft of my personal statement under my belt.
Now this is interesting, but not half as interesting as what happened next.
For the rest of the day, while I tried to do work, I didn’t.
My mind moved the entirety of me in front of the television screen that was playing images rolled at high speed of people fighting with powers with a great storyline: anime.
And…
Flip.
That low dopamine tolerance went…
Flop.
Out the door.
Why is this?
Non-linearity of mental willpower is one.
The other is my necessity for reward.
I’m glad I know this.
I read books.
But for those of us who don’t, I want you to wonder why.
I don’t even truly know.
I keep finding myself in situations of overwhelming overwhelmingness that, five minutes later, turn to satisfactory satisfaction.
As much as I know, I’ve gotta keep learning.
Maybe that is why we’re all so flip floppy.
We just have so much to learn.
So much to explore.
And so much to discover.
Whether you’re a flip flopper, or a flop flipper, know this.
At the end of the day, there are things in your control and there are things that are not.
Your mind falls in both of those categories.
Guide what you can, notice what you can’t.
It’s all there for a purpose.
At least, I think it is.
;)
“Guide what you can, notice what you can’t.” I love this :)