Shorting Out

How we manage to get through life without shorting out never ceases to amaze me. How we wend our way through life’s minefields without being blown to smithereens is also a source of wonder. There are just so many, many… things …bombarding our minds and senses every second of every day; so many distractions calling to us, singing their siren songs. How do we do it?

I’ve noticed this particularly keenly the past few days. I’ll set off to do something (uh, like write a blog entry, for example) and suddenly find my mind calling me off to something else. I’ll know something simply must be done, but I won’t do it. Faced with so many things to do, I do nothing at all. It’s taken me 20 minutes to write this paragraph. Thoughts as thick as gnats on a muggy summer’s day swarm about my head, but no specific thought stays within my view long enough for me to concentrate on.

This is hardly a new experience for me. Concentrating on any one thing long enough to complete it has always been a problem. I can honestly empathize with those with Attention Deficit Disorder. The problem is, of course, that in trying to get everything done, you get nothing done. I try to build up a stockpile of future blogs so that I needn't panic when, at 10:00 on a Tuesday night I realize I haven't done a blog for posting Wednesday morning. The result is that I have a stockpile of about 20 "blogs in progress", most of them only one or two paragraphs long. And when, on those rare occasions when I actually get a few blogs ahead, I grow lazy/lazier. "Oh I don't really have to do a blog for tomorrow. I've got a couple on hand." Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where that leads.

Unlike you, I'm sure, I do not handle stress well--especially stress I wasn't expecting. My mind instantly shorts out. I'll be doing something I've done 10,000 times before without problem, and I'll do it the 10,001st time and it won't work, and my mind implodes. And of course, the instant something flusters me, the domino effect kicks in. Once I start stressing over having forgotten how to do something, I can't remember anything at all...my own phone number, my social security number, my address, my name...all blank. Instant total amnesia.

Luckily, if the problem rests within or stems from my misuse of the computer, my good friend Gary lives just one floor away in my same building, so rather than sitting down in front of the computer and trying to calm down and figure it out for myself, it is much easier for me to simply pick up the phone (or, if I haven't somehow totally screwed up the entire computer, e-mail) Gary with a plaintive cry for help. He comes up, sits down at the computer, does exactly the same thing I did, exactly the way I did it, and the problem is resolved. And once again I feel like a total idiot.

And having reread the above, I am truly embarrassed to realize how shallow I am to always concentrate on my own little problems and totally overlook the fact that shorting out is a very real and very serious problem for those less self-centered than I. I stand in sincere awe of those in professions which deal day in and day out with the worst and most tragic elements of life and humanity. Nurses, doctors, firemen, policemen, hospice workers, social workers, caregivers...how they can possibly avoid being utterly destroyed by their constant, unrelenting exposure to pain and fathomless sorrow? It is they who represent the finest of humanity, and give hope to us all.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@att.net.