Overcoming being overwhelmed
I just got home from the baseball game - Ottawa Titans vs Québec Capitales - maybe 5 minutes ago. After I took my nightly pills, and freed my dog, typing this is the very first thing I'm doing. I want to finish my scorecard, which amounts to adding up all the numbers; but after that I'm not sure where I'm going. I have the classical music playlist I started earlier this afternoon running again, and it's kind of nice to just sit here and work on a project instead of launching straight into another baseball game (Blue Jays) or watch TV shows or a movie.
That isn't to say either of those options are necessarily bad; it's just that I have spent a lot of time on screens the last day and a half (I say as I type this out on a keyboard in Notepad). I've mixed in some physical projects (reading, writing, notebook making) but I've spent a long time looking at a screen or else directly interacting with it between typing, tapping, and using a controller.
It all came to a head this afternoon when I was sitting in the living room, probably around 2:45pm. I think I just finished playing a round of MLB The Show 24, or maybe NHL 25 - it doesn't matter, I played both today - and I had this feeling of being overwhelmed. I have all sorts of things I want to do this weekend, while I have the time to myself with my wife away for work. But I felt frustrated, unsure of what to do next. I didn't realize it at first, but as I said, it was the feeling of being overwhelmed. Specifically overwhelmed with options.
Recognizing this I immediately turned to my journal and started writing down some thoughts. I determined that the very best thing to do was simplify things. What do I want to do, right now? Reading was the answer. But I have three books available to read, so which one? Break it down further. One of the books is very much active reading - it's a Choose Your Own Adventure comic book, Star Trek Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way. That's too much mental power. Another book is the Jack Reacher series novel I started a month ago, Die Trying. I'm almost done that one and it's fast-paced, easy to breeze through. The other book is Sir Alec Guinness' commonplace book, which seems like maybe it might be a little more intellectually stimulating.
OK, so I start with Die Trying, then move on to the commonplace book. Prompted by my wife, I also bought tickets to the baseball game which was a 6pm start. That gave me a deadline, something to "work" toward. This narrowed my focus, and I was able to read a couple of chapters of the novel and a handful of pages from the commonplace book. However I felt tired as I was reading, so I set a 30 minute timer and went down for a nap.
Suddenly it's 5pm, and it's time to wake my sleepy dog and feed her, and take her for a walk. I'm biking to the baseball game, which is about 10-15 minutes, so I need to make sure I'm ready to go around 5:30. Lots of time now!
Anyway, the game was great, and so was the bike ride. I spotted the moon rise and it looked fantastic tonight. I wish I had my camera with me, but I had my phone, so I snapped some photos really quick. If I wasn't concerned about biking at night without a proper light, I would have taken some time and maybe try to get something half-decent with Pro mode. As it was, it was pretty dark along the bike path and I think I stirred some raccoons or skunks or bunnies. Not sure, didn't want to find out.
So now as I finish this little note, I'm going to post this online and close up shop on my computer for a little bit and practice making a different kind of notebook - a pocket notebook, but with a cardboard cover wrapped in...something. I'm not sure yet; I may just use some spare wrapping paper to make it look nice. I'm going to gift this to somebody anyway, might as well use wrapping paper!