This is me typing up excerpts from my journal entry today. Abridged but otherwise unedited.

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I feel like I’ve had brain fog for the past 10 years and it has only gotten increasingly worse. I genuinely don’t know if I am capable of deep learning or planning or practice. I ruminate all the time but when I actually try to think about something it is so incredibly hard and unproductive. There are so many things I want to just sit down and figure out but I find myself spending hours to get nowhere. I don’t understand it

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Balance is always something I’ll struggle to understand. Restriction vs. discipline, flexibility vs. hedonism. What is reasonable restraint? When is it self care to say no to myself? When is it self care to say yes? When is it cruelty to say no or sabotage to say yes? How do we measure what choices are right? Best? How can we quantify the benefit of $5 saved vs. spent? A cupcake eaten or refused? An outing attended or skipped? Hours worked vs. slept vs. spent with friends… what do we owe to ourselves vs. others? Should our primary goal be to be happy? Is there shame to be had in what makes us so? Can we shift what makes us happy? If we can, should we? To what?

I’ve been watching Real Housewives and the whole schtick is that you can “have everything” and still be miserable. Well that begs the question why then the uber wealthy don’t idk… give some away? When does wealth become unethical? Is it the moment you have more than you need? Who decides what that is? This has taken me several minutes to write but is about as many thoughts I have in a few moments. I think my thinking is like how people thrash around and drown. Instead of floating, riding the wave, or taking gentle strides through the water, I am flailing so chaotically and inefficiently, making no progress towards anything and eventually exhausting myself – unable to do anything but go under.

I often wonder how people who don’t think something every second or those without internal monologues could ever be successful. How do you learn, operate, do? But DUH – the occasional quiet of the mind is only beneficial. My chronic thinking is not a sign of a more functional and active brain – it is just noise!