One of the things I’ve come to value the most from my time spent walking Charlie dog is the time and space it gives me to think. Those of you who’ve followed my journey from the early days won’t be surprised when I say that some of the ways in which my mind connects the dots can be a bit random, but you know time spent on musing even seemingly random stuff occasionally leads to a nugget of insight.
So we’ve just returned from one of our usual circuits of the town. On the way up the hill there were no insights worth a mention, my mind entertained itself quite happily with a succession of interesting topics to ponder, for example if sweat is what it looks like when your fat starts to cry, then my fat is very clearly very upset today because despite it being much cooler outdoors, by the time I got to the top of the hill I was glowing.
Then I got to thinking about where does your fat actually go, when you lose it? I mean, I was looking at a picture on-line this week about what one pound of fat actually looks like, and its big, you know? So if you lose like two pounds a week…where is it now? It’s like it melts away by magic. One week those two pounds of fat are inside my skin, and the next week they’re not.
They just disappear, sneak away like thieves in the night. I go to bed weighing one number, and I wake up weighing a smaller number but nothing went anywhere, right? I must have spend a good ten minutes on that one, in fact I was so absorbed that I’d reached the top of the hill before the Asshole voice had even chipped in with his usual helpful suggestions about the shortcuts we could take every time we passed an opportunity to avoid having to walk right to the top.
And that’s the bit that provided the key to help me unlock today’s useful stuff. It’s the first time that I’ve actually put two and two together and realised that when my mind is occupied, I’m far less open to an approach or a suggestion from the Asshole. Which sounds really obvious but don’t you often find that things stare us in the face and we’re still blind to it?
I have a really low boredom threshold, you know? It’s one of those things that goes hand in hand with an inquisitive mind. When I’m bored I get destructive and my mind leads me into mischief. I’ll give you an example – on Thursday I was involved in doing some recruitment, and one of the candidates lost me in the first five minutes. By the time we’d completed the interview I couldn’t have told you how he’d answered the majority of our questions, even though I’d written down his answers on autopilot.
What I could have told you, was how many times he said the words in terms of during his one hour interview. I was bored, and my mind started fixating on the wrong thing. My in-terms-of ometer leapt into action and I counted them all, with a mental ker-CHING every time he said it. Seventeen in-terms-ofs, if you’re interested. And, don’t even get me started on the four little hairs sprouting from the top of his nose, which I’d have paid good money to tweeze out.
So that’s what I mean…because what he was saying wasn’t holding my attention, my mind wandered off and started poking at stuff it had no business with. And I think the Asshole voice recognises those moments where my mind is suggestible, and that’s when he moves in for the kill.
It’s hardly breaking news, I get that. I’m sure some of you are thinking well yes, so what – eating because you’re bored is a well known thing and you’d be right, it is. I’ve heard plenty of people say that, in fact I’ve more than likely said it myself. But only in the context of doing, and not thinking, right?
I can be completely knocking it out of the park being busy doing stuff, but if my head isn’t similarly engaged, that’s the chink in my armour, right there.
Just another little post-it note to self, to add to my collection. Knowledge is power, right?
