One frustrating thing about the human brain (or possibly just my brain, I don't know) is the fact that the number of things it feels like it wants to do appears to be inversely proportional to the likelihood of doing any of them.
One can refer to this phenomenon as "analysis paralysis" and it rears its ugly head in all manner of situations.
Playing a board game and have several different options on how to proceed? Why not agonise over it for a good ten minutes while your tablemates get increasingly frustrated and/or drunk.
Feel like playing a video game? Great! But which one? You don't want to start playing one and end up feeling like you "should" be playing a different one for some vague, amorphous reason that doesn't really make any sense.
Want to read a book? Fabulous! See above.
Go outside and do something? Sure, but there's all these things you could be doing inside, and you're not doing any of them right now.
The eventual result is inevitably the same: staring into space, inner monologue caught in a constant loop of "But if I…", nothing actually getting done, depression, death. Maybe not the last one. Hopefully, anyway.
I constantly catch myself doing this and it's hard to break out of, because noticing that you're doing it is just the first step. In order to break out of the cycle you not only have to recognise that the cycle is taking place, but also take decisive action: pick something to do, and damn well go and do it, sod what anyone else (or the rest of your brain) thinks.
"I don't know what to do" becomes "I should do something" becomes "I think I might…" and finally, with any luck, "I am definitely going to go and…" — at which point it is best to stop thinking altogether and simply go do whatever went in that last ellipsis.
At times like this, I also find it's best to eliminate distractions once you're doing the thing you decisively decided to dedicate your time to. Put the phone away, somewhere out of reach. Make sure you have a drink and/or snacks on hand if applicable. Get comfortable. Open/close windows and turn on heating/air conditioning as required. Focus on that thing. Enjoy it. Embrace it.
You don't need to do anything else (except maybe empty the dishwasher, it's been like that for three days) — just dedicate your time to doing that one thing rather than panicking over all the things you think you "could" or "should" be doing instead.
I'm off to go and take my own advice having just caught myself doing the perpetual doom cycle of Twitter, email, Discord for more minutes than I'd care to mention. Sophie is calling; we've got monsters to bash and I have ingots to make. Lots of ingots.
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