How To Overpower Overwhelm

How To Overpower Overwhelm

Sometimes people get overwhelmed by all of the pressures of what goals demand of them. It’s a strange feeling. It creeps in for what seems like no good reason, just the addition of another task that you forgot about could create stress.

Herein lies the importance of individual tasks. When you’re in a task-oriented mode, it’s best to just focus on one goal at a time. Don’t worry about the other shit until it’s directly on your plate.

In other words, the best way to avoid stress is to focus solely all of your energy on each chore as it comes, rather than thinking about ALL of the things you have to do collectively. When you think, “Man, I have so much shit to do today, It’s going to be a long day,” you’re stressing yourself out.

If you think about it, by focusing on each item on your to-do-list at once, you’re “present” as the New Age-people would say.

It’s the ego, the thinking mind that stresses you out, the part of you which imagines all of the potential complications and problems.

If you just turned your mind off, like a robot, and did what you had to do, you wouldn’t feel even an inkling of stress.

However, it’s easier said than done though isn’t it?

When it comes to getting shit done, don’t see the forest for the trees, only look at each tree as you’re about to chop it down.

I don’t worry about all of the traditional bullshit, like “meditating,” “taking a deep breath,” or “accepting your anxiety.” I don’t know about you, but that kind of shit has never been for me.

I honestly don’t understand how “taking a deep breath” could help you overpower the feeling of stress. You know what helps me get over work-related anxiety? Getting shit done.

Looking back on it now, If I had to do university all over again, I would’ve done 0% of the readings, and instead, just focused on the essays and assignments as soon as they were assigned.

However, I had this weird complex where I would fill my days up with bullshit without addressing the work which REALLY needed to be done. It was a bizarre form of procrastination.

I did that for five years of my life? How did I never conclude that I was wasting my time with inconsequential nothings?

At times, I wonder if I do that to this day. My days are becoming increasingly busy, but are any of the tasks genuinely helping me? I think they are, but maybe it’s all just an exercise in self-appeasement as if I’m sitting here patting myself on the back for how hard I work but really I’m not working at all.

However, the feeling that you may be wasting your time, that irrational fear of failure, the paranoia that you’re really fucking things up, is an essential part of getting good at anything in my opinion.

If you didn’t have it, you would have nothing to keep you on track, nothing that inspires you to work hard. The fear of not getting what you want is what pushes you to work harder, the knowledge that someone who is more hungry than you will take your place is what keeps people in the top spot.

This may be a weird example so bear with me. If you’re following popular music right now, you’ll know Fetty Wap and Post-Malone. Both singers came out around the same time – 2015. However, Post-Malone is everywhere right now, and Fetty Wap has all but fallen off.

One expanded himself musically and kept working and the other one became careless, got chicks pregnant, and left the spotlight overnight.

On an unrelated note, Post-Malone is just way cooler and down-to-earth. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting sick of the “bad-ass-gangster” rapper. It’s the same old played out shit over and over again.

All these guys are from the “hood” and talk about shooting people and selling narcotics, despite the fact that the only thing they’ve ever shot is a music video, and they only sold drugs for six months and barely made more than $100 per week peddling weed.

Back to the original topic: someone close to me once said that their grandmother would continuously bitch and whine about the flowerbeds which needed work. That pissed him off to no end due to her “job”, which to him, seemed worthless. She relentlessly complained, and it continually put her in a terrible mood and her tasks weren’t even “work.”

It was just something that she dreamt that she had to do. That’s how I feel sometimes like I’m merely filling up my day with tasks of relatively low importance. On top of it all, the feeling that everything you’re doing is without a purpose may come back at full force.

If you’re having thoughts like these below, then watch out, you’re about to give up:

I’m beginning to realize the pointlessness of even pursuing something in the first place. I don’t even judge  judge homeless people anymore when I seem asking people for money to buy Colt 45. 

Whenever I walk by them, they’re sprawled out across the sidewalk, they look happier than I do on an average day. Do the rest of us really have it figured out? I’m not so sure.

They’re always laughing, hanging out with each other, talking mad shit and asking people for money. When I walk by, I’m miserable because of all of the shit that I have to do to get what I want in life. Despite the fact that I may not even sincerely want the things I obsess over every single day.

If you have these kinds of thoughts, chances are, you’re overwhelmed. The human brain comes up with rationalizations to stop you from getting where you want to be. It’s kind of like when you’re laying at home in your bed, and you know you should get up to go to the gym, but you, instead, tell yourself that you’ll go for twice as long the next day.

It’s bullshit. You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to park your ass in that bed and continue not to do anything. That’s the truth of the matter, I know it, you know it, we all know it, but the strength of that rationalization is so powerful. It’s incredible.