Dilemmas

I overthink everything, that’s no news. So here there are some of the dilemmas I face on a daily basis.

 

Food

A vegan diet is good for my physical and mental health, the environment and my conscience, I know that much. And I also know that for some reason our society is designed so that half of the food we produce we throw it away instead of consuming it.

I know I should eat vegan food, but I also know the food that is discarded is not vegan and it’s a waste that no one eats it. So what should I do? There’s no way to win.

 

Solitude

I know that having no friends or relationships is more detrimental to our health than smoking or not exercising. I also know stress has been referred to as “the silent killer” because you don’t know it’s killing you until it kills you without warning. And I also know personal relationships are a source of stress for me and interacting with people, in general, is the hardest part of my day. So what should I do? I still don’t know and they are both not good options.

 

Work

Working is stressful but not working is also stressful. If I work I feel like I’m wasting the short time I have on this planet and if I don’t work I feel like I’m wasting the short time I have on this planet. There’s no way to win.

 

Productivity

For you to understand how unproductive I really am and how much do I second-guess myself, this is a screenshot of my WordPress posts dashboard:

As you can see there are 87 drafts on this blog alone, and for some reason now I’ve got about 40 websites, half of them unfinished and the total draft count is over 500.

500 unfinished blog posts, and about the same amount of other unfinished projects on my VPSs, bookmarks, favorites, email drafts, external hard drives and flash drives and different folders. That’s literally thousands of projects I don’t have the time or self-discipline to wrap up.

And how is that a dilemma? Because it usually takes the same amount of effort to finish and unfinished project than to start a new one and I always choose the latter because it’s more exciting even though I know I should be finishing the old projects first and in the end nothing gets done, no old projects are finished and no new projects are finished because there’s always a new shiny object around.

 

Alcohol

Drinking is bad for us, not drinking is also bad. Which one is worse? I don’t know, so I don’t drink anymore just in case. I’m lying, actually I don’t drink because I’m broke.

 

Being human

What does it mean to be a human? Being human is a dilemma in and of itself. There are so many things human beings are supposed to do that I can’t do, like having babies and being sociable. And also dying, how am I supposed to be a human and live while being aware that my biological purpose in this life as a human is to procreate and then die?

 

Time

I am aware that my time on this earth is very limited and that I live in a third world country so my life expectancy is lower than those living in developed countries because of the crime, poor infrastructure and accident rate. So I kind of know I should make the most out of my time on this planet, but what does “make the most of it” mean from the standard of an introvert who overthinks everything?

Does it mean to chase the highs of life, to travel, get drunk and sleep around? As that’s what others seem to think living life means. Or should I come up with my own definition of making the best of life and do whatever I want and makes me happy. And how can I know what makes me happy if I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that I will die, and that you, the reader will also die. Yes, the person reading this will die, and I feel bad about it. Why does everyone and everything have to die? And how can I find the best way to spend my time while knowing it will all be in vain in the end?

 

Teaching

Teaching is my job, but it’s also something I don’t really enjoy doing. On the one hand, It’s stressful and tiring, and in on the other hand it pays the bills and it allows me to train my creativity as I come up with new activities and techniques every day. Teaching and not teaching are both not good options for me.

 

Bong Gu

Bong Gu is blind and I know it’s stressful for her to go out because there are too many cars and they all drive very fast to try to run her over and she also trips with every obstacle, and there are many bad dogs that bite her and scare her, because we live in a poor country, so wild dogs are roaming around eating from the rubbish. But I also know she is still a dog and like to sniff around and sniff the occasional non-violent dog. So if we go out or not go out, they are both not good options for her.

Meditation

Meditation is supposed to lower my stress levels, the thing is that I get more stressed when I sit because I’m aware that sitting is bad for my body.

 

 


 

What’s the point of me listing my dilemmas?

They say sometimes it helps talking about it, or writing, in this case. Speaking out about what makes us scared and our internal conflicts can help our brains understand them better and maybe put an end to those conflicts.