It struck me, just as I was editing the photo and video used for this post, that I’m old.
Fifty may not seem old to the kind folks who tell me so, but I feel it.
Well, let me pull back a little – I’m older. Maybe not old – it’s all so relative anyway.
I definitely do feel older, and it hits me when I try to do something like figure out all the new editing options for photos or the latest app. My phone is probably about four or five years old now, and I still haven’t accessed all the photo capabilities because it’s just too overwhelming. When I was younger, I would have jumped at the chance for more filters, accessories, apps to make life easier – now, I just feel overcome by the vast sprawl and unending options now available. It sends my brain into overload, which stops things completely.
My solution to feeling overwhelmed isn’t typically to shut down, but rather isolate and focus on one single goal to be accomplished, or one finite problem to solve. The older I get, the more options there seem to be, and the more opportunities for getting overwhelmed. My mind isn’t as quick and nimble as it once was, nor is it able to absorb or learn things at any sort of quick pace. I’ve intentionally slowed things down in my world to find a more peaceable way of living, so I don’t want that to change – I’m simply going to have to accept the fact that I’ll never access all the paths now available to us. A spiral accented by FOMO now seems to rear its head in my head, and overthinking everything is a bleak downward trend. The only way to stop it is… to stop it.
And so I do.
