Lately I ve come to realize that my mood emotional…

Transcript

I'm at the two and a half year mark in my retirement, and so far I'd say that it's been about three phases. The first year was really just kind of emotionally windmilling. You know how when somebody's about to fall over the edge of something, their arms, you know, they try to keep their balance. It was kind of like that. The second year, I had sort of acclimated to retirement, but I was trying to figure out, like, well, who is this new retired person? What's my identity, essentially? And then this last six months, I've really mostly just been learning, like, how my thoughts and emotions work. I've never really been able to listen to them as closely as I do now because I was always so busy. I've kind of figured out that the way I work emotionally, it's like imagine a pizza with three big slices. One slice is, like, manic. One slice is sort of apathetic. And one slice is anxious. When the pizza has all three slices in it, I feel great. I feel productive. I can think objectively about things. I can think more deeply about things. I just feel like, I guess the best word I could come up with would be normal. When there's a slice missing, or two slices missing sometimes, that's when it gets a little different. So, some days I just wake up and I just feel manic. So what that feels like is, it actually feels great. Like, the manic phase is probably my best phase. It's my favorite phase. Because when I'm in a manic phase, I can get some stuff done. If you're trying to solve a problem or accomplish something, and you can get manic bill, you're going to get some stuff done. The problem with the manic phase is that I usually feel kind of bad after. Like, it's just exhausting. Plus, once I'm out of the manic phase, I don't feel that sort of amped up energy anymore. So I feel worse. Is this the best word I could come up with? So the manic phase isn't ideal, and it isn't sustainable. It's kind of like running a car on nitrous, you know? You can't do that. You can do it, and you can get some really high performance, but it'll burn it up if you try and do it more than in short bursts. The malaise state or sort of restless state is what it sounds like. Like, some days I'll wake up, and I just feel like I don't want to do anything. I wouldn't call it depressed. It's just, like, it is restless, but it's also sort of, like, sort of aimless. Like, I don't want to go work in the shop. I don't want to ride the bike. I don't want to go fishing. I don't want to do anything. I don't want to sit around either. I just can't figure out what I want to do. And I'm not complaining. Don't get me wrong. Like, I would rather be in that state every day for the rest of my life than working in a job I don't like. And then my third state, which is anxious, is my least favorite state. It just feels like some days I feel like I wake up, and it's like I've been given some bad news, and I'm processing it. But there is no bad news. It's like I'm waiting for the bad news or something's wrong. And that's not a great state. So, ideally, the pizza has all three slices. And again, like I said earlier, those are the really good days. Today's one of those days. And that's most of my days. Most days, I feel like I have almost all three slices. But the days that I don't are the days when I can say to myself, dude, this is just your X day. Like, you're just having a manic day, or you're having an anxious day, or you're having a restless day. And I can realize that there's nothing really wrong with that. And I can realize that there's nothing really wrong with that. And I can realize that there's nothing really wrong with that. It's not me. It's just my brain chemistry being a jerk. And it's helped me a lot to sort of like just get through those days and not feel like I have to make some kind of huge life change or whatever. Because that's what I would do. Like, before I understood that I just have these phases, I would feel like I needed to fix something. And that actually made it worse because I don't know. I don't know if it's fixable. I think it's just what it is. And I think, I guess everybody has this. It's just not easy to identify when you're busy. So when you retire, you have lots of time to sort of think and observe and be aware of things. And you start realizing that there are sort of definable patterns to your emotional state. So that's been the thing I've been thinking about most is like, what are my states? Is there any reliable indicators of when one is coming? Is there any reliable way to create that perfect pizza? And when I'm not in a perfect pizza state, what's the best way to just kind of ride it out and not like start making bad decisions or saying things I wish I didn't say or whatever. And again, like most of the time, I'm in the perfect pizza state. But when I'm not, at least now I can identify it and I can say, you're in a restless state or you're in a manic state or you're in an anxious state. It'll pass. Just ride it out. So I don't know if this helps anybody. I don't know if you have other slices on your pizza. I would love to hear about it. Or are these your three slices?