It Feels Worse Than it Should Feel

• Video Transcript

  Our own lives are undoubtedly the most important thing to all of us. How we feel in every waking second of every day is experienced by each of us and is personal to us. We spend every moment with ourselves, and those small details make up the fabric of our lives.

  And it’s the small details that are important to me. But I don’t think I was always THIS sensitive. I feel like the volume has been turned all the way up on the seemingly trivial things that happen in my life. The small things mean a lot to me.

  Sometimes someone will say something to me, and my mind just keeps replaying it over and over. It’s usually something that doesn’t sit well with me. Something that feels wrong, that just grates against my mind and leaves a sore spot. Or something will happen at work, and I just can’t forget about it. Again, something that rubs me the wrong way. And it’s usually when someone is trying to manipulate a situation to their own ends or when they have misunderstood a situation.

  Of course, I can’t control what thoughts pop into my head, so it’s like my mind is beating me into submission by replaying these things over and over again. And when it feels like I’ve had enough, it stops. And again, these are small problems that are made more important and annoying because of the constant repetition of them in my mind.

  And a lot of the things that give me the most stress are things that I’m sure someone on the outside looking in would think are trivial. Even I think sometimes that if I’m stressing about this small thing, then my life must be pretty good. But the level of that stress is so disproportionately high that it’s like some kind of torture. At certain times, my life somehow feels much worse than it should feel. Because of this magnification of the small things, I’m constantly micromanaging my life and making sure I pay close attention to all the small details because if I don’t, then it brings even more trouble for me.

  Another part of my life where the dials are turned up is on social arrangements. I will turn down invitations to things which are most likely going to be fun because, for no rational reason, I feel strongly that I don’t want to do it. Of course, nobody truly knows why they like one thing and not another, or why they prefer to do this thing over that thing. But the feeling I have is not exactly that I wouldn’t like to do it.

  When I get invited to something, I don’t want to do it because it feels wrong, like something I shouldn’t do, or it would be better if I didn’t do it. And until I deal with it and basically decline the offer, it will keep coming back to my thoughts again and again until I’m sick of thinking about it.

  Fortunately, though, there is another way because often the thing that feels wrong will be canceled and will just go away by itself. So through my own actions and through things that happen outside of my control, I am able to always do the things that I should do and not do anything that I shouldn’t.