When I'm particularly stressed out, or starting to feel in a blue funk (two things that often go together), I often find my thoughts turn to redecorating and/or exercise programmes.
I have to say that I also think of these things when I'm not feeling particularly stressed, but when I'm stressed out they seem to loom larger in my mind.
It's like I have 101 things to do and I don't know where to start - so thinking about moving the cupboard to the opposite side of the bedroom seems an appropriate response.
Or I have a bunch of assignments and some stuff for work coming up, so I suddenly want to take up body building.
(Well, no. I don't actually want to take up body building. I want to do one of those things actors do before filming a superhero movie where they hire a personal trainer and spend six weeks in an intensive exercise/diet programme and end up looking impossibly muscly and uber fit for the duration of the movie... and then go back to living a normal life.
It just sounds like a fun thing to do - go all out with the fitness thing for a couple of months, get plenty of photographic evidence, and then say "been there, done that - icecream!" and forget all that craziness.)
Instead I'm just cleaning stuff when I should be studying and doing push-ups whenever I can't concentrate on what I'm supposed to be reading. And thinking about rearranging the furniture in two bedrooms.
I know why I'm doing it. It's a way to delude myself that I have some control over what's going on in my life. It's an instant gratification thing: I can see my environment is more orderly, I can feel the effect of physical exercise. I know I am having a direct influence on my world and making it "better"...
And at the same time I'm not facing the things I should be doing right now.
It's being useful, while at the same time not being useful.
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