What I Love to Do

Right now, at this moment, I'm struggling with the byproducts of stress. What that means for me is my mind is flooded with thoughts; after all, I'm a thinker -- it's one of the things I do well. It's natural for me, then, for my stress to manifest that way.

It's a problem, however, because when my mind is flooded with thoughts, all sorts of "bummer" side effects tend to follow. I have a harder-than-normal time staying focused on a task or conversation, which makes day-to-day interactions and duties feel extremely burdensome. As a result of that, I tend to withdraw, which, while intuitive to me, is highly counterproductive; for when I withdraw, I am left alone with -- you guessed it -- my roiling thoughts.

Even writing this is a chore. (Reading it might feel like a chore right now, too!)

At any rate, I'd been really amped up about some work stuff, and in the aftermath of said stuff, I found myself thinking about my goals and vision for my life; I also found myself thinking about my purpose. It was a very post-modern discussion with myself, which was both exhausting and counterproductive (my love-hate relationship with post-modern critical analysis is a different topic -- read: Pandora's Box -- altogether).

What I came here to write, then, was something simple, namely, to address the question: what do I LOVE to do?

-I love it when I find the tipping point in a conversation or train of thought, or when I bear witness to, or participate in, a breakthrough. It doesn't matter if they're big or small moments, incidentally -- I love 'em either way. This "what do I LOVE to do?" question was one such "ah-ha!" moment, for example.

-I love it when I identify a solid working metaphor that helps illuminate a problem, idea, theory, or process for myself or another person. For example, I've used baseball as a metaphor -- a vehicle, really -- for lots of problems, processes, etc. in my life. And it doesn't need to be a formal metaphor, incidentally -- it can really just be any instance of successfully and appropriately applying one set of rules and circumstances and ideas to another for the sake of illumination and furthered understanding.

-I love to manage money when I'm operating with a clear or semi-clear vision of what my goals and/or endgame are. I love it. I also love thinking about managing money, and, really, money in general. I love visualizing cash flow models; I love visualizing and dreaming up models for generating increased cash flow, and visualizing the factors and variables that detract from cash flow.

-I love achieving deeper understanding of things I find interesting.

-I love speaking to groups and crowds of people about ideas.

-I love facilitating conversations among people about pretty much anything.

-I love digging into new and unconventional ways of doing things -- I love moving past, through, and around conventional wisdom.

-I love the New York Mets. I love baseball. I love consuming information about the New York Mets and baseball.

-I love to sit and read.

-I love to listen to really good speeches, or conversations, or podcasts (hello, Radiolab!). Similarly, I love to watch really well-written, acted, and produced movies, TV shows, and theatrical productions.

-I love to listen to really good and interesting music. (Totally subjective, of course, but we're talking about me here.)

-Other things.

I think there's real value in articulating these sorts of things to oneself. To my way of thinking, they make up some of the most important "stuff" of personhood. And besides -- going through this list has been a huge boost. My mind is clear, my mood is lifted, and I'm "unstuck." Sweet.

*Notice*

For us human beings, mental health is everything. It's omnipresent. Even, and maybe especially, for people who don't think it affects them, I'm telling you -- mental health is everything. Consider this: if you took someone who loved their work, and you took their work away from them, and you left them in an existence devoid of that work, that person would be affected. They would almost certainly be unhappy. They might even feel despondent and lost. Their psychological life, then -- their mental health -- would be affected. And as a result, other parts of their life would be affected, too. So, I repeat: mental health is everything -- it's omnipresent.

I named this blog "Mental Health for Humans" on a lark. I'm not thrilled with the name, but it works for now. Besides, "what's in a name?" I'm not a media strategist, I'm not a slogan-writer, and I'm not prone to snappy witticisms, especially when I'm trying to come up with snappy witticisms. What I knew, prior to launching this blog, was that I had a lot to say about mental health in general, because I had studied it, practiced it as a therapist, and had my own struggles with it.

"Mental health" was, and is, important to me. I feel an urgency about it, in large part because I know that suffering can be assuaged. I know that this earthly existence of ours can feel rather strange and uncertain and mysterious; but I know we can all proceed through it with a greater degree of grounding and happiness. That means a lot to me. I want good things for us. I want us to learn from our problems; I want us to study ourselves, and our universe; and I want us to grow. I want us, collectively and individually, to achieve deeper levels of awareness, and higher levels of consciousness.

The thing is, I'm not really sure that the stuff I write about, and the stuff I want to write about, fits all that neatly into the mental health "bucket." I've never been much of a fan of buckets in the categorical sense, anyway. (Actual, literal buckets are fine, I should note.) I'd rather honor my many and varied interests by drawing connections between them in considering a topic of import; and I'd rather draw strength and passion from them as I pursue a sharper image in my craft (i.e., writing). Besides, there are plenty of people who do a really good job disseminating straight-up, traditional "mental health" content.

I want people to read what I write, and I know there needs to be a thematic orientation for people to "get" my work. So while well-being is extremely important to me, and probably always will be, I may occasionally -- or often, even -- stray out of traditional bounds to discuss it.

For example, I love baseball. I love food. I love architecture, city planning, personal finance, spirituality, literature, theater, art, music, science, culture, etc. It all ties in for me, and each of those things fuels my interest in the other. At a given moment, tattoos and beards might capture my interest and set me off on an exploration of ideas and themes I couldn't have otherwise accessed without their foundational support.

In other words, folks, please take note that I'm going to give myself the space and freedom to explore that which lies beyond the conventional walls of the "mental health" realm. It, mental health, will remain a primary orientation, but even that -- the definition, that is -- is probably broader, for me, than for many.

I hope you enjoy it. If not, that's okay, of course. You need to do what works for you. You need to find content that appeals to you. I'm confident I have something to offer, though, and I invite you in for a look.