Rant Ahead
Learning how to live with a mind that makes a lot of connections without letting those connections overwhelm me.
Learning to live with a mind that makes connections without letting those connections overwhelm me
One of the reasons why I stopped using social media was because my mind wanders A LOT.
And by wanders, I don't mean that I just get distracted easily. 😂 I mean I can be watching a video about something completely random, and my brain immediately goes, oh, this connects to this thing, which connects to this other thing, which connects to something that happened in my life, which somehow connects to an experience I had years ago, which then takes me all the way back to something from my childhood.
And before I know it, I've gone from watching a 30-second video about one completely unrelated topic to thinking about my entire existence. 😂
Sometimes it's actually fascinating.
Other times?
It's EXHAUSTING.
I think one of the strangest things about having a mind like this is that it can feel like both a blessing and a curse. You see patterns. You notice things. You connect dots. Sometimes you see how different things are connected way before other people do.
But then you try to explain the connection to someone else and they're looking at you like...
Girl???
Where did you get THAT from? 😂
And I understand it.
Because when you are not inside my head, you don't see the 15 little connections that happened before I got to the conclusion. You just hear the conclusion.
So to you, it sounds like I'm making things up.
Meanwhile, in my head, there is an entire flowchart that somehow makes perfect sense. 😂
And I think this is where it can become overwhelming for me and, probably, for the people around me too.
We can be having a completely normal conversation about one thing, and suddenly my brain has connected that one thing to five other things. An event. A person's behaviour. Something I saw online. Something that happened years ago. Something happening in the world.
And suddenly I'm trying to explain how all these things are interconnected.
Sometimes I even have to stop myself and think, okay, Sibongile. Relax. 😂
Because not every connection needs to be followed.
Not every thought needs to be explored.
Not every pattern needs to be solved.
And that is something I am still learning.
This is also one of the reasons why social media became too much for me.
Because social media gives my brain an endless supply of things to connect.
Natural disasters.
Wars.
Propaganda.
Children's safety.
Women's safety.
Politics.
People's personal experiences.
Terrible things happening to people I've never met.
And because my mind doesn't just consume information and leave it there, everything starts connecting.
What does this mean?
Could this happen here?
What if this happens to someone I love?
How did this person end up in this situation?
What caused it?
What happens next?
And then another story comes up.
And another.
And another.
And suddenly I'm carrying the weight of situations that have absolutely nothing to do with my immediate life.
It's not that I want to delude myself into thinking the world is perfect.
I KNOW the world isn't perfect.
I know bad things happen.
I know people are unsafe.
I know there are wars, natural disasters, violence, propaganda and all kinds of horrible things happening around the world.
But there is a difference between being aware of the world and constantly consuming the worst parts of it.
And I've realised that I have to be careful about what I allow into my mind.
Because when I consume too much of it, it doesn't just stay as information.
It becomes fear.
It becomes anxiety.
It becomes me projecting things that happened to someone else onto my own life.
And suddenly I'm worrying about my kids, my husband, my friends, myself.
I'm imagining scenarios that haven't happened.
I'm preparing for problems that don't exist.
And I don't like living like that.
So, yes, I left social media.
Not because I don't care about the world.
Not because I want to be ignorant.
And definitely not because I think everything is sunshine and rainbows. 😂
I just realised that sometimes protecting my peace means limiting how much of the world I allow into my head at once.
And honestly, it has helped.
Because when something difficult actually happens in my life, I can sometimes stabilise myself a little better.
I can say, okay.
This is hard.
But we can do this.
I can do this.
I will get through this.
There is still a way forward.
And I think that glimpse of hope is something I need to protect.
Because if I'm constantly consuming stories about how things went horribly wrong for someone else, how someone else lost everything, how someone else's situation ended badly, eventually that starts dimming the little bit of hope I have for my own situation.
And I don't want that.
I want to be informed enough to understand the world, but not so overwhelmed by the world that I forget how to live in it.
I want to understand that bad things happen without constantly expecting bad things to happen to me.
I want to be aware without being consumed.
And I think that's probably what I'm learning right now.
My mind is always going to make connections.
That's just how it works.
Maybe I don't need to fight that.
Maybe I just need to learn when to follow the connection and when to say...
Okay, that's enough for today. 😂
What about you? Do you ever find yourself making connections between completely unrelated things, or is your brain kind enough to let you watch one video without turning it into a full investigation? 😂