The title of this page feels wrong. But I don‘t exactly know what else to call it. This past weekend I went home. Honestly, recently I have been feeling pretty good, but one question caught me off guard even though it is a totally normal and reasonable question. My sister asked me what I have been up to recently. And for some reason, I felt a wave of anxiety come up and I didn’t really know how to answer. 

I said I have been working, taking out Pico, and watching YouTube. All of this was true, but for some reason I had the same sort of queasy uneasy feeling that makes me anxious which happens when I am about to lie. So why did I feel wrong? The first thing that comes to mind is that maybe I was hiding the answer to ‘what have you been up to’ behind different activities I did each day. Is what I have been up to a variety of different activities and ways to pass the time, or is it trying to become a better version of myself and put things right where I can. Looking back on it now, I feel like as cheesy as it seems the most accurate answer is the latter.

I’m not perfect, so I fall short more than I would like, so maybe even that isn’t as truthful of an answer as I know how to answer. One step closer feels like ‘I have been working hard to become a better version of myself and to put things right where I can while learning to give myself some space to relax and recover.’ When I put it like that, in a sense I was lying to those I care about through omission. I feel like them one of the most important things I need to do is to learn how to talk clearly while remaining truthful to myself. While I was back home, I was asked how I have been during the lockdown. At the time, the thought crossed my mind that the question felt a lot like ‘what have you been up to.’ But I was interested to find that I didn’t feel the same uneasy feeling. As far as I can tell, the main difference was I had spent an afternoon thinking about the lockdown and how it had been affecting me 2 weeks ago. It wasn’t like I rehearsed an answer, but I already knew how the lockdown was impacting me.

I said that especially in the early stages, I found I was feeling irritated, gave an example, and said I felt like I was starting to get used to a new normal but I am looking forward to when it end. I noticed afterward, everyone else was using the same terms when they said how they were feeling. It feels great that I was able to connect with others by spending time beforehand, but at the same time I feel like it isn’t possible to always spend an entire afternoon looking into something before being able to have a thought. How can I do better?

I want to be able to get asked a question or be in a conversation, pause and really truly think about what I think and how I am impacted, then answer carefully and as honestly as I can. But I have found that in certain situations when I am asked a question, my mind goes blank. The first thing that comes to mind is maybe when my mind goes blank, it means I don’t know enough to be able to answer. What I need to have at least is a baseline to reference before spitting out whatever comes to mind first.

At the start of this year, I wrote on my board ‘Start forming opinions’. Until a few weeks ago, it sat there looking at me whenever I dared to look at the board. As time has passed, I have been feeling a stronger pull to doing this. Maybe my pull to form opinions and my desire to become who I want are linked. How should I know what to think about next? The first thing that comes to mind is whatever piques my interest. I feel like I need to care about what I am looking into. I don’t need to become an expert, but I need to be at least informed to where I recognize my weaknesses before forming an opinion. Some time ago, I had a thought that I should look into political questions. My thinking was all political questions at their core are hard questions. If the answer was obvious, there would be nothing to debate or argue over.

Going forward, I will plan to work my way down controversial questions and thoughts and questions I feel drawn to. Through doing this, I hope to uncover my thoughts on different topics. I will seek to learn what I think, how I feel, and through doing this I hope to learn more about myself. I will aim to find my thoughts on 1 topic per week and the topic for the next week. I will aim to understand both views in discussions before forming an opinion and to get to the root of why certain ideas are so compelling for me.

Hopefully as I practice getting more informed, finding my own opinions, practice answering questions, I will become more informed and more capable of thinking and answering questions that come up daily.