Formed Frontal Lobe Thoughts

[soos_mite_ah]

Just created yet another journal since my other journal was getting too long. I've also been wanting a new start and a new space since my last journal was started way back in 2021 when my life was very different from where I'm at right now. 

Here are my two previous journals for a quick reference/ recap: 

Psychoanalyzing Myself: 9/1/2021- 12/25/2024

The Joy Journal: 7/19/2020 - 9/7/2021

 

[soos_mite_ah]

 

[soos_mite_ah]

The Dread 

I am feeling a sense of dread walking into the new year just as I did in 2024. Thankfully, this time around it feels less intense but it’s still here. Maybe that’s just adulthood? Or perhaps the way I handle it. Idk.

This time around, I feel like the dread is mixed with underlying feelings of irritation and nervous anticipation. I think the following things are contributing to this:

• The Trump Presidency: I have no idea wtf is going to happen given that all 3 branches are red now and they have project 2025. I think as a country we will be okay in the long run but in the short term, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. It won’t be like this forever, but I don’t know how far this hole goes. I am confident in my ability to handle things and not to toot my own horn but I think I’m in a privileged enough position monetary and in terms of having my passport/visas updated to get out in an emergency situation and help those around me. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happens to the people around me or that my privilege blinds me from what other people are dealing with but it is to say that I’m not the type of person who should be worrying the most.
• My job: Things have been getting better at my job since I came back from my break in terms of me not being burnt out, anxious, lacking in motivation. I have been pretty consistently performing well and have been productive in the volume of work I do.  However, I had a talk with my boss about the only metric that I’m not meeting and that irritated me. She’s fine, don’t get me wrong, and I know she’s just looking out for me. It’s really the pressures of upper management. Basically, I don’t log enough of my time at work because I’m fairly efficient. I can get 50% more work done compared to the requirement in like 3-4 hours in my work day and chill / wait for something to happen for the remainder of my time. Which is kind of the nature of this job from the time that I was hired. But now, with some changes to upper management, there is this expectation that you’re constantly busy even when there is no work around. And that annoys me because if you look at my other metrics, it’s very clear that I’m not a slacker and I do my job, and I do it well at that. It makes me feel like I’m getting punished for being efficient.
  • That’s one thing that I hate about corporate, that doing a good job doesn’t reward you with anything other than more work. It’s not like I’m an overachiever either, I feel like I’m doing the bare minimum on my end to still show that I’m fulfilling my responsibilities. If I do any less, I will be neglecting my responsibilities, and it will show. I also hate the false sense of urgency and the whole thing around pretending to be busy (thankfully I work from home but still). I know this is going to sound naïve and childish of me but I can’t believe that I have to do this shit for another few decades. It’s the weight of that that fills me with dread while the bullet point about talking about my productivity with my boss is just the surface level irritation.
  • Also, I think the dread for the new year is there because my 2 years in corporate anniversary is January 3rd. So I'm like having a tiny existential crisis about what it is I'm doing with my life since I'm here with this company another year. I am happy with my decision about doing a corporate job after college. I think it helped me save a ton of money to do other things with my life and it gave my life a sense of stability that I was really needing in order to figure out what I wanted to do going forward. At the same time, I feel this sense of shame that I haven't made major moves towards where I ultimately wanted to go because I didn't quite feel ready since there were things I still wanted to accomplish at this job. But the good thing is that now my existential crisis is causing me to really feel ready and the dread contributes to it. 
    • Gonna be honest, I'm kind of at this place with this job where sometimes I fantasize about quitting without having anything lined up and just giving myself the time to frolick through life for a couple of months or have the fact that I don't have something lined up to propell me into figuring things out sooner rather than later. I know that's a dumb decision and I'm not going to do that, especially in this economy, but that doesn't stop me from fantasizing lol. 
• This is the year I will have to work towards a career change: I have to start applying to jobs and fellowships. I’m nervous about the opportunities that are out there and what I’m capable of qualifying for. I’m nervous about how long this will take, how my living situation will be impacted, and how my personal relationships with change as a result. This dread has an undercurrent of intimidation when it comes to long term goals.
•  Watching my parents get older and thinking about the responsibilities that will come with that.
  • I think the passage of time is just hitting different now that I’m older. I’m still scared at the thought of my dad passing before my mom even though it is likely that in this event she will move to India to be with her siblings. I don’t have a good relationship with her and I don’t want to take care of her when she’s old. I also feel juvenile for not having a good relationship with her, like I’m some kind of angsty kid who can’t let go of a grudge even though there are many aspects of this relationship that is broken. The thought of just taking care of my dad when he’s old still feels intimidating since it feels like a big responsibility, but it doesn’t feel like a burden I would grow resentful of. But if it’s both my parents or just my mom, I don’t know how I would handle that.
  •  Also, my mom’s eating disorder is still raging on and I can tell that it has made her frail, lacking in energy, and just over all dead looking. That sure as hell doesn’t help.
•  I sometimes wonder if I have some kind of aversion to responsibility. I don’t want to get promoted at work because I don’t want to be responsible for more work. I don’t want to have kids badly enough to justify having them and being responsible for them 24/7. I don’t want to work towards owning a house. I don’t want to take care of aging parents (mainly my mom). I wonder if this makes me stunted in some way.
  • So let’s address this point by point. I don’t want to get promoted at work not because I don’t work hard or because I don’t care about my job at all, but because I don’t want to burn myself out over something that isn’t super important to me. By that I mean that I do see virtue in doing a good job and being reliable but I’m not willing to bend myself backwards to where the rest of my life suffers and I have no work life balance.
  • Not wanting kids or not deciding to have them is not indicative of some kind of moral failing. You’re not selfish for not wanting kids. There are plenty of parents who have kids for selfish reasons and being able to acknowledger your short comings in this situation and not wanting to bring kids into a less than ideal situation is not an indication of selfishness rather it is the later. You aren’t somehow childish for not wanting kids. And you’re not lazy nor are you resisting growing into an adult. Being able to acknowledge this isn’t the life path for you despite the world’s peer pressure and being able to stick to that is an act of self-awareness. And that takes effort and critical thinking which is the opposite of being lazy or avoiding adulthood.
  • My main thing around home ownership is that I don’t think it’s as economically sound of a decision as it was for my parent’s generation giving how the price of housing has skyrocketed. Even if I can afford a down payment, I don’t want to buy a house for the sake of buying a house without thinking if this is a good financial decision for my life situation specifically. I don’t want to buy a house at the cost of my financial peace of mind to where I’m stressed out about a mortgage and I’m house poor.
  • Sure I’m intimidated at the thought of taking care of my aging parents but I think it’s important to acknowledge the context as to why I feel this way given my history of abuse from my mom. I’m 90% sure that I would feel differently if my childhood had been different as well as my adult relationship with my mother.
•  I think I’m also dreading the new year because I have a lot of things I want accomplish this year and I don’t know how I’m going to do it all. I kind of feel intimidated by 2025.  See the following post: 

I referenced the following videos when I was writing about the dread a year ago. I feel like they are still applying now.

[soos_mite_ah]

Diagnosis

I tried to get a Autism and ADHD diagnosis. The diagnostic screening process also involved me getting screened for bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and general mood disorders.

The final verdict this psychiatrist had is that I don’t have any of these things. To put in very simple terms, on a scale of 0-10, 5 and up meaning that you meet the criteria and threshold of the diagnosis in question, for autism I’m a .5, for ADHD I’m a .5, for borderline personality disorder I’m a 0, and for bipolar disorder I’m like a 4.5 to a 5. He explained that I might have a very VERY mild degree of bipolar disorder because I meet the criteria on paper but just barely. There is a good chance that external and situational factors are influencing this. For example, if I got rid of the wave of anxiety I’m experiencing, I would drop to a 3 for bipolar in the 0-10 scale thus disqualifying me from the diagnosis entirely.  

I’m going to start with the positives of my diagnosis experience. I do think it’s worth talking to a professional about this as opposed to taking online quizzes, consulting Dr. Google since Google never went to medical school, or going off of anecdotal experiences that you relate to when it comes to people who have been diagnosed. We talked about how situational and environmental factors make someone look like they have a disorder when that is not case. Because yes, things can come up in your life and you can experience mental health issues but unless what you’re going through is persistent and like a constant in your life, that cannot be classified as a disorder. For example, there is a difference between someone who is experiencing depression as a result of grief versus someone who has major depressive disorder. Someone might score high on a bipolar test screening when they’re going through a messy divorce but the symptoms and severity alone is not enough to diagnose them with bipolar disorder because you need to consider the context of someone’s life. Someone might be easily distracted in 2024 due to the prevalence of smart phones and the pressure to be on all the time even outside of work but that might not meet the threshold of being distractable enough to be considered ADHD even though if they had all the same symptoms in say 1970 they would have been diagnosed with ADHD no doubt.

We also talked about personality as well, particularly in the case of getting diagnosed with autism. Sometimes you’re just more introverted than most people, or maybe you’re just little socially awkward and anxious, or maybe you’re straight forward and don’t really overthink the implications of what is being said rather you take things at face value. Those traits are not the same as meeting the criteria for being on the spectrum. Again, the broader context and specific things in the diagnostic criteria needs to be taken into consideration. Upbringing and culture can also affect your social patterns and it might coincide with some behaviors that people who have autism engage in but again, it isn’t enough to look at the symptoms and their severity, rather you need to look at the context of those symptoms. I also think that it is very likely that I don’t have autism rather I have social anxiety that might be causing me to act in “autistic ways.”

I think the above are all valid points and I think it has been more helpful to have a more nuanced and professional opinion rather than spiraling on whether I have autism based on a Tiktok I saw and somewhat related to lol. At the same time, I don’t really agree with the final verdict this doctor has given me for the following reasons:

1. Autism and ADHD can look different in women. Sure, both men and women do need to meet certain diagnostic criteria to be diagnosed regardless of how the criteria manifests, but I do believe personal biases can interfere with the final judgment of whether a criteria was met. It’s not uncommon for women specifically to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder when really is autism and/ or ADHD since the later is stereotyped as a little boy’s disease.
2. On the same note of how this can manifest differently on women, women are more likely to mask and fall under the radar due to community building and cooperation being more emphasized in our socialization. I think that due to years of masking so that my symptoms don’t overtly present themselves. This doctor was basically like *you don’t have ADHD because you don’t fidget* and for me, I have learned over the years to control that really well. I have a general sense of energy and restlessness as a result of not fidgeting but rather than interpreting this as hyperactivity, a diagnostic criterion for ADHD, this guy is interpreting it as impulsive and anxiety which more closely relates to bipolar disorder.
3. Also, this guy said that you can’t be autistic and have a desire for human connection or closeness. That felt weird because I do know people who are diagnosed but still like having friends and family. Like sure socializing and having those relationships aren’t easy and sometimes it feels easier to be alone instead because you’re not exerting the extra effort to decode social situations, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t like having people around you at all. I also think that painting people with autism as anti social or in some cases unable to express empathy can be dangerous in the way that it causes people to dehumanize neurodivergent people. On top of that, there is also a gendered aspect to this as well where women are socialized to prioritized human connection (and as a result they are more likely to fall under the radar) so the anti social bit is often something that is more closely associated with how autism shows up in men.
4. I also explained that I have a mind that feels like it’s going a million miles per second and as a result I end up stumbling over my words, I interrupt people, and sometimes I have trouble falling asleep. He wrote all of this off to anxiety and as a result, a potential indication for mood disorder like bipolar. But the thing is that I don’t feel anxious when I am having a lot of thoughts, like they’re just there and how I process things. I tried to explain this but I don’t think he was receptive to it lol.
5. I looked back at the diagnostic forms I filled out for both ADHD and bipolar disorder. Out of the 18 questions to determine if I have ADHD, I answered 12 of those questions as things I experience “sometimes” of “often”. For bipolar disorder, I answered no to the vast majority of the questions and the two things I said yes to involved being high energy. Now, it’s important to recognize that there is overlap between ADHD and bipolar disorder, the high energy being the main one. I have never experienced a manic episode and I would say that my mood is pretty stable. The doctor mentioned that there is a nuance on how hyperactivity is associated with ADHD but impulsiveness is associated with bipolar disorder. I explained that I took the test with the assumption that these two words basically mean the same thing since I don’t have the professional knowledge to differentiate between the two. As a result, I think some self-reporting might be at fault for the results in addition to how it’s being interpreted.
   • That said, there is a differentiation between bipolar type 1 and type 2. Type one is the stereotypical bipolar disorder with manic episodes and mood swings. Type two is more depressive and experiences hypomania, which has similar themes to a manic episode but significantly less severe to where it’s not really interfering with someone’s life. And if I take type two into consideration, I can see elements of hypomania being present in my life. But then again, I very slimly fall into the potential of bipolar disorder and it’s not definitive enough for an actual diagnosis as there may be extra factors influencing things.
     • Here is a article that details the types of bipolar disorder out in a very surface level: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bipolar-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355955

Given everything I written above, I wanted to re-examine my list of symptoms that I thought were indicative of autism or ADHD with the new information I have from the doctor. I also went over both of the lists with the doctor to get his opinion. The commentary under the list items includes this as well as my own input. I highlighted things in green as things that could indicate a dianosis

Autism Symptoms:

1. Difficulty reading social cues, being socially awkward at my big age, and taking things literally since you take things at face value.
   • Could be autism, could also be social anxiety mixed with how you were brought up.
2. Black and white thinking when it comes to trust in relationships/ time blindness (basically once you have earned my trust you have earned it and even if we haven’t talked in forever, the relationship was just frozen in time rather than deteriorating over the time we haven’t spoken).
   • This is most likely due to my upbringing and the way relationships were modeled to me culturally since my parents come from a more collectivistic culture.
3. Feeling overstimulated in loud environments
   • This isn’t a super recurring thing. I think I experience this like a handful of times a year. This doesn’t meet the threshold for autism. Anyone can get overstimulated from time to time.
4. Not liking mushy foods
   •  I thought this was a food aversion thing but then after talking to the doctor, he explained that food aversion causes you to reject a specific food because your brain tells your body that it's inedible. It also causes your body to react negatively by feeling nauseous or gagging, at the sight, scent or taste of the food. I don’t like mushy foods but it isn’t to the point where I’m gagging or nauseous. Again, it’s a threshold thing.
5. Pattern recognition
   • Might be an autism thing
6. Having special interests
   • I feel like my special interests over the years revolved around politics, psychology, and human rights issues. I feel like I have a detailed hobby when it comes to learning about these things and it is a little unconventional to care about this to the extent that I do. But what differentiates this from autism is that it’s not the interest itself or the intensity of which you enjoy it rather it’s when you struggle to have a meaningful conversation about anything else apart from that interest. And even then, it may not even be a meaningful conversation so much as a one-sided info dump. That is not the case for me.

So basically, the only indicators that might point to autism and aren’t completely debunked is the pattern recognition and the difficulties with social cues. That is not sufficient for a diagnosis.

ADHD Symptoms

1. Executive dysfunction, difficulty getting started with tasks, organizing things, lack of object permanence causing food to rot in the fridge etc.
   • This could be indicative of ADHD
2. Interrupting people
   • This could be ADHD or bipolar disorder. The doctor was leaning towards bipolar but I have my doubts.
3. Stuttering because your brain is going faster than your mouth
   •  This could be ADHD or bipolar disorder. The doctor was leaning towards bipolar but I have my doubts.
4. The need for external stimuli to focus
   • That’s becoming pretty standard given the environments people live in with smart phones and the such.
5. The need to walk around and get active to focus + pacing back and forth
   • A lot of people do this and this alone doesn’t meet the threshold for hyperactivity. But also, one of the criteria to be diagnosed with ADHD is the fidgeting. I don’t fidget due to years of masking but I do think that my lack of fidgeting is the reason why I have to get up so often. I’m marking this in purple because I feel like it can go either way.  
6. Needing to get energy out after sitting for long periods of time and getting the zoomies after work
   • You need two or more instances of high energy to be diagnosed with ADHD. If this happens only after work/ school, that isn’t sufficient. If it was ADHD, you would be having the zoomies even during work.
7. Constant procrastination while growing up
   • Considering that you grew out of the constant procrastination, it’s likely that you were a constant procrastinator due developmental stuff or anxiety (basically, you were a kid lol, your frontal lobe was still developing).
8. Sleep issues due to racing thoughts and just constant thoughts in general. 
   • The doctor said this was more of a bipolar thing and linked to anxiety. I tried to tell them that I didn’t feel anxious when I had racing thoughts at any hours of the day but he like glossed over it. I’m more inclined to think this is more so ADHD.
9. Sharing personal experiences to relate and empathize with someone when they are confiding in you.
   • This might be an upbringing / cultural thing rather than an indication of neurodivergence.

So I do think that there might be a case for ADHD but also the extent of which I think I have it are tempered with the nuances the doctor talked about. My main thing is the symptom overlap between ADHD and bipolar disorder and how the main thing I resonate with the bipolar is the high energy piece and nothing else really. I also think that gender and socialization does play a role in this as well and I think it's worth getting a second opinion. 

[soos_mite_ah]

 

[soos_mite_ah]

Processing My Anxieties Around Searching for a New Job

I feel like I have been processing my anxieties around searching for a job for the past few days. And I think I just need to write things down and spill things out so that I can process, piece together, and resolve my negative emotions that are preventing me from taking tangible action. I think I got lucky with the job search when I just left college and I didn't get a chance to go through the trenches of the job search. Which is good, and honestly thank god because I needed some luck and light at the end of the tunnel at that time. But at the same time, I bypassed the anxieties and negative emotions around the job search as a whole.

So now I'm going to list out the things that I'm worrying about off the top of my head and work through each of these. 

1.  What if I get a job too soon and then I have to deal with breaking my lease early and my boyfriend is having issues with securing a job at his pace? We'll deal with it when we get the offer at hand. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. 
2. What if I can't secure any interviews and I'm stuck in my current job? We haven't even started applying. We'll deal with this fear later. 
3. What if I can secure interviews but they are unpaying me compared to the cost of living?  We'll deal with it when we get the offer at hand. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. 
4. What if I get a job with my desired pay range but it turns out to be toxic and I want my old job back?  We'll deal with it when we get the job at hand. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. 
5. What if my boss and manager looks at me weird when I ask them to be my referrences or get me a recommendation letter? Dude.. it is what it is at this point. This is something you will have to suck up in the application process. Plus, you probably won't need a recommendation letter until like June so again let's not get too ahead of ourselves. 
6. What if I don't get good GRE scores and have difficulty with getting a job for my desired wage? That's why you're going to have to study for this. I understand that you don't want to because it's giving you SAT flashbacks but I'm sure you will do great. Hell, if you get a job, you won't even have to worry about this. Remember, applying to grad school is your plan B that you're proactively prepping for. 

I'm sure y'all can see the common theme of me getting ahead of myself lol.

Best case scenario is that I get a job that I'm interested in, have work life balance in, and pays you enough in a timely manner so that I can coordinate with your boyfriend. Worst case scenario is that I don't get a job this year nor do I get great GRE scores. But, hey, instead, I would have saved more money and gotten a promotion and perhaps the promotion will aid in the job search and applications in 2026. I know I don't like your job right now and I would like to get an exit ticket sooner rather than later but the good thing is that I'm not in a desperate position, I have something to fall back on, and as a result I'm less likely to make rash decisions and accept jobs that isn't good for me. I have the upper hand and the deck is stacked for your favor despite the current economy. But hey, I can be aware of the economy without focusing on it. I shouldn't focus on the economy or stagnating wages. I need to focus on what I  want and need. And no matter how things are going to fall into place (because odds are, your outcome will be something in between the best and worse cases), it will be for your highest good.  

This past week I have focussed on getting through this disorienting week where I had Wednesday off as well as processing my anxiety for this upcoming year. This week I'm going to focus on updating my Linked In profile, updating my resume, and getting my GRE textbooks. On the week of 1/12, I will take a couple of GRE practice tests to see where I fall and my lesson plans going forward and I will apply to at least 1 job. 

Also, in addition to the part of me that fantasizes about quitting my job without a back up plan, there is this part of me that wishes I could just be carefree and frolick around and avoid my adult responsibilities. I know that I can't just do that because well, it's easier to get a job while you currently have one, because I do need references and letters of recommendation (so I'll also need to be going a good job in addition to keeping my job), and I need an income. While I'm fortunate in that I don't have kids, I don't have sick relatives to take care of, and I don't have a mortgage I'm tied to, I am worried about my lease at my apartment, how things will work with my boyfriend logistically,the impacts of my current friendships, and general adult responsibilities like cooking for myself and paying my bills on time. So sure, I don't have a TON of responsibility (like I'm not tone deaf/ unaware) but I do have some. And part of me wishes I didn't have this responsibility at all so I can experience a childlike carefree state of mind.

There is a part of me that feels like I didn't get to enjoy that carefreeness as a child because of the expectations put on me and because of my chaotic household. I didn't get to experience that as a teenager because of academic stress and the existential crisis of trying to figure out what kind of job I wanted. I definitely didn't get to experience it in college due to the fact that I was working through trauma, a pandemic was raging on, and nothing was guranteed from the job market. And yes, back in October, I had a whole month to myself on PTO that I spent travelling. That helped a ton. But also, I was doing a lot of work in that time from organizing my trip to the journalling and reflecting I was doing to answer important questions of my life. Yes, it was a break from my usual, but I wouldn't say it was a break BREAK. 

I know that I'm nervous about the job hunt and I think this is causing me to want to unplug as the pressure, anxiety, and dread are getting to me. To me, frolicking means I'm waking up at my own time, going on my little work outs, spending time with friends, and getting a little treat WITHOUT worrying about the stresses and demands of work, worring about the job application process, or worrying unemployment. The last part is the important part because technicaly I can enjoy these little pleasures right now even with work can capitalism looming over head.  Basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I would like to stop feeling like this meme: 

As well as this meme because now that I no longer have extended breaks, my free time feels scarce to an extent: 

Like I get why the boomer adults around me told me to enjoy school because in the future I'll have responsibilities. Which didn't resonate back then because as mentioned before, I wasn't exactly a carefree kid. Maybe I would be care free if I wasn't in school during late stage capitalism as the adults around me put pressure on me to not fail like the avocado toast buying Millennials who didn't think their careers through when choosing their art degree.

I guess my best case scenario is getting a job and then having some time between my current job and the new one just to chill the fuck out. Honestly, I think 2 weeks is sufficient. 

Edited January 6 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

 

[soos_mite_ah]

Things that Make Me Happy 

About 2 weeks ago, I had a sudden impulse to list out everything that made me happy. No reason, just wanted to journal I guess lol. But I have had a lot of thoughts since then so I thought I'd explore them here. 

I typed out this list without thinking too much about it and just let things flow. I journaled for a bit until i got to +150 things. By then I felt like I covered everything. Since then, for the next few days, I would add a couple things here and there. After that, I had the curiousity to contemplate this more, to analyze common trends. I started with color coding the list and I came up with about 5 categories: food (green), socializing (purple), activities (orange), things I find beautiful (pink), and things that appeal to senses (blue). Then I wanted to analyze them further and I put this color coded list in a spread sheet. In the spread sheet, I broke things down into more categories: daily/ simple pleasures, self care, essential, fulfilling, luxury, special occasion, things I want more of and expensive. I also highlighted the cells for the things I wanted more of when it comes to things that I'm actively working on getting more of. Most of the +160 items falls into more than one category. Here is a screenshot of the top 30 in my list just so that there is a more visual example of what I'm talking about: 

Before going into the trends that I have observed and how I ordered my list after listing out over 160 things, I want to talk about each of the color categories and each of the columns. 

Colors: 

• Food: Pretty self explanatory. Also includes food related things like cooking and trying new places.
• Socializing: Anything that serves connection needs/desires. Can range from spending time with people to cuddling. 
• Things I find beautiful: Can range from things that make me happy by just seeing them like dogs or wild flowers to settings like third spaces
• Activities: self explanatory
• Things that appeal to senses: These are things that feel nice. It can be smells like citrus or clean laundry. It can be things that feel nice to touch like a weighted blanket. It can be pieces of media that I enjoy like music and movies. Those are just some ideas.
  •  Some of these can overlap with the social aspect but I put them in blue because it's more about the physical feeling itself over the connection needs it fulfills. For example, cuddling can be something that appeals to the senses but I put it under purple because it's more about the connection of who I'm cuddling while having someone give me scratches in blue because it's more about the sensation of the scratches rather than the sense of connection I derive from it. 

Here is the break down based on color categories and how much of the list they take up: 

Green: 32.6%
Purple: 6.2%
Pink: 16.9%
Orange: 18.8%
Blue: 25.5%

I think that the food (green) section dominates in number of things but it's not like the heavy hitters in terms things I consider in the Essential and Fulfilling categories. My sense of lasting happiness does not rest in the ability of me being able to access avocados for example. But I do find a lot of happiness in food as it is an important part of my day to day and I like being present when I am enjoying a meal. On a similar note, I think that also rings tue for the blue section because various things that appeal to the senses also makes me feel like I can be present. I think that the purple section, though it only comprises of 6.2% of the list, is the most important because most of them are present in my top 30 as shown in the screenshot. I also later re-ordered the list to be indicative of how much certain things made me happy by assigning points to the columns each item marked off. There were a few items that ranked low which I then revisted to see where on the list they would stand since these numbers, though they can be helpful, aren't everything when it comes to determining things that make me happy. 

Columns 

• Daily/ simple pleasures: Pretty self explanatory. These are what I call the little things in life that you encounter on a day to day basis. 
• Self care: These are things that can contribute to self care. It can range from spending time with people you care about, bath bombs, certain comfort foods, activities that fill me up, etc. 
• Essential: This goes along with self care but this category is like self care that is necessary to keep me sane lol. Not only to keep me sane but also things that I feel contribute a good chunk of my happiness to where I would miss said thing if I would have to cut it out. I guess essential is a little loose of a term but it's basically the things in my list that I would really want to keep if I had to pair it down. 
• Fulfilling: Pretty self explanatory. I wanted this to be a separate column to differentiate between things that just make me happy vs things that leave me feeling fulfilled on top of that. 
• Luxury: Luxury is a bit of a loose term like essential but it's basically anything that feels extra special to me and makes me feel abundant. It doesn't have to be expensive and in most cases it isn't. It can range from weighted blankets to travelling around.  
• Special Occasion / Seasonal: These like the simple pleasures but these are often things that has a certain time of year that rolls around or comes with an occasion. Think snow, Christmas lights, going to a nice restaurant every now and then etc. 
• Things I want more of: Again, prettty self explanatory. These are things I want to emphasize more or if they are highlighted, things I'm working towards. 
• Expensive: This can be things that I have to make the effort to save up for or it can be things that I can afford but I don't indulge in super often for the sake of staying in budget. An example of something I have to save up for is to move to a more walkable city (since I live in the US and I have like 5 options and all of them are expensive lol). An example of something I don't have to save up for but I don't indulge in super often is high quality matcha since that can run you like $50 for a small thing of matcha. 

Here are some trends that I have observed from playing around with this graph and it's filters: 

Daily Pleasures: 138/163
Seasonal and Special Occasion: 38/163.
Not Seasonal or Daily Pleasures: 4/163

Not to be cliche or corny but it's the really the little things in life that bring me joy. I think ever since I made the first draft of this list, I found myself more in touch with the happiness around me and my daily life. I'm sure this is the same goal that people who keep gratitude journals have. Not to be dramatic but there was a couple times when I started tearing up happy tears thinking about how I'm going to have so many croissants over the course of my life, and so many days where I get to smell clean laundry, and so many hours of me sitting in the sun. And I think that sense of gratitude and consciousness to the daily things that bring me joy is an element of what it means to die happy and fulfilled. 

As for the four items aren't either daily pleasures or seasonal/specail occasion things, they are the following: getting a facial, sound baths, ice skating, and thrifting. Getting a facial at a salon or spa is a self care thing that I spluge on every now and then to relax, and it's nice, but it isn't something that falls under either category. I do like a sound bath at my yoga studio like once a month, which again, isn't an every day thing, but also it isn't a super special or seasonal occasion either since it's as frequent as once a month. So unlike the facial that doesn't fall under either category, the sound bath falls into the middle of both at an awkward spot. Finally, with ice skating and thrifting, I don't do either of those things but I did really enjoy them growing up. So it is something that gives me joy even though I don't really do either of these hobbies on a daily or seasonal basis. 

 

Luxury: 20/163
Luxury and Expensive: 9/20
Luxury and not Expensive: 11/20 

Like I mentioned earlier, the luxury category consists of not things that are expensive or hard to obtain but things that make me feel abundant. Some things that fall under the Luxury category but not the Expensive category are slow mornings, charcuterie boards, nova lox bagels, sitting in the sun, and weighted blankets. Some things that fall under both the Luxury and Expensive category are steak, sushi, visiting national patks, travelling, and being in a walkable city. Now, I can afford to eat steak and sushi but it wouldn't be a wise financial decision to be doing that on a regular basis, nor do I want to be something I do on a regular basis since I want it to feel special. However, things like visiting national parks, travelling, and moving to a walkable city are things I actually have to work to save up for. 

I guess it's good that I don't have super expensive taste lol. I'm less likely to fall into traps of consumerism and grow attached to things that financially be a sinkhole. Out of the 9 things that fall in the Expensive category, the three things I listed out earlier like travelling, moving to a walkable city, and visiting national parks, are the only things in that category that I have to actively work towards. I looked at those three things and I reflected on them, and I think that I have my priorities straight in regards to be spending money on things that align with my values. And also, these aren't like crazy unrealistic, difficult goals to achieve over the years so I feel confident in regards to the future of my finances and what I hope to achieve in terms of my life style. I also feel abundant in that I can afford some expensive things within reason and these are things that I feel really add to my life. Not to mention, I also feel abundant, at peace, content, and fulfillied that a lot of things that makes my life luxurious is relatively affordable. 

 

Fulfilling: 55/163
Essential and Fullfilling: 43/163 
Fulfilling but not Essential: 11/163 
Essential but not Fulfilling: 17/163 
Essential: 60/163 
Not essential or fulfilling: 92/163 > most ot these fell under the daily pleasures / special occasion categories > only 3 were expensive and 8 were luxury 

I think it's good that roughly 33% of what makes me happy is also a fulfilling endeavor. I think it's a good sign that I have a good chunk of things make me feel fulfilled but also it doesn't dominate the list since I can gather appreaciation from many areas of my life. I noticed that all of the social things I listed were present in the Fulfillment category and the category also had a lot from the activities section. A lot of the stuff that appealed to the senses in the Fulfillment category are things I would say connect me more to being or pieces of media I really enjoy. The same can be said about the foods that showed up under this category, albeit it was like 3 or 4 things. 

I feel the same way about how the Essential category also comprises of about 36%. I'm glad that I prioritize things that are important to me but these essential things don't dominate the list. I think it's indicative of me moving past survival mode in a way. 

I think observing the items under the Fulfilling and Essential categories was interesting because it showed me things that I don't want to compromise and what I want to prioritize when creating a happy life. As for the items that were marked as Essential but not Fulfilling, most of them were smells like citrus or lavendar, or things in my shower and skincare routine. It's not things that bring fulfillment but I do think that I need this to feel like I'm taking care of myself lol. 

As for the category of things that weren't marked as Essential or Fulfilling, most of them were under the Daily pleasures / Special Occasion Categories. Only 3 were Expensive (getting a facial, barbeque, and the wrap around porches in old style homes) and 8 were Luxury (included things like brie, nova lox bagels, and my perfume). I would say that food dominated this section. I would say that's accurate because while something like waffles makes me happy, it's not like a make or break for the quality and fulfillment of my life lol. I would categorize the things in this list that weren't marked as Essential or Fulfilling as things that I appreciate but I'm not attached to. 

 

Self Care: 74/163 
Self Care and Luxury: 12/74 
Self Care and Expensive: 5/74 (2 are things I need to save up on which are walkable cities and travel) 
Self Care that wasn't a seasonal thing or daily pleasure: 2 (facial and sound bath) 
Self Care that isn't a Daily Pleasure: 8/74

I think this was insightful in that I feel like it illustrated a good list of healthy coping mechanisms and categorized them based on what I feel like I needed (social, relaxation, activity etc) and how much money and energy I want to spend. I included a video about a dopamine menu earlier in this journal and while I feel like this whole speadsheet can contribute to the concept of a dopamine menu, I feel like it rings even more true for the self care section. I think it's also great that about 90% of the things in the self care category are like daily mundane things because I think a foundation of happiness is finding joy in the mundane instead of being sad and waiting for the weekend or any other special occasion. 

 

Things I Want More Of 29/163
Things I Want More Of and that I'm actively working towards 8/29
Expensive things I want more of 7/29
Expensive things I want more of that I'm actively working towards 4/29 (2 of which are things I have to save for which are walkable cities and travel) 

This section was insightful in terms of my goals and how to reach them. I think that it's good that that the Things I Want More Of category isn't a lot because it indicates a sense of contentment from my life. Out of the 29 things, 8 are things I'm actively working towards. As for the other 21, they are things I'm also content with but are things I wouldn't say no to when it comes to more (i.e I always want more cuddles and sushi lol). Out of the 8, 4 of them are expensive and 2 are things I have to save up for. This has helped me get a better idea as to what my financial goals are and where I can spend my money to really get my money's worth on enjoyment. As for things that aren't Expensive and Things I Want More Of, I would say the social stuff really dominates this intersection as well as some of my most important hobbies and interests. 

 

In Conclusion....

I feel like the results of this exercise has been indicative of happiness in my personal life rather than happiness as a whole. I think it's been good for me to reflect on my values, how they align with what sparks joy, how it can guide me towards the things I should prioritize and work towards, and things I can be greatful for along the way. It almost makes certain things that are going wrong in my life and things that I'm working towards but I'm having difficulty with easier to deal with because I have so many things to be happy for and content about in the life I have created thus far. 

Edited February 2 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

I feel like this also sums up how I felt emotionally after journalling and contemplating everything that makes me happy. 

[Yimpa]

@soos_mite_ah Yay!

[soos_mite_ah]

Taking Out the Trash 

I've had a lot on my mind swimming around I'm just going to write about it so I can get it out of my system. 

Overwhelm

Trump's first 100 days has been getting to me. I'm not freaking out because I know that back in 2016 when he took office, he mainly did a bunch of executive orders in the first 100 days and didn't do much else after that other than create a chaotic media environment. I'm not saying that this Trump presidency is the same thing. It's worse because of the way that the govenment is getting gutted by Elon and because of the Project 2025 freaks. But what I am saying is that the first 100 days will likely be the most chaotic portion of this administration and then things will quiet down. I'm trying to keep prespective because it's their strategy to overwhelm us and make us feel like everything is happening fast and it isn't in our control. We are living in a minute by minute news cycle and before we get news that Trump's crazy proposal got blocked by a judge and get a chance to calm down, we get another headline of him doing something else that is crazy before getting a chance to process the first thing. 

The other thing that gets me is that I have a lot of friends who work with USAID and their schooling and jobs are getting affected. I'm trying to be there for them the best that I can and it sucks that the people around me are getting affected by all of this. I just feel really exhausted by everything that is going on. I feel like the world has been in a constant state of chaos since 2015 when Trump came into the political stage and it got much more intense after the pandemic. I feel frustrated and unheard because we have one party actively doing things to make the world suck more and another party that doesn't do shit to stand up for us because they're also bought out by corporations. Don't get me wrong, I will vote for being stagnant rather than voting for us to go 100 mph in the wrong direction, but I don't know how long things are going to go on like this and I'm feeling tired and impatient. 

And the worst part is, it feels like nothing matters in the sense that disruptive things feel futile in changing the course that we're on. I remember being in school and learning about the Watergate scandel and how the shame caused Nixon to step down and it was this big thing that people talked about for decades after the fact. Now, it feels like we're having a Watergate like every day but that doesn't do shit to hold this administration to accountibility. It doesn't matter how many ways they fuck up, they're still going strong. It doesn't matter that we had a president mishandle a global pandemic because it feels like a lot of people moved on without a second thought to process what had happen. It doesn't matter that we are seeing multiple genocides play out on our phones. It doesn't matter when ICE starts rounding people up even if they show documentation that they are citizens. We're still stuck in this trajectory because we don't have a left wing populist alternative due to politicians getting bought out.

Like I need this country to hurry up and turn into 1790s France before they turn into 1930s Germany.
I feel like this video tbh: 

Meanwhile, I'm stuck doing my fuck ass corporate job. It's tax season and we're understaffed so I have more work on my plate. Also, I got a promotion a few months back so I have more responsibilities.  Which is fine, but there is a lot of fuck shit happening in upper management which is trickling down to us normal people and making our work days chaotic. I've been feeling a little burnt out and it's been affecting my sleep and exercise schedule. Like for the past few weeks I have been sleeping in til 11:30 on the weekends only to have to wake up at 6:30 am on Monday. There's also the whole thing with revenge bed time procrastination where psychologically, since I don't feel like I have a lot of time to myself in the day, I don't sleep at night because I don't want the next day to start yet. And these sleep issue combined with my stressful time at work leaves me feeling energetically depleated to where I don't want to work out. 

I often find myself sitting at work, doing my job as the world if burning, sending my silly little emails, and when I get tired I'm just thinking of how nothing is ever enough for these parasites. 

I wonder what the long term consequences of this is going to be in people's mental states. I don't think it's all bad tbh. I think working my 9-5 has given me a lot of structure which has helped me build a certain degree of resilliance and discipline. I'm sure if I didn't have this job, as annoying as it can be at time, I would probably have shitty executive functioning skills and I would be doomscrolling the news all the time. I don't think challenges cripple us rather they can be opportunities of growths so long as we consider the severity of such challenges respective to our skill level. Sure, I have days where I don't feel like working and I force myself to work anyways. That isn't crippling or traumatizing rather pushing through the "I don't feel like it" feeling and doing what you need to do helps build discipline and resilliance. And this can also be good because rather than ruminating of what's going on in the world, you have other things you need to take care of. In my opinion, you can be aware of a situation without actively focusing on it at all times. There's a difference between ruminating and processing. 

However, while that is the case a lot of the times, there are also times where I feel like I end up crossing a line where I force myself to work when I do in fact need a break but I feel like I don't have much of a choice to do so because *capitalism.* Sometimes I do feel like I'm writing off my own sense of humanity because I'm forced to send my silly little emails instead of engaging with what is actually going on in the world right now and being there for people. Sometimes I find myself feeling numb to what is going on in the world as I'm forced to continue doing what I "need" to do in my job. I put need in quotations because let's be real, I'm saving files at my job, not saving lives. My job is not that important in the grand scheme of things.

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Coping 

I feel like I'm coping in a healthy way for the most part apart from the sleep difficulties. I really resonate with the sentiments in this video and I found myself already doing the suggestions in this video just by myself prior to watching: 

Being present and enjoying the little things in my life has been important in not only grounding myself but also accepting the reality around me. I go into this much more in depth in my previous post about the "Things That Make Me Happy" and the video about thinking about the end of my life. I also find myself thinking about death more because I have a surgery scheduled later this month. The surgery isn't anything dangerous or anything that would put me at risk of dying rather I'm thinking about anesthesia. I've never experienced it before and while I've conceptualized it as "going to sleep" I do know it's more comparable to being in a coma because the drugs in anesthesia basically turns your brain and consciousness off for the duration of the surgery. Which feels really trippy and has caused me to question what death would feel like after the process of dying. I went down this rabbit hole the other day about how anesthesia works and I think learning about it freaked me out at first and then later it calmed me down more lol. I'm trying to approach this with a sense of curiousity rather than fear since it is a new experience for me. Sometimes, when I'm faced with something I don't want to do, I play a little would you rather game. In this situation where I'm scared of anesthesia, I ask myself *would you rather not get the surgery at all, get the surgery with anesthesia, or be in a time or place where you're getting surgery and there is no anesthesia.* And though anesthesia doesn't sound appealing, out of those three options it does lol. Plus, the risks and stats around anesthesia is pretty solid where there's like a 1 in a million chance of having complications if you don't have major health issues.  

I've also been trying to use the busyness of my work, as stressful and annoying it can be at times, as a source flow states to derive some form of fulfillment and accomplishment from it. I also find myself listening to either Lofi music as I work, again to get into the flow state, or music from the old Pokemon games that I enjoyed as a kid. 

There is also a part of me that wishes I could go back to 2014, before Trump came into the public eye and back when politics was a boring thing. This sense of nostalgia feels weird. I'm not one of those people who overly romanticized my childhood or thinks that I didn't have problems back then. Sure some of my problems seem trivial from when I was 14 but I'm also looking back from the perspective of a 25 year old who had a better sense of perspective and significantly better coping mechanisms rather than the perspective of a 14 year old who doesn't have those tools in her tool kit. I'm also of the impressiont that a lot of people experience nostalgia deep down because the problems of the now seem like a lot and the problems of the past seems like a non issue because those have already been resolved, thus creating a situation where it feels like the past doesn't have problems since it doesn't have the problems you're dealing with in the present day. As a result, it feels like a simplier time. The nostalgia for 2014 feels weird for me because I remember what life felt like for me personally from my chaotic household and compared to that, 2025 feels a whole lot better. But culturally as a collective, I feel like things were better in 2014 than they are in 2025. I feel like I could have a whole post discussing the progressivism of the mid-late 2010s compared to the progressivism of the 2020s but in a nut shell, while there is some development especially regarding class consciousness, we're also in the middle of an ugly collective ego backlash at this time.

Basically, I don't feel nostalgic for 2014 because I'm nostalgic of my own personal life rather I feel nostalgic because I miss the way society felt back then compared to what it feels like now. I remember looking forward to being an adult and having more agency over my life. And I gotta say, I love being an adult. I love having my own money. I love having more critical thinking skills and an ability to navigate various situations. I love having a plethora of healthy coping mechanism. I love the people I have around me. I love having a sense of responsibility in my life and the autonomy that brings. But as much as I love being an adult, I just don't like being an adult under late stage capitalism where we're dealing with constant unprecendented times. 

Another way that I cope is that I think of myself being an old lady and telling stories about the present day to a group of kids. In the same way that I look at the past, think of the things that bothered me back then, since those things have been resolved and I have gotten some space from them, it all just seems like a funny memory now. Or if it isn't funny, it's lore lol. Either way, one day I'm going to be in the future and I will be looking at my past, and on some level I'm going to have gratititude for what I'm experiencing right now. I also think about this clip from Spongebob: 

 

Edited February 9 by soos_mite_ah