High Anxiety, Part 2.

My day of freaking out over life and feeling overwhelmed continued even though I had a successful and winning haircut.

Ironically I was reading an article in New York Magazine called "In Defense of Distraction" by Sam Anderson. It is about the Poverty of Attention: we are so involved in so many multi-tasking activities and thus our attention is sapped, and then it goes on to argue that maybe distraction is okay.

But what I got from this article (which I will rip out and file the old-fashioned way) was EXACTLY what was driving me insane today. I was TOO distracted and trying to MULTI-TASK (which studies seem to show is a time-waster since we have to allow for all the "recovery time" in between.) my way through the day and not drop a stitch. I could not do it. All the lists I wrote on my iPhone (why is there no TO DO LIST program on Mac where I can sync it so it is on my phone AND my computer like my datebook?!! Arggh.) and all the lists I had at home were just hanging there waiting until I finished this call.

And reading this article about the Poverty of Attention piecemeal on the subway was hard.

I finally thought "I am going to go into that damn Central Park on this MOST BEAUTIFUL of days that I am too busy to enjoy and sit on a bench and read this fillipin' article to the end. And THEN I will do the 8 million pressing things I have planned for today that I need to achieve so I won't be a failure.

I sat. I read. With my ipod playing music from the soundtrack of "Million Dollar Baby" and I watched a dog and I read and I thought about how much time I would have at home before Zumba class and I read.

And then I had to re-read.

I stopped. I took three slow breaths and then read the magazine article in the beautiful park on a sunny day to its finish and I was joyful.

One of suggestions which I could SMELL coming (and for me it had the same scent as FEAR) was Meditation. Meditation seems to be the answer to so much. I have to agree. I need to put it on my list of things to do.