Karol Gajda looked for a way to normalize his stressful days. His answer? Reading.
I just moved into an achingly miserable new apartment a few weeks ago. It’s in a brand new building and I’m the first person in my unit so I thought it would be fantastic.
But my landlord is lousy. My electric induction stovetop blew up 2 days after moving in and hasn’t been fixed. (It was “user error” aka my fault, according to the landlord.) So I haven’t been able to cook. (Though I’m sure the local restaurants are happy about all the business!)
On top of that there is constant noise – both street noise and neighbors remodeling – so it’s hard to work and think. And due to a generally poorly built structure I can hear people clearly talking in other units, even if they’re not talking loudly. (A little eery at night.) It’s not a particularly fun situation.
This is the beauty of renting. Had I bought this place it wouldn’t be so easy to leave at the end of the month.
But you can probably guess I’m not particularly happy about the situation. It has been a massive waste of time and money and a considerable cause of stress.
Over the past year or so I’ve been paying closer attention to my levels of stress, melancholy, and happiness. It’s not a scientific process. I spend a few minutes reflecting on my day and why I think I felt a certain way.
And if I’m pissed off or feeling less-than-stellar I attempt to make myself feel the opposite or at least somewhat normal.
I’ve tried a lot of things to normalize, to feel less stressed, neutral.
Eating, cooking, watching a TV show/movie, listening to or watching something funny (lately: Doug Stanhope), listening to music, riding my bike, playing the guitar, or writing are all activities that don’t help in any seemingly significant way. Some make me feel worse. (Guitar and writing both help with stress and happiness in general, but don’t seem to help immediately.)
What helps most is reading a book. When I feel most shitty it’s usually on days I haven’t spent any time reading. If I look back on my GoodReads account I can clearly see patterns related to the number of books I read and how I was feeling at the time.
After I noticed this, which was only about a month ago, I decided to use reading as my “first activity” since it’s my most normalizing activity. Feeling normal has taken precedence over feeling like I’m jumpstarting the day with something productive.
See, I used to treat reading like a reward and wait until I got some work or something else “productive” done. Now I make a cup of tea and fire up my kindle for 1 chapter or 20 minutes before I start the day. I feel like I’m naturally more productive when I’m feeling good.
Of course, a normalizing activity doesn’t help with a lousy landlord – a shoddy landlord will probably always be shoddy – but it does help with how I react.
Maybe you have normalizing activities of your own? Share them in the comments.
UPDATE: Canada agrees with me.
Originally published at karol.gajda.com
Photo: Chris/flickr
