Damn, my goddam brain

I really got offended by my brain when it kept producing thoughts about my relationship. It produces too many thoughts that I no longer understand whether it is thoughts on my relationship or thoughts on my thoughts.

Let me show you some pieces that it generates. This piece is on thought on my relationship.

What do you think about the high price of love? Are you ready to be hurt because love brings desire too?How to handle intense desire inside you but you know you shouldn’t reach for it? How to handle that ugly image of your possessive self? How to get rid of the flame of jealousy when your brain starts randomly guessing that your lover might already happily dating someone else?

They are actually really good questions. But this piece is my thoughts on top of my relationship thoughts (aka thoughts of thoughts).

Why are you still troubling by the thought of this person? Why are you learning and growing so slowly? Why is there sooooo many thoughts that the more I think, the more tangled they become? I already canceled my ticket to Taiwan, why am I still not settling down yet? Damn…why do I generate so many thoughts now….Damn why are you keep repeating yourself?

I was super frustrated because of all these stupid thoughts that clouded me.

But when I complained to my friend about how fucked up my brain was, she replied the following.

Apparently, I was always happy whenever I faced a career challenge. But whenever I had a relationship challenge that I could not resolve, I thought I gotta die soon. That’s weird. While my career after I got fired is also starting from zero, I actually feel quite happy and excited to start the journey. Yet, when recognizing that my effort to move on hasn’t been effective, I am now annoyed, frustrated, and impatient by myself. Why?

1. Spending time on a career gets more tangible results, while relationship growth is harder to recognize.
2. I feel young and new in my career, but I expect myself to know, to perform, and to act like an experienced professional in relationships.
3. It feels diligent to keep working on a career, but it feels dumb to keep working on relationships. (aka career is more valuable than relationship)

All of these reasons seem to be like bullshit from social + capitalistic norms, so I decided to use career analogies on relationships to alter my framing. If I feel confused and anxious about my feelings, it is similar to I don’t know what to do about my career. If I feel frustrated about not being able to get what I want, it is similar to getting rejection letters from companies. If I feel impatient about not being able to untangle my feelings, it’s similar to debugging for 2 hours and not being able to figure things out.

While the negative feelings for both are real, everything in my career feels much more bearable because of consistent practice and positive framing. Now, I want to tweak my brain a little bit on how I view relationships too. Let’s see how it will go!