The Art of Not Thinking

Copyright Addison Prentice 2020

If you look at my resume, you will see what appears to be a seamless transition in my work history. 

I worked for a travel company involved primarily with cruise companies, and just as the COVID-19 pandemic started getting scary to the point of people buying out stores of their once plentiful toilet paper, I lost my job. No big surprises there. 

The last thing you’d want during a lockdown is to wipe with a page from the National Geographic magazine you keep on the coffee table as a talking point even though you bought it a year ago at the airport. 

Seriously though, life across the country was looking grimmer by the day. From there my resume reads that I got a freelance content writing job in early March through June, and a contract gig with Microsoft from June through September. Albeit highlighting short tenured positions, nothing would appear out of the ordinary. 

It doesn’t state the fact that back in early March I had to face the fact that I was living jobless, in an overpriced studio apartment in San Diego which I leased foolishly and could not afford, and was job searching in an economy that was freezing, growing colder by the day. 

It doesn’t say how I used the last of my money to bail out of my lease, pack up or throw away everything in a couple of days given the fear of the state’s border closing, and move back with my parents in Portland. 

Undeniably defeated, I tried to think about how to move forward the entire ride home. I talked about different options with my parents. Word to the wise, “Mama I’m coming home” only sounds cool when Ozzy Osbourne says it. 

I was writing for a little bit of money to put towards paying off my California-sized credit card debt, but it wasn’t much. I was desperate to feel better about myself given my decision to accept defeat and come home, so I looked adamantly for something more consistent. 

The go-getter in me, mostly functioning out of fear, and to the detriment of my nervous system, was unfortunately at odds with a growing pain in my right leg. 

I knew it was a problem with my veins because they were becoming increasingly apparent and bulging, pushing out of my skin like a worm. Unfortunately, finding a specialist during an unforeseen medical and economic lockdown is tricky business. 

With lockdown in full swing I got a job at a dispensary that had advertised walk-in interviews. I was making minimum wage, but at least I had a job. If I didn’t I’d likely be one of the hundreds of Portlanders with no job prospects and a plump unemployment check who visited daily to purchase what Ron Howard would call, “primo bud.” 

I then moved onto a sales role that promised decent money, but any chance of me giving my full effort went to zero due to the leg pain becoming too much to work through given the fact that I was sitting down for hours. 

As I finally found out, blood clots encountered earlier in my 20s had caused irreversible vein damage in my right leg. Post thrombotic syndrome. 

No cure, but a potential vein removal could help with the pain. The only caveat was that I needed to wear compression socks for three months to ‘prove’ that I needed surgery for the insurance company, even as the leg’s encompassing pain grew worse and the tests all proved the specialist’s suspicion. I know I’m not alone when I say that communicating with health insurance companies in this country is an absolutely dreadful experience.

With this knowledge in tow and the news that I would need to wear compression socks for the remainder of my days fresh in mind, I got the next open job I could find. Ironically, it was as a caregiver at a memory care facility. 

Given the uncertainty of my direction moving forward, I considered other possibilities. “Maybe I could work as a caregiver for a few years and go to school to be a physician’s assistant” I thought. I mean heck, my mom teaches anatomy and physiology for a living so maybe I would find it instinctively interesting. 

I was wrong. Dead wrong.

I only lasted one shift. Besides the leg pain doing its best to get my attention, I couldn’t handle that much ass-wiping. There’s just something about trying desperately to put a diaper on an 80 year old man who is, in his mind, is fighting for his life, that is off-putting. The people who work at those places are saints through and through. True treasures of humanity. 

From there I got a job working for Amazon at a fulfillment center out by the Portland airport. I made it through two ten hour shifts before calling it quits. Even though I was moving around, the leg pain was too much, and being on my legs for 10-plus hours a shift was brutal. 

Two ACL tears and meniscus tears in my early 20s had proved that the prime days for my knees prime were long gone, so I wasn’t about to take any chances. 

After conducting what I thought was the worst interview performance of all time, I somehow landed a communications contract job with Microsoft. When I read the email letting me know I had landed the position, I couldn’t help but let out a muttering “Really?” 

It was like the stars had aligned when I most needed them to. I could prop my leg up to reduce backwards blood flow in my leg that was increasingly making my leg swell, and I was working for perhaps one of the most influential companies of the 20th century.

I went through five jobs in less than three months, and dealt with a life altering medical diagnosis. There were times when I wanted to give up and succumb to the lingering feeling of depression which was slowly creeping through my consciousness like a progressing disease. 

I know plenty of people have had it worse than me, and there are plenty who don’t have the luxury of having a safety net to fall back on, forced into a situation in which having the awkward conversations with landlords about not being able to pay rent becomes necessary. 

The reason I am writing this piece is to exemplify what allowed me to not give up even as I questioned (and am continuing to question) my self worth on a daily basis: I didn’t think. 

Like many of those with anxiety issues and an inquisitive nature, I overthink everything. I have a bad habit of thinking about the best way to state something even as I’m talking, questioning myself as I speak so that I end up coming across like a stuttering fool. 

I overthink to the point of being exhausted before I even start a task, and when I was making that long drive from San Diego back to Portland I was trapped with my thoughts as they morphed into self-directed pressure to succeed. 

The thing is though, when I didn’t put so much pressure on myself and accepted the fact that circumstances were pretty bleak around the globe, I not only performed better during job interviews, but I felt better about myself despite having little to no direction. 

I realized that I wasn’t happy, and I felt that most aspects of my life were being hampered by external circumstances. The irony of the situation was that I was hampering myself. There’s an art to rolling with the punches life throws at you, and I was foolish to think that sheer desire could negate those punches from being thrown. I wore myself out mentally and emotionally, feeling as if my nervous system was more fried than an overcooked chicken tender. 

It was only when I reached the point of true depression and existential dread that I realized I had little immediate control over the situation, and this felt like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders. In other words, I didn’t stop caring completely, but I stopped caring about caring.  

When I thought that I had the immediate duty to turn every aspect of my life around as quickly as possible, my to-do list felt as tall as Everest, but when I found myself focusing on the smaller tasks at hand such as updating my resume, applying for jobs, or going for a run, that to-do list didn’t seem so overwhelming. 

In yoga you are taught to succumb to the present, or in other words, stop thinking about what has happened or what may or may not happen. Mindfulness is another name for this, and it is truly an art. We will drive ourselves crazy the longer we dwell on what is outside our control, or internally prepare to the point of exhaustion for a moment that has yet to come. 

There is truth to the saying “ignorance is bliss,” although the opposite may ring more true in a day and age when there is more information and data readily available than can possibly be consumed in the course of one lifetime. 

The human mind is somewhat of a wicked temptress. It does its best to sow the seeds of doubt and self loathing into our consciousness based on our own shortcomings. 

No one is perfect, but everyone is adaptable in some fashion. We must do our best not to provide water and sunlight to these seeds if we want to have a fulfilling life, no matter how alluring the mirage of a future pay-off may be.