How to tell if you're wandering: walking without purpose, combing through old memories and people trying to see if you missed something, excusing yourself from new experiences and dangers. Of course, if you've gotten this far, it means you've effectively stopped wandering. At least, for the duration of this article. Assuming you stick around. I really hope you do, because I think I know what you might be going through.
Okay, you've sat down, or perhaps you're leaning somewhere, reading this article on a computer or your phone. Point is, I've got you, for now. If I don't say something quick, I'll lose you, and I don't want that, and neither do you. You could be experiencing what I like to call wandering. I mean it in the literal sense, but this sort of thing isn't restricted to just going for a stroll with no place in mind. That can be quite therapeutic, especially in a place you're seeing for the first time again, such as seeing your old school with a sheen of nostalgia. The type of wandering I'm talking about is what you do when nothing seems to be going right, and what's worse, there's nothing obvious that you can do to make it better. If you have a heart attack or other serious medical scare, you can start eating right TODAY. You can start working off those pounds TODAY. What do you do about a parent or dream dying, for example? You can't lift those pains away.
You get in your own head. My dad told me that's the worse place for me to be. With failure or loss you start thinking a lot faster, or, really, you start jumping to conclusions a lot faster and more willingly. It's easy to get caught up in that maelstrom of inequity, where you're out to get yourself in everything you've ever done. You lose your footing in that place. Suddenly up is down, standing still makes you dizzy, and all you can manage to do is tick the minutes off the clock. Well, that's what it can feel like. In short, aimless dread can be quite boring.
Lucky for you, and me, there's a solution with a pretty easy first step. Of course, I want to make clear that if you're really having a problem with mental illness, be it depression, anxiety, OCD, or a little-known one called existentialism (which they all arrive at it feels like) you should talk to a doctor. Call a suicide hotline, anything, just try that last thing. This step is more for people who are just now catching themselves drifting into a bit of a funk that they can't seem to get out of.
The first step is really quite easy. Pedantically easy actually: figure out what it is that gives you the most anxiety and go approach that thing. Maybe not as soon as you figure out what it is, but now you have a thing to walk toward. So the first step is looking in, then towards, as all journeys begin. Sounding quite Sufi-esque no?
It doesn't always have to be a fear either. Maybe what bothers you most is that you can't approach someone you think is cute. That's your thing. But some people might be bothered by the fact that they never made that indie movie they talked up and planned with their friends so long ago. That's their thing. The point is, wandering of this kind is hardly ever a phenomenon. It has a beginning and you will find its end.
