You Need a Break

I have a computer at home that runs really slowly. It did this as soon as we bought it about three years ago. We don't use it anymore because it just takes too long to do anything.

If you have been around computers much, you probably know that you can bring up a window to show what programs are open and what processes are being performed. Each one of those will have a percentage of the amount of the processor's capacity it is taking. 

When I opened this on my slow computer, I found a bunch of processes that were running in the background that each were taking up a bit of the processor's capacity. Maybe one would be 3% and one 5%, and then there'd be 20% for something I was trying to open up, but all these processes would overwhelm the computer. It just wasn't made for that type of capacity.

I have been thinking about this in terms of our human brains. We developed these brains living in a world that had certain processes. We needed to eat, we needed to find shelter, we needed to have companionship, we needed some type of entertainment. I'm sure I am leaving a lot of things out. 

Just as certainly, most of the things we spend our time on in the modern world weren't taking up brain processing capacity back then. Just think of the information that comes into our brains now. Just think of all the sources of data. Our phones, our cars, our televisions--even our watches give us more information to process than our ancestors did.

It has been hard enough to adapt to the digital world, but now we have a global crisis in our minds all the time. We have the cacophony of politics. We have so many things that our brains just weren't designed to deal with, and then extra, frightening things on top of that.

Just like my computer at home, perhaps your processor is overwhelmed. That's OK. We ought to be overwhelmed. This is an overwhelming time.

So, give yourself a break. let your processor wind down a bit. Don't be too hard on yourself if you can't do everything you think you should do. 

We all need space right now and we all need to be able to give one another downtime. Our bodies minds and souls will pay the price if we can't make this happen.

Go ahead... Take a break.