Your Mind’s Full-Time Job Is Finding Problems

And it’s employee of the month, every month

Photo by Steve A Johnson on Unsplash

You ever notice your brain has one job it takes very seriously?

Finding the next thing to worry about.

Not solving problems. Not resting after solving problems. Just finding new ones.

It’s like a bloody algorithm. Problem solved? Great. Next problem loading... 3, 2, 1... New worry activated.

Here’s how it goes for me:

Work crisis. Proper panic mode. Everything’s on fire. Fix it through sheer force of will and caffeine.

Then immediately: financial crisis. Money’s not enough. Will never be enough.

Then back to work crisis. Then realize I’ve got no time to date. Then no time for cooking. No time to read a book. No time for theatre.

Time is never enough. Always playing catch-up.

And round we go.

You know what’s mental? Yesterday afternoon I finally solved the biggest work crisis I’d had in a month. Proper month-long panic attack.

For a moment, I had this conscious realization: things often work out in the end.

There’s that saying, isn’t there? If you worried about something that worked out, you wasted your time worrying. If you worried about something that didn’t work out, worrying didn’t help anyway.

So either way, what’s the point?

I felt relaxed. Actually relaxed. For the entire evening and all of today.

Not because I’d achieved enlightenment. Because I was too exhausted to panic. Too numb.

That’s the secret, by the way. The only time your mind shuts up is when you’re too tired to operate it.

But even then, even in that exhausted peace, my mind kept trying.

“How long will my current life last?” “This could all end any moment.” “Nothing lasts.”

The thing is, I’m right. I see the pattern everywhere. Colleagues. Friends. People I date.

Nothing ever lasts.

Which is either Buddhist wisdom or catastrophic thinking, depending on who you ask.

The Buddhists would say I’ve stumbled onto impermanence. Everything changes. Nothing is permanent. This is supposed to be liberating.

The therapists would say I’ve got cherophobia. Fear of happiness. Fear of good things because they might end.

Both groups agree I should probably relax.

Both groups can fuck off, frankly.

Because here’s the pattern: Your mind is trained to find problems. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

Back when we were worried about being eaten by tigers, this was useful. Constant vigilance kept you alive.

Now? Now we’re not being chased by tigers. We’re being chased by emails, deadlines, phone calls, bills, loneliness, time scarcity, existential dread about impermanence.

Your brain hasn’t updated its software. It’s still running Tiger Alert 1.0.

But there are no tigers. Just an endless queue of things that might go wrong.

Your brain, bless it, is determined to work through that queue. One worry at a time. Forever.

I asked myself why my mind does this. Why it can’t just... stop.

The honest answer? It’s trained this way. I’ve trained it this way.

Constant panic mode. Constant vigilance. Constant preparation for the next crisis.

It’s exhausting.

You know what the only relief is? Being too tired to worry.

That’s where I am right now. Too exhausted to find the next problem. Too tired to catastrophize.

I’ll probably rest for a bit. Then I’ll get worried again.

Because that’s what we do, isn’t it?

We solve the problem. We breathe for a moment. Then we find the next thing to panic about.

Money will never be enough, no matter what I do. Work will always have another crisis. Time will always be scarce. Nothing will last.

My brain will keep running this program until I’m dead.

The Stoics would tell me to focus on what I can control. The Buddhists would tell me to embrace impermanence. The therapists would tell me to practice mindfulness.

All of them are right.

None of them can shut my brain up.

So here’s where I’ve landed: The mind finds problems. That’s what it does. It’s not going to stop.

The trick isn’t to make it stop. The trick is to get so bloody tired that you can’t be bothered to listen to it.

Not enlightenment. Just exhaustion.

It’s not the answer you wanted. But it’s the honest one.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some problems to not think about until I’ve had a nap.

Scratch that. Even my naps come with nightmares.

Stay curious, stay skeptical.

Srini

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