The afternoon has been bad.
By six o’clock, you’re still carrying it. You’ve gone over the same conversation enough times that there’s nothing new to find, but you keep going over it anyway.
You start making dinner.
Cutting board out. Knife. Vegetables from the refrigerator.
Wash everything first. Trim the ends. Peel the garlic. Chop the onions. Slice the vegetables and put each one in its own bowl.
Rice measured. Water added. Lid on.
Now the pan.
Oil. Garlic. Onions. The vegetables go in one at a time.
You’ve done this hundreds of times.
Half an hour later, the counter is cleared and you’re eating.
The conversation hasn’t been resolved. You haven’t figured anything out.
But you’re not where you were at six o’clock.
Maybe you have something like this already.
A walk you’ve taken a hundred times. The way you clean the kitchen. A shower. Watering the plants. Going downstairs for coffee. Sitting with someone who doesn’t require anything from you.
Before looking for something new to do when you’re overwhelmed, look at the times you’ve already come back.
The next time you notice that you’re doing better than you were an hour ago, look at what happened in between.
Then notice if it happens again.