Entry 15-01.16.17 in Book Two: The Fifteenth Year of the Third Millennium of the Common Era

Yesterday’s extended break was Video Games… hadn’t realized how long it’d been since I played… and as soon as I figured I should take a nap, my best friend called and wanted to play video games with me. So that happened for probably too long. And he reminded me that Archer was on! Bah. I guess, if I have trouble sleeping in the near future… instead of wrestling with the monster Insomnia, I’ll just head straight for the books. So… we’ll see what happens. Wait for the wife to fall asleep, get out of bed, and hit the books again… that’s the plan, anyway!

As I’m sure many people would guess… a little break was good for the mind, at least in so far as strategy. Whipping it back into focus and hard work, not so much, but some strategic insight might be worth the slow-going re-entry into Hardcore Study Mode! You see… I’ve been an idiot. Granted studying for the bar makes me feel like an idiot on a consistent, near constant basis (FOOTNOTE) but this is something more strategically related. You see… as I have always done when I get behind schedule… I try to race. Essentially, imagine a schedule of any kind as a list of tasks numbered 1 through 100. If I am still on number 3 when I should be on number 15… I’ll still do everything as scheduled and try to push it. So, I’ll do 3, 4, 5, 6 in a day where I was supposed to do 15, 16 or maybe even just 15. Why does that make me an idiot? Because… until I catch up; that just means I’m perpetually behind! Yeah, I might do 3, 4, 5, 6 on a day where I’m supposed to do 15, 16… but that means I didn’t do 15, 16. During my break, I realized I shouldn’t do that and I figured out how to stop myself from doing that. So… it is obvious and I should have figured this out sooner.

I should do… I don’t know how to describe the process… so if there is a certain word for this- let me know in the comments. Let’s take the above situation again and fill in specifics. I am on January 6th in my studying. Classes pick up again on January 20th. (Holy balls, on the 20th that will be 34 days before the exam!). ANYWAY… Saturday, Sunday and Monday must involve concentrated break-neck catch-up. But, let us pretend that there will be no distractions, no delays, no dilly-dallying (which, of course there will be). If I am able to do that… I’ll likely be caught up. BUT on the very real possibility that I will have left over classwork on Tuesday the 20th. I need to do it like this: Instead of Jan 8th, 9th, 10th on the 20th… I need to do 8th, 20th, 9th. In other words… stay on top of TODAY while catching up from yesterday. Wow… I feel like I’m having a terribly difficult time explaining this but hopefully it makes some form of reasonable logic.

Footnote:

Last night, my wife was in a lot of leg pain and turned to me and asked, “How do you put up with this every day?!” It made me realize a few interesting things. How? Because I put a great deal of time, energy, concentration, and focus into managing the pain; managing my emotions; and controlling it all. It’s like Raven from DC Comics. Control for the sake of survival. So as I came to that realization and shared it with my wife, I mentioned how that is likely the cause of why I need outside assurances and attention and love. Because I am so focused on keeping myself together that there isn’t enough energy or brain matter to keep my ego up. Now that I add what I mentioned above… it helps me understand why studying for the bar makes me so depressed about my sexless marriage. Because… I am already spending a lot of brain energy and focus and effort on keeping myself together.... add on to that the stress and work of studying for the most difficult test of my life? It’s no wonder my marriage issues haunt me in these moments. My energies and mental powers are over drained and over taxed… so I’m more vulnerable to the accumulated concepts of feeling unattractive, unwanted, unloved, and (crass though it may be) utterly unfuckable. Well… at least I figured that out.