Friday 5: What Ails Ya

Photo by Abbie Bernet on Unsplash

How do you treat a bad case of the Mondays?

When you're a freelance tutor, you don't really get "the Mondays." People often have the most forgiving schedules on weekends, so that's when the bulk of your tutoring happens. Couple that with spending the work week on editing and other work-related tasks, the answer is that I don't get "the Mondays" because I don't have Mondays or weekends. My downtime comes in small chunks throughout the week and then periodically in longer breaks for vacations.


How do you fight off a case of the blahs?

I check in with what I'm doing. Usually I feel the most "blah" when I'm sitting at the computer and compulsively checking social media just for the sake of checking it. If I can stop that cycle and do something else (write, read, listen to a podcast while I play Diablo III), I usually feel better. I also recognize that I'm more prone to the blahs during the winter months, which I try to counter by lighting the apartment with full-spectrum bulbs and making sure to take a multivitamin with plenty of vitamin D.

The other thing I do is clean. Stuff tends to accumulate around me: papers get piled up, jewelry projects I intend to finish "soon, really soon" float around on my desk, things like that. Sometimes I feel "blah" because I'm surrounded by a mountain of unfinished things; when that happens, I take a day to clean up and organize. (The last time I did this, I found a year-old piece of unopened mail from Skatteverket.)


How do you deal with a bad hair day?

Ponytails and dry shampoo.


What’s your strategy for FOMO?

I don't know if I suffer from a "fear of missing out," specifically. On bad days I can be a fairly compulsive smartphone user (check Facebook! check Twitter! check your emails!), but for me it isn't an anxiety about missing out on something cool or exciting. It's about not knowing: not being able to answer that head-scratcher right away, not knowing what that email from a friend says, etc. I'd say that I have FONK (Fear Of Not Knowing) more than FOMO.

My strategy for FONK is non-existent. I can get sucked up into it really easily. If I notice what I'm doing, I'll switch out of email or Facebook and read something on the Kindle app instead, but I don't always notice.


How prone are you to Instagram envy?

Not at all, since I don't use Instagram!