What's worrying you?

10:40 PM

I like watching this guy called Casey Simpson on YouTube. He has very long form videos, they are around 30-40 minutes each. He basically takes an arbitrary trendy subject, and then gathers a bunch of TikTok clips related to that subject, then makes commentary on them with an intellectual twist. It's his intellectual twist that makes his videos special, he cites olden authors and events that I don't even know about.

In one of them he cites this story of a businessman named Galen Litchfield who was in China when the Japanese invaded during World War II. He was taken captive to an internment camp and tasked to help liquidate all the assets of his company. While listing out all the assets of his company, he intentionally obscured some assets and didn't list them. Later though, the Japanese admiral in charge of the camp would find out that he intentionally didn't list out everything, and would send him in to the torture room for punishment. Galen found out from his accountant that he would be captured the next time he showed up at his assigned workplace and taken to the torture room.

Galen being very stressed and worried, as this was a life or death situation, wrote down two questions on his typewriter. The first was "What is worrying me?" and he wrote that it was fear of punishment in the torture room. He already knew several people who died after being sent to that torture room, and other people who killed themselves to avoid being sent there. So this was a life or death situation for him and it gravely worried him. The next question he wrote down was "What can you do about it?"

Galen thought there were 4 possible choices. The first is that he would try to explain himself, but the admiral didn't speak English, and it may just upset him if he brought in an interpreter. The second is that he would try to escape, but he's in this internment camp so he would just be shot if he tried. The third is that he would just stay in his room, but then the Japanese would notice that he wasn't at work and come to his room to take him away. The fourth is that he would show up to work normally and hope that the admiral would forget about it.

After analyzing all of his choices, he went with the fourth option. He had a pretty low chance of success, but his other options were even worse. Somehow, he went to work, and the admiral didn't bring it up, he was too busy with other things. Six weeks went by and the admiral was moved to a different location, Galen was finally free.

That story was taken from How To Stop Worrying and Start Living, which highlights the 2 question technique to getting through any problems. First ask what is worrying you, and you have to write it down or type it. Galen Litchfield apparently typed it on his typewriter. Second, ask what you are going to do about it. Then you can brainstorm the options that you have, and what you will eventually do.

If there is anything worrying you, you just have to use this technique apparently.

I'm stressed myself. What's worrying me? This random lady neighbor keeps coming into my condominium area and placing catfood everywhere. The people in the condo management are trying to charge me a 3 digit bill blaming me for this, even though I'm not even doing this. I haven't even been in PR for the past month. I put up a sign today and a camera as a deterrent for this woman. I already recorded her with the first camera, but that apparently wasn't enough.

Another thing worrying me are work tasks. Ugh. That's all I did today. I'm stressed. I can only continue working on them.

Third is that I have a lot of apps and things to release. I'm tired. Sapped.

Fourth is that I want to lose weight and be fit again. Before I started my fast last year, I was actually already perfect fitness and weight. It's weird that I didn't see it that way at the time, but now that I'm heavier and worse off now, I view that time last year as me already being good enough and even perfect just the way I was. Now I'm too chubby.

Fifth... ugh... I hate getting old. I have goals and things. I feel stuck in my situation.

Okay part two, what am I going to do about these things?

I did all I could for that cat lady. I put up a sign. I put up two cameras. The only thing I haven't done is confront her about it, but she enters my area while I'm still asleep in the morning, so I wasn't able to today. Yesterday I was caught off guard because I just installed a camera that same morning, and she came by like an hour later. I wrote about how this was a very minor issue yesterday, but the fact that she did it again this morning, and that I didn't get any response after sending the video and pictures over to management, stressed me out. Is she going to keep doing this the entire time?

Next thing stressing me out is work tasks. I'm going on vacation next week. I guess I'll just have these open tasks for me when I come back. I don't think I'll be able to finish before Friday.

Third, the apps. I don't have to do anything with them right now. My plates are filled. I can just not worry about them. Tada, problem solved.

Fourth is that, okay, I can fast for a couple of days. That'll allow me to lose a decent amount of weight before my vacation. Or I can put in a tremendous amount of exercise between now and Friday, when my vacation starts. I'm stressed too.

Fifth, I can't stop getting older. What I can do is move out of PR. This is something I've been contemplating, just because things here aren't great. There's constant electricity, water, and Internet outages, and now I'm having trouble with this neighbor. It's not fun. I feel like I'm stagnant here. This is an option I need to consider and think about more.

Anyway. Tired.