Movement Is The Antidote
The only antidote to most problems in life is movement. It is also the antidote to procrastination. To lethargy. To confusion. And to depression. Every time you feel stuck in a phase of life, inspect where there is room for movement. What is the smallest task you can do that gives you direction? Course-correct if you must, but the key is to not stop.
The nature of grief is such that it finds new ways to make you cry over the same old wound. Most problems in our mind get recycled every time we pay attention to them. Suppose you were insulted at a party by someone you considered close. Your brain will keep replaying the same episode until you are exhausted by it. Until resentment settles deep into your bones. Such is the nature of the mind. No matter how many times we try to resolve it, the mind takes its own sweet time.
The problem lies in thinking itself. You cannot avoid thinking because the event affects you deeply. And yet, the more you think about it, the more your mind prioritises it. It keeps presenting the same grief from different angles, new perspectives, and overlooked details. There are many ways we suffer because of our mind. The most effective response is to keep moving.
When you face a problem in one area of life, move in another direction. If you were insulted by a friend at a party, start moving towards making new friends. One must understand what is right and what is wrong. One must also weigh choices and consequences. But the key is not to sit with the problem. Do not sit with your troubles, or you will drown in them.
The mind is goal-oriented. Give it a goal and it will supply the tools to pursue it. When you fall for a beautiful girl, your mind urges you to think about her more. To find new ways of speaking to her, of getting closer to her.
People who suffer from depression and anxiety struggle more because they lack awareness of multiple possible outcomes. They are conditioned to expect the worst because they think through the lens of past trauma. As a result, they refuse to take action. The fear of outcomes grips them so tightly that they stop moving altogether. But if they continued to act, they would realise that much of the fear was unfounded.
Then there are people obsessed with planning every move. There is nothing wrong with planning. But the purpose of planning is to make the first step easier. It exists to reduce uncertainty to some extent. People who jump into work often achieve more than those who meticulously plan everything.
The same applies to acquiring new skills. Instead of rigidly following a curriculum, jump into the practical side. If you want to learn coding, start with a project and learn while building it. The key is movement. In writing, when I am stuck at a scene, I know that without movement I will fall into writer’s block. Procrastination follows soon after. So I keep writing until the main story is done, and only then do I focus on fixing what I wrote.
Movement allows you to create bad drafts of everything. The beginner phase is where learning happens the fastest, but it demands speed and momentum. In later phases, you go deeper. Too much time has been wasted thinking, contemplating, and researching. It is time to pick a goal and move in that direction. Walk, crawl, stumble. Do anything except stop moving.