Weak Policy

I'm feeling very sluggish today. Last night was one of those nights where I woke up at 3am, my mind started racing, I was unable to get back to sleep. It used to be a regular occurrence, but thankfully, it now only seems to happen when something particularly pressing is on my mind.

The way I see, at least in theory, there should be relatively few issues that keep you up at night. Finances, perhaps, maybe job or relationship worries, that's about it. My issues, of course, are usually nothing like that so I always find myself hating myself more for the issues that keep me up.

Over the past few years, my sleep issues have been largely future related. What am I going to do next? In my saner moments, I have a very staunch policy of letting the future take care of itself and let me worry about the present. This view was an off-shoot of my new post-cancer mentality. But in my weaker moments, especially when something startles my emotional equilibrium, I start to think about it. Unfortunately, I usually start to think about it at 3 in the morning.

What caused my unrest last night? It was sort of a wicked chain of events: first, I got an exam back with a grade much lower than I had expected and with, frankly, some bullshit grading. This exacerbated the feelings of hate I had for that class that already existed (not so) deep within me. This got me thinking, "what if I lose initiative and slack off to such a degree that I mess up the class?" Granted, it probably won't happen, but still, that was my thinking. Second, with these thoughts still swimming in my brain, the professor delivered the most disorganized, god-awful lecture I'd ever had. Actually, it wasn't even really a lecture, he just gave us class work. This further sparked my feelings about that class because I hate, HATE, disorganization and lack of effort from the teacher and nothing is lazier than group work, especially in a graduate class. Third, the natural offspring of this FOF (fear of failure), is what will be the consequences if I don't do well in the class?

Now, the question of consequences is an interesting one. If I had stuck to my view of letting the future take care of itself, I shouldn't have worried to much about this question. I suspect what is going to happen next is going to happen regardless of if I get either a low B or a C (how I define not doing well). But when I weaken, like I did last night, and start to think about the future, grades matter more, hence, the reason I was up.

This is some life I live here haha.