Overthinking (pt. 1)

I’m feeling a litle crazy right now.

I am going to be in London for the next 5 ½ months. There is SO MUCH of this city and culture I would love to explore, and I’ve got the time to do it. But, how the hell do I “plan” 5 ½ months worth of vacation, life balance, virtual dates and responsibility accurately? How do I settle into this new culture, try to move past just the touristy things I know about London and still have things to do after the first few weeks? How do I make sure I am socially and economically responsible while also exploring my ass off to have the time of my life? How do I plan enough to hit everything I want to hit…while still living in the moment.

How do I stop overthinking this?

For a normal holiday, I would write down all of the most important things I want to accomplish and try to fit them into my defined length of stay. For work and creativity goals, I would work on what matters the most based on deadlines set by clients or quarters. As it stands, I have more time than I know how to deal with, I have a list of “possible” things to see as tall as I am and I have no deadlines to reach any of my goals in any aspect of my life.

If you could not tell yet, I’m Type-A.

I want to do things, I have time to do all the things, but I don’t know how I’m going to go about doing said things. I truly worry that before I know it, the time I have in London will be squandered away wondering, “when should I start just doing things?” That was also the most privileged string of sentences I’ve ever written.

I have attempted a few tricks to write down my jumping, sprawling, unending list of shit to do in London in order to slow…my brain… down. I thought, by slowing down, I’d be able to find a pattern to everything I want to accomplish, then parse out said pattern into an even, well-balanced schedule which spans the next several months. Now, all I have to show for this is several different word and excel documents that confuse me, several sketchbook pages filled with long and un-readable lists derived from Google searches, blogs and books, and several wasted hours of “organization time” where I made no decisions whatsoever.

So I guess the only thing to do next is sit here, with my thoughts, and be honest about what I want to do. Which sounds fucking awful and I have no wine to help.

I mean, let’s be honest - London is not a city you explore and learn and fall in love with in a matter of 6 months. I’m sure someone can, I’m sure someone’s claimed to. But at what cost?

Sitting in front of phone and laptop screens and reading what other people suggest I do is (a) not going to fulfill me, unless we share an uncanny likeness of the mind and (b) will probably upset my expectations to try and match someone else's experiences. In the end, I’ll only be hurting myself. I will look at someone else’s extended holiday in London and wonder why mine wasn’t as magical as described in what everyone knows is always an unbiased, very realistic blog post medium. I’ll also, inevitably, overlook the beauty and opportunities right in front of me whilst vainly searching for the beauty described by others.

So what do I want? What do I really want to do and see and experience while I’m here, in London, for the next 5 ½ months?

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I guess I should go sit with that now. But don’t worry, I’ll let you know what I decide.

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