I gave myself a break yesterday. The week had been really busy and stressful, and I just didn’t feel like eating leaves and grass for dinner, so, of course, I stopped by P. Terry’s after work. I also had a couple of hot chocolates at work, and I had creamer in my coffee before work. Still, I didn’t think I’d gain any weight, but today I’m a pound heavier. Again.

I don’t know why the last month or so has been so challenging. My weight has been oscillating between 240 and 250 pounds for weeks now. At the root of my erratic eating habits is anxiety, and anxiety is hard to manage. So maybe the challenge is finding a healthier way to relieve some of that anxiety. I haven’t discovered what that is, though. My best guess is that immersing myself in some sort of constructive, rewarding activity would work since that would light up the pleasure and reward circuits of my brain (for an exhaustive look at these parts of the brain, see: https://tinyurl.com/bddeypv4), much like eating chocolate or ice cream does. When I think about it, I don’t have many instances of getting into a “flow state” (watch this Ted Talk: https://tinyurl.com/44rhbd2c) during my day-to-day life, so I don’t have many moments in which I’m completely absorbed in what I’m doing. In fact, much of my day-to-day life is spent working at a job that is not only not pleasurable but often miserable.

I keep talking about my job because it’s a huge contributor of stress to my life. And that’s been the case for most of my working life: I’ve never had a job that I felt was personally rewarding and worthwhile. The reason for that is because my skills—the things I’m really good at—have a low probability of generating enough income to survive (economically). And I have confidence issues; I tend to be skeptical. I don’t believe that the world at large places much value in the things I’m good at. And, sometimes, there’s this nagging feeling that, despite being good at some things, I’m not good enough to make a living doing them.

I realize I’ve gotten off track with this post, but I’ve come to recognize that stress is the primary driver of my unhealthy eating habits. And work is one of the primary drivers of anxiety in my life. Yes, I have other things that bring me constant anxiety (that I have an absolutely monstrous anxiety disorder is one of them), but where I work and what I do for work seems like something I have more control over. And I need to exercise that control. As I said earlier this week, I need to figure out a better path. I can’t keep doing something that brings me no pleasure. Most of us spend an enormous chunk of our time on this earth working, so that work better be meaningful and worthwhile to us.

Anyway, back to flow states. I humbly submit that my greatest skill is writing. I’m good at it, and I need to do more of it because writing induces flow states for me. Other activities that induce states that might be described as flow states are playing guitar and piano. While I’m not terribly good at either, I do get immersed in those activities. So, my plan for a less stressful life: more writing, guitar, and piano—and less crappy job. If I can somehow find my way to living that way, I’m confident that my eating habits (and my health in general) would improve considerably.