Are You Enjoying Your Relationships?

I don’t enjoy my relationships as much as I used to. That takes a lot for me to admit. Coordinating our schedules used to happen effortlessly, and we were present when we were together.

Now, scheduling a meeting with friends typically takes weeks if not months to organize. When it finally does happen, we are each too distracted to enjoy the encounter fully. Either I am too distracted to enjoy the encounter, I am too distracted to be enjoyable to others, or they are too distracted for me to enjoy their company.

We are there physically but our minds are working through whatever work, financial, or relationship problems we are individually going through. It’s rough, especially because healthy relationships are one of the best ways to protect yourself from the pitfalls of the modern world like depression, falling for conspiracy theories, or getting scammed.

Being part of a healthy community is so important and it involves so much more than just being physically in the same room as people. It involves being there with them mentally as well.

A World of Distracted Adults

Distracted adults aren’t the best people to be around. They aren’t the best parents, drivers, employees, friends, siblings, or community members. I am not blaming them. In fact, I am a part of the distracted adults club myself.

My mind is often going in several different directions at once. I hate it. But mentally multitasking seems necessary to be a functioning adult in the modern world. But when is multitasking productive and when is it destructive? When does it increase efficiency and when does it decrease it?

I know for me, it is currently very destructive and inefficient. I am mentally burnt out, which shows itself as brain fog and exhaustion.

I do not have the answers to this (yet). But I will hopefully get more clarity as I work through my year of self-improvement. There are several ways that I have been trying to deal with this:

How to Increase Mental Peace & Focus

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1. Ask What Matters Most

• Knowing what is worth spending time and energy on. Make a list if you have to and mentally prioritize these things.
• I do these tasks at the time of the day when I feel the most fresh.

2. Minimize Unnecessary Mental Load

• Ask yourself if you show up to work or school already frazzled. If yes, pinpoint the cause of this. Stop or limit that thing if you are able to do so.
  • I try to take public transit whenever possible, especially if I am going to something important. Sometimes people feel that driving clears their mind, but right now I just feel that it adds to my mental stress. That is something that I can outsource.

3. Question the Importance of Tasks That Require a Lot of Brain Power

• If a task requires a lot of energy, I ask myself if it adds value to my life or others’. If the answer is no, then I can drop that from my to-do list and free up some mental bandwidth for more important tasks.
• Prioritize decisions within tasks and don’t sweat the ones that won’t impact the overall goal.

4. Try to Limit Screen Time

• I find that my mind gets tired when I spend a lot of time on social media or watching YouTube. My eyes get tired too. Processing large amounts of visual information seems to drain my mind, and it doesn’t add a lot of value to my life.

5. Meditate

• I feel better when I meditate, although I confess that I have fallen off my routine lately. I should prioritize that more.

6. Charge Mental & Social Batteries Before Important Events

• I now relax in the hours leading up to an important social or work event. This could be an interview or a lunch date with a friend who I have not seen in a while- any event where I want to be fully present. I will act as if I only have a set amount of energy throughout that day and try to arrive at the event with full emotional, physical, and mental batteries.

Like I said, this is in no way a comprehensive list. It is something that I need to work on more… dare I say, prioritize?

Messy Bun Book Lover

(Originally posted on May 27, 2025)