Tracking out of a mental spin.

When we did our HALO (Skydiving) jumps in the military, one of the many things that could go wrong was going into an uncontrollable spin. There were many different ways for the spin to kill you, including getting twisted into your parachute if deployed or passing out. Regardless, these uncontrollable spins are dangerous.

One of the last-ditch efforts to get out of the spin is to “track out” of it. Think of turning your body into an arrowhead, which usually makes you go very fast in one direction. The idea is to hopefully overcome the rotational motion with strong linear motion.

I recently got into a mental “uncontrollable spin” – I wasn’t thinking about important things in life and was instead focused on too many frivolous matters. To be specific, I was really excited to design and rebuild my workstation, and was neglecting the more important things in life.

Unlike a skydiving uncontrollable spin, these mental spins are sometimes hard to notice. The only reason I noticed it was because toward the end of the day, I had a sort of hollow feeling. Even then, I still had this deep obsessive urge to work on and finish the project, to the point where I would get angry if I was interrupted.

Recognizing that was the first step. The next step was doing what I did with a real uncontrolled spin: to track out of it. I did this by immediately falling back on my foundational pillars. The next morning, I forced myself to work on my research instead of continuing to design or research the best type of workstations. It was hard at first, but having faith and following through allowed me to gain momentum and then move back onto my normal routine and find tranquility again, leaving that workstation project for another day.

That workstation still isn’t done. But I’m still working on it on my own terms. This was a good lesson to always be looking out for when you’re in a spin, and having faith that tracking out of it will lead you back to balance.