What's inside your head?

I am not a complicated person, but I do readily admit that I am high maintenance and that my problem solving skills are not always where they should be.   In some situations, I am great at problem-solving (I just can't think of any examples right now).  But in other situations, I feel overwhelmed, and often will ask my husband to help me figure something out before I drive myself crazy.

I had a problem this week, and it just about drove me to tears.  The details are not important, but the problem occurred because there were two activities that conflicted with each other.  I was quite distraught, as I truly wanted everyone to be happy.  I feel that it is my job to make sure everyone is happy.  It isn't, but that's how I feel.  Working on that.

After talking to my husband, he helped me solve the problem and then told me what I already know...that I often will get into a frenzy about things without thinking them through clearly.  I know this about myself and I am working on it, but I really wanted to give him a glimpse of what goes on inside my head.  And just a warning,  this next part of today's entry may contain imagery that is not suitable for organized people...proceed with caution.

Here was my analogy to help him understand how my head works.  Close your eyes and picture confetti, all scattered and and blowing around.  Each piece of confetti is a small tiny piece of paper, right?  And inside my head, picture that each confetti piece has a letter on it.  Its like my own personal-hell word scramble happening inside my head.  I am mentally trying find letters as fast as I can that go together to solve the problem.  But then I get distracted and I may make up a word that has nothing to do with the problem (yes, I can sometimes get off task).  That's my head on an average day.  I know its a good day when it is not to windy, and the confetti just stays settled for the most part.  But there are days when a gale force wind blows in, then all the tiny confetti pieces go nuts, and so do I.

Now...here is how I picture my husbands head.  Close your eyes again and picture those 3M post-it notes.  He has those inside his head.  All stuck perfectly aligned on a clean wall.  Maybe some different colours to help him determine which task is more important.  For problem solving, he mentally writes down each solution, and presents it to himself and if I am lucky (and willing to listen!), he presents it to me as well.

So there it is.  At least I recognize that I need to move more to the post-it model of problem solving than the blowing-confetti model.   Don't get me wrong, confetti CAN be fun.  Maybe the solution is to have a bit of both, and try and figure out when you need your mental post-it notes, and when you just need to throw caution to the wind and let the confetti part take over...just for a little while.