Your mind is a puppy and it needs a daily walk

Have you ever heard the phrase “a tired dog is a good dog”? People say this, but what they mean is “a mentally engaged dog/ a dog who feels useful/ a dog who has had some purpose in his day, is a good dog”.

If you’ve ever raised a dog, you know that puppies who feel ignored get anxious start destroying things. If they are not given positive mental engagement, they start finding their own and usually end up hurting themselves or their environment.

As a mostly grown, fairly independent, and somewhat stable adult, I made the discovery that “tired people are good people” too. I don’t mean that over-working yourself leads to self-actualization or that busy-work will effectively distract you from inner turmoil, but people who stay engaged with things that challenge them and make them think, are usually a lot happier and a lot less anxious.

My “scholarly research” on this issue is being friends with a girl in college who would hustle like a madwoman all semester long, pursuing her studies, relationships, and interests with obnoxious gusto. During the school year, she stayed busy and was generally satisfied with her life and herself. But whenever a holiday break would come, she’d always call me up at some point and talk about how she probably needed to go to therapy because she was so depressed, apathetic, and lethargic.

I’m pretty sure anyone reading this has known or been that person.

While in the structure of school, or dealing with the other unavoidable demands on our time, we can cram so much into our free time. We may be totally exhausted all the time, but the near-constant overload can be weirdly satisfying. I don’t know about everyone, but knowing that I had done everything that I possibly could every week in college was mad satisfying.

Then soon as we got away from the demands of school, we stopped prioritizing our time enough to regularly pursue our interests. It’s something about a scarcity of time for me. If I know that, for this entire week, I will only have about two hours to go get dinner with friends and do something fun, I’m so much more likely to cram it into those two hours, than if I had unlimited opportunities.

The transition from being a student who constantly has assignments and upcoming projects on your mind, to a working adult who is totally free once you clock out, is fraught with "too much free time". Finding your optimal level of engagement can be difficult.

If you’re like me, you didn’t roll out of your commencement ceremony straight into a satisfying, high-paying, incredible job that demanded a lot of mental engagement. You instead got an entry-level job at the first place that would hire you so you could start piling up some “work experience” points. And it was mind-numbing, repetitive work that made you question your degree. Like “did I really just spend four years of my life writing papers, so I could spend 8 hours a day feeling like a cog?”

I’m not recommending we return to a college-student level of stress and madness. But there were some good habits that would be great to translate into adult working lives. Specifically, staying crazy busy. But the right kind of busy this time.

Busyness never created happiness, but mental engagement and challenge is often the “happiness” that people crave.

Ever wonder why lottery-winners are more likely to develop depression, substance abuse, and/or commit suicide? My hypothesis (very under-researched) is that they just don’t have any challenges anymore. No struggle. No hustle. No purpose.

As mostly grown, fairly independent, and somewhat stable adults, we all have to create an environment that challenges us and keeps us mentally engaged.

This is the most elite form of self-care. Bubble baths and rest are lovely and necessary, but constant leisure won’t make you happy. More money, to afford more leisure, probably won’t make you happy either.

I’m a firm believer that humans are wired for work. Not slavery and mindless drudgery, but purposeful, interesting work.

Every day, you should be looking for a way to work your mind out the way people take their dogs on long walks. Puppies that get a variety of exercises and play can sit quietly on the couch with you, enjoying snuggles and a binge-watch. Puppies that have laid around the house all day are rowdy and won’t sit still for anything when you get home.

Perhaps it’s too simplified, but your mind is like a puppy. It needs new chewy toys every week and a daily walk around the block, or it will eat the couch.

I’m going to explore this topic for a while, so stay tuned for posts on how to find your favorite mental chew toy or how to identify what your "daily walk" might be.

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed mental health professional and my theories here are in no way meant to be a cure for those with professionally diagnosed mental disorders or those who otherwise find themselves in uncontrollable circumstances.