Fake problems

This is a name I made up for a pattern I noticed in my life: allowing minor inconveniences with obvious solutions to persist. The root cause is small enough to be disregarded, but the consequences can range anywhere from equally small to lifestyle-altering. These problems only take a brief moment of thought to identify, but I've learned it's surprisingly easy to let them pile up for no reason!

Ironically, the inconveniences with the lowest stakes are the most embarrassing ones to talk about. There are some truly banal fake problems I let creep into my daily life, like... trying to do household tasks while holding my phone, or with the lights turned off. Sometimes I'll try to optimize the sequence of tasks to hypothetically save a minute or two, at the cost of doing at least one of the tasks poorly. Sometimes I fall into the trap of diligent consumption – say, avoiding running the dishwasher because not enough plates are in the bottom rack and it would be a slightly inefficient use of detergent and then wishing I wasn't out of clean cups and contemplating pouring myself a mug of milk and just run the fucking dishwasher Ash holy shit

Not every fake problem is quite this silly, though. Many years ago, I had a soft rule about only going out in public (usually to play [[DDR]]) immediately after a fresh shave. This was a pretty small time window that I would have to plan around days in advance, lest I try to shave too soon after the last time (which, for me, always ended in a lackluster shave, a bleeding face, or both). You might wonder, why go to all this trouble for the sake of appearance? Aren't you going to be incredibly sweaty 30 minutes into your dance game session anyway?

In retrospect, this was so obviously dysphoria and not some general anxiety over how I look in public. Fortunately, we live in the 21st century, meaning this is a solvable problem! It took some research to figure out the right treatment path, some mental resolve to make that first phone call, and some physical resolve to subject my face to tiny lasers. But the most important step, as is so often the case, was simply identifying the problem so that I could come up with a better solution than timeboxing my social life to a couple hours per week.

Identifying fake problems is an act of holistic self-care.