The what if game

In recent days, my brain has gone into overdrive, and I've become so unmotivated to study and so burnt out that I continue to play the what-if game. What if I went to a different university? What it be better, easier, less stressful? What if I didn't switch from bio to psyc? Would I have worse marks?

What if I agreed to leave another city earlier, would we have a better house? less planes? more quiet? More financial security? Would I have actually met someone?

What if I did go to carrib med, would I have finished? flunked? get matched, unmatched? be in 250K in debt?

These questions have been eating me alive, and I am so burnt out from studying that I feel like I've completely lost it, and started thinking if maybe I would make a better real estate agent than a therapist, sigh. I've started to consider the crazy possibility of applying to one med school next year and take my chance at the lottery of 3% chance of getting accepted...yes I've officially gone nuts.

It seems that my mood goes from depressed to these crazy ideas, and continously thinking about things I can't change unless a time machine was invented. People say to live in the moment, but it's really tough to do especially for someone whose mind races at a mile a minute thinking and calculating a million things at once. I actually envy people that can slow down, forget about everything, and actually have fun without thinking, I have no idea how to do that.

I keep thinking I'm making progress on dealing with my moods but the truth is, I've gotten better at pretending and hiding them, but I still struggle with a lot of negative repetitive thinking that I can't seem to shake. The only thing that makes it better, is to make my brain shut off with movies, which isn't the best solution. I've started to realize that nothing really magically get's better, and there are new problems that start to creep up. After I finish, I have about another prob 4 years of post-grad courses I'll need to take.

What am I expecting to get better? Are my problems going to magically dissapear after I finish? Will I overnight be able to get a life? Will working actually make me happier? Will I somehow get less sensitive to sounds, lights, people? Will I actually meet someone who I like and don't want to stop going out after 4 dates? Will my mind stop racing?

I just don't know anymore, I know that a lot of things are beyond my control, and I can't really reverse time and who knows how I do I know where I would be if I did make different choices in life? Would I be working in grocery store, or in a restaurant? Would I be a real estate agent? Would I have a kid already? Would I be in a useless major with no prospect of a job such as OT, rad therapy, nuc tech (few jobs in ontario)? Would my decisions influence everyone else around me?

I quess the lesson for me is that I just don't know what my life would have been like, and as hard as it, it is important to live in the present, forget the past and try to move forward with whatever path lies ahead, no matter how hard, painful, hurtful, or frustrating. I have to accept my choices in life, because ruminating on mistakes is not helpful, and I just have to move on, accept my choices and limitations, such as choosing this ****university, because I don't know if I would have done better in another one, I could have, or not, and I'll really never know. Just like I've learned to accept my personality, that I'm different, that it's harder for me to interact with others, to have a relationship, and that often I do have to work harder in school to pass then others that can just absorb the information in class.

So, without further ado, with the next breath (breathe in), I let go of the past, stop thinking about it, and only think about the present and the future (breathe out). I stop blaming myself for everything that I did not do perfectly, and for the mistakes that I did make. I accept the responsibility, and know that in the future, I will probably make more mistakes but that is life, and life is not perfect (especially mine). In the end living in the past does not solve anything and I have to look to the future, and whether that future involves me becoming a successful manual therapist, possibly owning my own clinic, or winning the ever frustrating med lottery, I don't know. Does that future involve me being single, or having 3 kids? I quess I'll have to wait and see, because hey that's life, and there is no manual, no magic ball to actually tell you what to, only your own decisions to continually guide you, which can be increadibly frustrating. I vow that the next time I think of the past, I instead think about some positive image and look to the future instead of the past.