Mental Surge Capacity

I just read the excellent article Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful. It pretty much aligns with how I've felt for the last 5+ months .. Early on I had a handle on this, but as it's dragged on, I've had bouts of discouragement, frustration, and ennui.

A few of my favorite quotes from the article:

“'This is a once in a lifetime experience. It’s expecting a lot to think we’d be managing this really well. ...This is an unprecedented disaster for most of us that is profound in its impact on our daily lives,' says Masten. But it’s different from a hurricane or tornado where you can look outside and see the damage. The destruction is, for most people, invisible and ongoing. So many systems aren’t working as they normally do right now, which means radical shifts in work, school, and home life that almost none of us have experience with. Even those who have worked in disaster recovery or served in the military are facing a different kind of uncertainty right now."

“Our culture is very solution-oriented, which is a good way of thinking for many things ... It’s partly responsible for getting a man on the moon and a rover on Mars and all the things we’ve done in this country that are wonderful. But it’s a very destructive way of thinking when you’re faced with a problem that has no solution, at least for a while.”

"Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up, he says. It means not resisting or fighting reality so that you can apply your energy elsewhere. 'It allows you to step into a more spacious mental space that allows you to do things that are constructive instead of being mired in a state of psychological self torment.'"

"I might have intellectually accepted back in March that the next two years (or more?) are going to be nothing like normal, and not even predictable in how they won’t be normal. But cognitively recognizing and accepting that fact and emotionally incorporating that reality into everyday life aren’t the same."