One night, my dad was angry to find out that I only read about 1/3 of the SSAT prep book he bought. And the next day was the test. He was really upset. He thought I never put that much time on the preparation and I was going to fail the test.

But that’s not true, for some parts. I tried my best, it’s just my best was not enough. It’s the best of a sick person, which was million miles away from a normal man’s best. Let alone the best of a clever person.

Everyday spending hours on just opening the book meant I would have to pay for the time I wasted doing rituals. I paid that last night with my dad.

In addition to that, I found when trying to make sure something is clean, I chose not touching it at all. So indeed, I didn’t spend as many time as I could to prepare for the test. Instead, I spent more time watching the TV show Elementary. I found Sherlock Holmes’ mind has great similarity. Both are fast and filled with logics. It seemed like we were both suffering from the brilliance of it. He had a drug problem and I was repeating almost everything in my life.

Why do I just have to make sure my future was clean? Why can’t it be contaminated? Why do I have to sacrifice the chance to achieve my goal just to keep it clean? Can I be bold for once and just make everything around me dirty?

No.

I could never make everything around me dirty. I might look strong on the outside, the truth was that I was very shy on the inside. I could speak in front of over 3000 people on the stage when I was 13, but I couldn’t make things I see as clean “dirty”. I was not brave enough to do that, or maybe I was just not strong enough to torture myself…

But I was already torturing myself daily with the repetition and other weird rituals. I didn’t know what’s wrong with me. I felt like my mind was exploding with different messages. I thought I was the unluckiest person on earth.

It’s like a battle between you and your ego. It’s a battle of control or domination. The winner gets to choose and the loser only gets to follow.

Feelings and emotions are things we have no control over. However action is. This can be a overwhelming idea because it seems sometimes we can be out of our control. But the fact is the opposite.

If the god ever decides to reverse the time for me to go back, I would definitely try new things like…

I will open my book once. This may sounds absurd but I used to open it and then close it immediately because I think I didn’t do that perfectly. Or I did it with bad thoughts.

My mind was being too strong at connecting dots and it tricks me into believing my thoughts, the book and new knowledge I will learn are somehow intertwined. One have the power of contaminating another.

Trying to read through all the content will be challenging as well. My ego is like that friend who keeps complaining over to you. It just won’t stop.

I get distracted. I stop. I start to talk back to it. My thoughts are totally switching to this new meaningless conversation instead of learning what’s important.

No!

I will tell myself to ignore my ego. Sometimes, what my ego is telling me can be vital in some dimension, or falsely alarming for “imminent danger” .

In this case, thoughts aren’t real. The voice inside me is nothing more than an intrusive thought. Intrusive thoughts’ nature is described by its name. Thus, there’s no point for me trying to control it, or make it disappear. Thoughts aren’t real and my ego is lying to me 100% of the time.

But then the uncertainty will kill me. I will feel like I didn’t read carefully therefore I missed something important that’s going to make me fail the test. It’s really the imaginary consequence that one is afraid of due to uncertainty.

If so, I need to tell my self that my mind is lying to me again. And I need to risk missing important details to get the whole picture. I won’t try to reason with myself because my mind is me being the smartest.

Finally, if the anxiety hangs around for a long time, I will go downstairs and walk around for at least 15 minutes. I don’t have to run, walking is a good exercise that won’t get me sweaty while making my brain start to produce Dopamine to boost my mood.

“Pain is only temporary. Don’t just go through it. Grow through it.” I can’t go back to 4 years ago now. But I’m glad I grew through that horrible time. Now get your life back.