---
title: The walk back
kind: entry
date: 2026-09-05
summary: analysis of where my energy goes
entry: 0x05 of 0x05
source: "https://www.sixhourlog.com/blog/drag/"
volume: 1
issue: 36
---

I would like to disclaimer this post. I am not a psychologist and this write up is based on my limited research and my curiosity about my own situation. I have been diagnosed with OCD, and while this post stems from my realization of its effect on me, I did find it can affect others regardless of whether you have OCD or not. It may just not be as prevalent in your life or necessary to look at.

Rumination refers to hard to break mental loops. As an example, I used to find it hard to want to go anywhere from fear of finding parking and getting door dings while parked. I was far too attached to my vehicles. Race cars, and I was afraid to drive them with fear of them breaking or putting miles on them. My solution was to buy a new Camry, get amazing gas mileage, treat it well, and stop obsessing over where I park and what happens to it that is out of my control.

Well, easier said than done. Just the other day I was finding parking at school. Found a spot, looked to my left and right, and saw two cars with stickers and accessories that I felt were that of someone who doesn't really care about door dings. So I told myself whatever, and started walking to class. I got pretty far, but the whole time all I could think about was my car getting a door ding. So I walked all the way back, moved my car, and felt relief.

That is a simplistic example, and it isn't purely rumination either. The thought was the loop, but walking back and moving the car was the compulsion, and the relief is what teaches me to do it again. The treatment for that is exposure without giving in, but I'm no professional. What I came to wonder is how much these situations were affecting my memory and my energy throughout the day. That is what inspired this post.

Like I said, you do not have to have OCD to be affected by this. Your day is comprised of so many choices to be made, as well as so much stimuli that comes from other people, material items in your life, mental problems you're stressed over or anxious about. There are many things that take mental energy from you that are easy to go unrecognized, because most people don't live their life calculating small moments and their effect on your ability to focus.

From what I have read, this is not just a hunch. Rumination competes for the same attention you need to actually work on something, so the loop is not free. The studies I came across were done on ordinary employees rather than clinical patients, and the people who ruminated more reported more trouble starting projects, finishing them, memory problems, and difficulty doing tasks in order. What caught my attention was that these weren't reports of feeling worse. They were the exact failures I complain about in myself.

Clothes are the version of this I run every day. I don't care what brand I am wearing, but I do care if my clothes match and how it looks to others. The cost of making sure I match and my outfit looks decent is worth the mental energy, because the other side of it is me at school self conscious about my outfit. That creates friction, pulling from the attention I need for everything else.

A plane on route to its destination would not leave its drag devices deployed.

Some may say, isn't finding all this taking more energy? In the short term, yes. But the outcome I want, even if just by a little, is to take control of my day and have more ability to study and apply myself to whatever my focus is set on in the moment.

Where I land is as simple as finding your own cost benefit analysis for things in your life. For me it comes down to less about what I need to be happy and more about what I can cut, simply to have my pursuit as close to frictionless as possible.

The problem is that it doesn't work on everything. Anything worth having asks something of you. A hobby will. A person will. Something I want to learn will take attention for months before it gives anything back, and by this rule I would cut it before it ever paid. So the analysis only works on the things that take and give nothing, and I don't have a clean way to sort those in advance. That is the part I haven't solved.

This is a hypothetical belief on my part, and until I apply it over a long period I have no clue what the outcome will be. I have no criteria to gauge whether my focus improves, because I have no real knowledge of my baseline now. I can update this in six months, but it will be based on my own outlook and most likely filled with biases.