I’m the type of person who has a very harsh inner critic.
The voices in my head are more brutal than you could possibly imagine.
If you’ve ever said something nasty to me, I guarantee you that I’ve thought the same thing a hundred times over. For instance, one of my most classic depressing thoughts is telling myself that nobody cares about me. I often feel like I’m all alone on this planet, and nobody would even care if I lived or died. It’s always shocking to me when people show the slightest interest in my personal well-being. That’s why, I was so surprised yesterday that my friends ventured out of the city and came to visit me an hour away. I wanted to keep everyone as safe as possible, so I thought we should meet in outdoor air. It made no sense for people to come inside the house and potentially fill the high quality indoor air with COVID-19. So, I set up some fans and seating outdoors so we could enjoy the afternoon in the sun. While we lounged on the patio and listen to the central cooling system turn on and off in the background, I worried that everyone was wishing they were back in their own air-conditioned apartments downtown. Why would they want to leave the comfort of their central cooling systems to sit in the heat and humidity of my backyard, anyways? Surely, people had better things to do than to listen to my old air conditioning unit turning away in the background while summer air created hot and cold patches on my patio. At the end of the day, however, my friends joyfully exclaimed that we should have another outdoor hang soon. They told me it was amazing to escape from their central cooling systems and stagnant indoor air to feel the natural breeze out in the country. Looks like my HVAC-obsessed inner critic and I were wrong.