How My Obsessions with a Small Issue Affected My Mental Health
Why you should worry less and enjoy more
Due to the pandemic and the lockdown measures that followed, I found myself stuck at home a lot recently.
Spending so much time at home meant that I was constantly using my phone. Writing, planning my articles, talking to my friends, video calling, watching videos, Netflix and gaming, my new phone was proving to be a godsend.
Until I checked my phone’s battery health. 96%. Wait. It has only been a month (or two). What do you mean 96%?
Because of the amount of phone time I had (average of 9–10 hours daily), I found myself charging my phone more than once everyday. With my battery health falling so much, I began to worry a lot about how often I charge my phone.
I cut down the amount of time I played games. I moved my writing and article planning to my desktop computer. I used my television to watch Netflix. I did everything I could to reduce my phone usage.
Yet, my phone’s battery health went on to drop further. Infuriating. And definitely unacceptable.
I went on numerous forums to find the source of the issue. I researched factors that affected my phone’s battery health and tried to track possible mistakes that cause my battery to deteriorate.
I made sure my battery was always between 20% and 80%. I reduced my usage and constantly worried that a particular game or app would overheat my phone. I even removed my phone cover when charging my phone so that the heat wouldn’t be trapped.
All these went on until I read a comment on one of the forums I was reading.
“Battery deterioration is normal. Just use your phone and not think about it so much.”
All my actions suddenly made no sense. My obsession over my battery health was getting out of hand. I checked my phone’s battery health numerous times a day and was spending so much time reading about battery issues.
Even when doing something completely unrelated, a nagging worry hung around the back of my mind, reminding me to be more careful of my phone’s battery health.
This worry stemmed from my need to make my phone last as long as possible. I wanted to keep this phone usable for the next 4 or 5 years so that I wouldn’t have to change my phone.
But this same worry was preventing me from using my phone. I was no longer enjoying myself when using my phone. Instead, worries about how long the battery health was going to last plagued me.
And honestly, despite the drop in battery health, I haven’t felt much of an impact on how long a single charge of the battery lasted. All this worry was for naught.
Yes, this was a singular issue about something that most people would deem as a minor non-problem. So what if my phone doesn’t have a good-as-new battery? The phone still worked and life still goes on.
However, this issue happens daily somewhere out in the world. Overthinking a comment someone said in passing, worrying about that awkward strand of hair or being troubled over the slight gain in weight, we often find ourselves stressing over the smallest of issues in our daily lives.
All of these negative thoughts lead to us becoming obsessed and creating numerous obstacles for our own daily lives. We find ourselves incapable of truly enjoying the moment, focused solely on making every little thing perfect.
Just like my phone’s battery health issue however, these little things often have no true bearing on the things that matter in life. Without my episode of preserving my phone’s battery health, I would have had a lot more time to enjoy the conveniences I bought the phone for.
So the next time you find yourself facing an issue that bothers you, ask yourself this one question:
Is it really worth being obsessed and spending my time on this issue?
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