My mind feels mushy.

It's like I'm peering out from inside a cloud. It's hard to think or even hold up my head. It's definitely hard to write this.

I hit my limit this week. I had to do some work that is really hard for me. Objectively, it was the same "sit at the laptop and type" as always. But I was fighting a significant amount of resistance. Doing the thinking felt almost physically painful. Maybe it actually was.

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I used to be the kid who had to be picked up and carried, literally kicking and screaming, to the car.

I do remember a family party at my cousins’ house. Why would I leave? Why would I want to leave? I was still having fun.

I still struggle with transitions. Whether I’m attempting to end a meal, a conversation, a jam session, or an outing, the time to wind down feels arbitrary and forced. I don’t throw temper tantrums anymore, but I do experience a pang of melancholy.

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When I was twenty-one, my uncle shared with me the works of Eknath Easwaran, a spiritual teacher from India.

I was particularly intrigued by the concept of one-pointed attention: the idea of doing one thing at a time as a spiritual practice. I couldn’t always follow through on it — a long drive with nothing to listen to is a long drive indeed — but there have been times in my life where I have discovered the magic of treating virtually any task as an opportunity for meditation, or at least, reflection.

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Certain ideas can trick us into thinking that they are truths of the universe, even though they were invented by some dude somewhere.

For example, some brief research on Wikipedia suggests that the idea of a soulmate goes back to Plato — and maybe the word itself can be credited to Coleridge? (Citation needed.) And yet how many people have agonized over their missing soulmate, even to the point of dissatisfaction with a perfectly good partner, because they believe that soulmates exist and they haven’t found theirs yet?

There’s nothing wrong with you if you haven’t found your soulmate. That’s because soulmates aren’t a real thing.

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“The teacher raved about her,” my friend said about her fourth grader. “She said she can be anything she wants to be — a writer, a scientist, a doctor. Said she is endlessly competent.”

Because I am a cranky old spoilsport, I was taken aback by this.

I completely understand my friend’s delight and pride in her child’s accomplishments and academic success. But here’s what I want to say to the teacher:

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