This morning on my hike I thought a lot about what people label "OCD," and "ADD." I do sympothize, as I will explain in a moment, but I personally don't see where being "obsessive compulsive" or having an "attention deficit" is that big of a deal. I understand there are some severe cases where medication may be needed. I'm not here to judge, and I won't get into my thoughts on the over-medicating of our society or how much my heart goes out to the precious, zombie-like children that walk around with their glazed-over eyes, being controlled by whatever man-made substance is flowing through their veins, having all the creativity sucked right out of them, and the minute they start acting like...kids, it's "Oops! The medicine must be wearing off..." (And I said I wouldn't go there).
I have observed that many intelligent, successful people fit into one of these categories of "disorders." And if you get two people, one from each category, and join them together in marriage or a business partnership (supposing they don't kill each other first) you have a recipe for a winning team. Consider the business world. Often, you have a boss who has tons of ideas, but can't seem to remember them or carry them out very well; and then you have a team of assistants whose job seems to be carrying out the bosses plan and make him/her look good. It helps if the team of assistants are a bit obsessive.
The problem, as I see it, comes when one person has both disorders. You guessed it! I believe I am one of those people. I have obsessive compulsive tendencies (not the severe, "lock every door three times and use hand sanitizer every time I touch anything" kind, but the normal "straighten out the discard pile of cards and make sure all my shirts hang the right direction" kind), but even worse is my inability to stay focused. For instance, I can't carry on one conversation. I usually have at least three going on at the same time and people get really confused as to which conversation I am on at the moment.
I like to joke about it and say, "It is a pain having OCD and ADD because I keep forgeting what I was obsessing about." Sometimes it really does cause a problem. On a nice long hike, I know it would be impossible for me to record all my thoughts as fast as I am thinking them, but it would be nice to complete one whole thought and have some sort of record of it. I am sure I have solved all the worlds problems many times on a 4 or 5 mile hike (not so much on a jog because I am usually counting my steps and making some kind of game out of it). However, by the time I get back to the car I have had so many "new" thoughts that I can't remember what the most important ones were.
So, this morning, I headed out for a 4 mile hike. Unfortunately, it ended up only being two. I decided that I wanted to get some of my ideas down on paper, and so I turned around and hiked back to the car before I forget my ideas. And of course, between then and now I forgot what I was going to write about...but along the way this post came to mind and I thought I would at least write IT down before I forget it. I guess the world's problems will have to wait a little while longer.
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