I am not as good at problem solving as I used to be. I have changed the way I approach life. One of the things that changes is I no longer take in every bit of information I can and map out all possible paths. This supposedly has released a lot of energy to be used elsewhere.

One result of this change is that I used to be really good in emergencies and problem solving. I already had a lot of the answers because I had pre-loaded the options. Now I find that I keep going down dead ends and need to turn back and repeat steps. It drives me nuts. I am so used to knowing what I am doing that I start to do it and then find out I didn’t take everything into account. I guess I need to learn not to trust my automatic instincts because they are based on a different paradigm.

I don’t like it. I feel stupid and slow. People have thought I was really smart and think super fast. My reply to that is that I look smarter than I am because of how I process information. Now I am finding out how true that is.

I doubt if anyone who knows me has noticed yet. If I make the right choice and go down paths with no obstacles, then I look as smart as I ever did. If I make a poor choice and go down a path that I have to work my way back out of, then I look like I really am.

It isn’t much fun to get used to a new paradigm that makes things harder than before.