Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Stupid days

I don't think men are susceptible to the phenomenon we women call 'fat days'. These are days when you just feel fat. In reality, you are no fatter than you were yesterday, but your self-image for the day is frumpy and bloated and ungainly. We also have thin days (although we tend not to mention these so much) when we feel lithe and attractive and, yes, even sexy.

Well I'd like to know...

Am I the only person on the planet who has stupid days?

I have days when I feel unintelligent. Days when I read an article and just can't understand it. Days when I consider the task before me and think, "I don't know how to do that!" when it is something I've done a hundred times before. Days when molehills become mountainous and I am without my crampons. Days when new information is flooding in and I am armed with a teacup. Days when I just want the pixies to come and make it all happen (or all go away).

With the volume of new information that comes across my screen every day, I can't afford to have stupid days. I really need to find a way to overcome them and, as with fat days, logic doesn't seem to come into it.

Do you have days like that?

When I was at school we had to take IQ tests. You probably did, too. I don't know if they still do them. I hope not. I hope they have been proved to be inaccurate, irrelevant and invalid. Nevertheless, they will serve to illustrate my story.

They tended to do them once towards the end of primary school and then again in early high school, just to validate the results of the first test. I wound up having mine retested several times, because of the disparity in the results. Apparently at the bottom end of the range of results I generated was someone who was unlikely to have made it thus far through high school, while the top end indicated a candidate for Mensa. All from the same person.

I can guarantee you that the former was generated on a stupid day. On that day, I probably said 'huh?' a lot. I probably didn't even understand the questions let alone feel competent to find the right answers. By contrast, perhaps a day or two earlier or later, it would all have been crystal clear and totally straightforward.

Is this a known thing? Or is it just me?

5 comments:

Dave Stacey said...

I too have stupid days!

More worryingly I also have 'can't be arsed' days, when nothing I do to get going will work and I float around in a general cloud of (sometimes grumpy) apathy.

However, I've started to reach the conclusion that
a)everyone gets them to some extent

b)I may get more fluctuations that some people I know, but that means higher highs (REALLY productive periods) as well as lower lows. I figure that's just me, and I need to learn to live it with, ride the waves and not let it affect me too negatively.

Just remember, tomorrow will probably be a smart day!

Wendy said...

I have stupid weeks. ASTD has kick-started me out of a recent rut/slump where I just could not think of or process anything more intelligent than hockey, World of Warcraft (specifically - getting my little Warrior Gnome to level 50), and my usual round of tutorial development. I'm going to agree with Jago and Dave. It cycles.

Christy Lincoln said...

Let's just say I found your blog when searching "stupid days" hoping I would find just this type of writing. I literally look at something at work, and five seconds it's gone. Non stupid days I'm competent and loving my job. I've actually had a coworker mention I wasn't "quite myself". Horrific! It's not only my imagination it was real! I now strive to learn the secrets of overcoming this evil "stupid days" If you find a cure, let me know. Oh and Coffee....just makes ths stupid happen faster.

The upsycho said...

"Coffee just makes stupid things happen faster." That's hilarious!

I once read an article that debunked the idea of giving drunk people coffee to sober them up. It said you would just wind up with a wide-awake drunk.

Wide-awake stupid. Wide-awake drunk. So coffee isn't the panacea it is sometimes said to be, huh?

Christy Lincoln said...

Ooo...I wont take anything away from the wonders of Coffee. It's just not the cure for THIS.
LOL