What do I have left to do today? I’m not really sure. I’ll roll my frozen chocolate mixture into truffles tomorrow. I should shower tonight. Fold up some clothes. Throw expired transfers in the garbage.

Sometimes it feels as if my life has become simple, and all I have to do is turn on auto-pilot. I don’t really have anything to worry about. Money, companionship, school, health, everything I used to think about constantly before have all ceased to be problems for me. I even have people that I would consider friends.

Lately it feels as if I’ve reached a sort of equilibrium, where anything can happen but I’ll be able to deal with any problems that arise. This is quite a change from before, where I was always worrying, turning over in my head the things that bothered me.

It’s almost a form of complacency. However, this is a sense of total complacency, unlike even my previous complacent feelings. I’m unsure of whether or not this is a temporary thing, and how long it will last if this is true. Being complacent means that the excitement I used to feel, from the struggle to control undesirable emotions, to the nervousness associated to attraction, to the simple uncertainty of passing a course, has mostly leveled out. These were all scary things, but exhilarating nonetheless. This complacency is different from feeling numb because it’s on a different level. Numbness deals more specifically with emotion, whereas complacency refers to life in general, including emotion. This means that complacency is not necessarily a bad thing.

I’m just not sure what to make of it as of yet.

Out of the storm of life I have borne away only a few ideas — and not one feeling. For a long time now I have been living, not with my heart, but with my head. I weigh, analyze my own passions and actions with severe curiosity, but without sympathy.

—Pechorin, A Hero of Our Time

When I was younger, I decided that I wanted to cast all my emotion aside, because at the time I knew nothing but pain. I set this as my goal, and started to work towards a sterile, cerebral mindset. I wanted to feel nothing, and this idea followed me through to university.

At this time, I never believed that I was completely successful; I still felt too much. However, as my situation changed, as I met new people with good hearts and minds, I experienced what happiness was like. I was never satisfied though, never happy enough, and always wanted more but could never achieve it. Suddenly, it felt as if my cerebral goal was too successful, and I was stuck, I was numb.

I’ve gone from one extreme to the other, from wanting nothing to wanting everything. In both cases I was a failure, but it’s only now that I realize that success would have assuredly meant no turning back. I believe that when a certain extent is reached, one becomes ignorant to anything that could possibly change oneself. Now I understand the balance, the dichotomy that absolutely must exist in order to have a healthy mind.

And things are much better this way.