Being comfortable is an important thing.  For some it’s very easy to find comfort, for others like me, it’s not.

I have a mild form of obsessive compulsive disorder.  During the hard times it really rears it’s ugly head causing me to be anxious about nearly everything, and can range from having to always wash my hands to checking things multiple times.

In some ways it’s a good thing.  I will always finish something that I’ve started because of it, and if there’s something that I would like to do, but don’t know how to do, I will sit there and figure it out for myself until I’ve mastered it.

In other ways it’s not such a good thing.  For example, minutes get added to my day every morning walking back and forth between the car and the front door.  What am I doing walking back and forth?  I’m checking that the front door is locked.

To an outside observer it must look quite hilarious.  Here’s a man getting into a car, closing the car door, re-opening the car door, walking back to the front of the house, coming back, getting into the car, closing the car door.  All to repeat a few times over.

I can force myself to not go back and check.  But the times I do this, I find myself feeling anxious when at work.  Often I’ll end up coming back at lunch time just to make sure that the door is actually locked.  Or if it becomes unbearable I’ll try and take a few minutes to actually come home and check (one of the benefits of working five minutes from home).

It’s insane.

But I’ve come to accept a part of this insanity.  It’s a part of what makes me who I am, and is also a part of me that enables me to learn anything I put my mind to.

If I see a photograph that I like, but don’t know what the photographer did to achieve the result, with camera in hand I will sit here until I figure it out.  If there’s a tune in my head that I believe I have the ability to play, or a phrase that I want to translate to guitar, I’ll sit here until I have it down.

If anything, this “obsessive compulsiveness” has enabled the belief that I have in myself that I can learn how to do anything that I want to.  The only boundary is time.