The Importance of Irrelevance (or, My Meeting with My Psychologist)

I went to see my psychologist today. The thing about going to see my psychologist is that I always end up saying something with her, but I can't ever really think of anything to talk about beforehand, and even though we always end up having a good conversation, it never feels like the conversation was about the thing we should have been talking about, whatever that may be.

A lot of things happened this time around, but there were two interesting things in particular. One of them was that I had two...I wouldn't call them "panic attacks", but they were more like, say, "anxiety fits that manifested themselves in very physical forms". Like twice during that meeting, because of what we were talking about, I felt my heart rate go up, this stuff aching pain in my neck, back, and shoulders, difficulty breathing, dizziness, etc. I actually have this feeling rather frequently these days. I had it at least one today before I had to see my psychologist. I'm able to physically detect them now. And they are now very very physical. That was interesting.

The other thing that happened involved me explaining something Doctor Who-related to my psychologist. It was very on-topic and if I remember rightly, she practically asked me to tell her about Doctor Who. (She knows I like that show.) As I explained something, she noted that I sounded and seemed much more excited and animated talking about it than I seemed while talking about the other stuff. She used this as evidence that I actually really like Doctor Who, to the point that it might be something "important" to me, something that I "love". And I actually got really sad when she said that, because Doctor Who (and the rest of the things I get excited about) aren't that important. Like the only things that give me any sort of pleasure aren't important. They're not productive (with perhaps the exception of writing, but it really depends). They don't involve real-world skills or concerns. They're not responsibilities, they don't help anyone. They're not important.

And for some reason or another, it makes me feel really really sad that the only things I care about are unimportant things. Like they tell you to make your life about the things that you love or that make you excited; the only things I love or get excited about are stupid, trivial things. And the "important" things like school and doing things for people are really dull most of the time and sometimes outright painful. They're certainly getting harder, for a host of reasons.

Though my psychologist did mention that I got excited about books. (I agreed and then rambled on a bit about The Great Gatsby. Again, this too was perfectly warranted by context.) She pointed out that my intent is to become a high school English teacher. I always did sort of intend to use the books I like in the classes I teach. (Provided they're part of the required curriculum. But many of the books I like are the sorts of books that are taught in schools.)

She then pointed out that, in the future, my teaching will be important. My books will be exciting and interesting. Something that is interesting to me right now but not terribly important will be the entire foundation for my employment in the future.
I suppose it's okay for my life's main interests to be totally irrelevant if they (or at least some of them) are going to become important later on. I guess it's okay if my main reasons for living are unimportant if they're going to help me do arguably the most important things in my life later.

Maybe one's life interests don't have to be important all the time. Maybe the things that give one's life meaning don't have to be useful or important or objectively significant right now. Maybe it's enough if the important things for now are boring and painful and the important things for later are enjoyable and interesting and the opposite of painful.