I have decided that keeping a diary will help me to declutter my mind. The fact that I have started this on an ordinary Wednesday in October rather than the 1st of January will be good for me; I’ve always been obsessed with things fitting into neat little boxes, with ideal start and end dates, and with the goal of completing perfect collections. This is, of course, unhealthy behaviour that often results in fixating on the collection rather than enjoying the individual events or components.

Whenever I have found a new hobby or encountered something interesting, my first instinct has always been to assess how this can fit into a wider, more meaningful project or purpose. My mind starts racing away. Even when I was young, I couldn’t just enjoy a game for what it was; it had to mean something more.

When I first started travelling, this obsession with deriving additional meaning from my activities resulted in me wanting to visit as many countries as possible. I enjoyed seeing different cultures and landscapes, but this was soon replaced by a desire to tick off another country. My enjoyment became incrementally more attached to the successful mission of adding another flag to my collection. I convinced myself that this was some sort of noble quest and that other people were missing out. The reality was that my obsessive tendencies were dictating my decisions. I would sooner visit a dreary city in a country that I had not previously been to than spend a long weekend somewhere I knew would be more to my liking.

Although I have always managed to escape whatever obsession I have been in the grip of, the same underlying behaviour remains. This year I have been trying to do as many good and charitable deeds as possible, but I often seek to make each one part of a wider mission rather than a single act of kindness, even if this is unnecessary.

I am trying to allow myself to embrace the imperfections of life, accept the incomplete nature of most things, and just live in the moment. It’s not easy, though. Starting a diary on a random, uneventful day in October may well help with this. Or at least I hope it will.