Honestly, the only thing that shook me out of my hypnotic state was when the heating system stopped working altogether
I can admit, I’m the type of person who gets trapped in my own head. If you give me an important task to focus on I will completely lose track of the hours that passed by well I try to complete it. Suddenly, I look up and realize that it’s night time and I don’t know what happened to the past 10 hours. This is something that helps me a great deal when I have academic or employment commitments that need to be taken care of very rapidly. However, it is extremely destructive when I forget to take care of myself or other important areas of life because I am too occupied with my work. For instance, when my heating, cooling, and air quality control system is screaming for attention but I am too distracted with accomplishing work. This is exactly what happened last week when I was working on a large project for my boss and my heating system suddenly failed. I had no idea that my furnace was in need of a professional repair appointment or inspection. It felt like my indoor air handling devices were working just fine, mostly because I wasn’t paying any attention to the fluctuating air temperatures all around me. I also didn’t notice when the furnace began making terrible sounds in its continued efforts to manage the indoor air quality. Honestly, the only thing that shook me out of my hypnotic state was when the heating system stopped working altogether. The lack of background noise coming from the furnace suddenly jolted my brain back into reality… and I realized that my house had been absolutely freezing cold for several hours. Hopefully I hear the HVAC tech when he shows up – I’d better not get back to my work until he comes and goes.
