Being a normal functioning human, requires a lot.

For starters, it requires oxygen. If we don’t breathe for a few seconds, we die. Sleep too. If we don’t sleep for a few nights, we go completely crazy.

And we need more than stuff like water, food, air and sleep.

If we want to be able to get anything done properly, we need bandwith too. We need a little extra fuel in the tank.

Imagine a laptop. Now let the battery drain to 1%. Start to load up and use lots of memory intensive programs. The computer will struggle. Now plug the charger back in and let the battery fill back up. Or try to book a plane ticket on a phone with 2G internet connection. Then move back into range of a 5G antenna. This isn’t self-care per se, it’s just a bit more bandwith to get the job done.

When we have bandwith we enjoy the ability to do things at the very least, properly. It may not be a pleasurable task, but you’re in less pain than you could be.

A practical example is when you go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. I don’t think we are always conscious that we’re hungry. You just start to be a bit more irritable, anxious and unhappy than usual.

But when you’ve had something nice to eat and drink, everything is a lot easier. It’s harder to get stressed. You remember what you came into the shop to buy. You’re able to skip buying the potato chips.

Strangely enough, it’s easier to be kinder too. Something like benevolence isn’t available to most of us, most of the time. But it’s more likely to be available if you have the bandwith for it.

Also published on Buddha Bike – Substack