This looks like it could form the basis of a most fertile meme. Some prominent psychologists are asked to come up with 'one nagging thing they still don't understand about themselves' in no more than 150 words. One guy wonders about why he engages in superstitious behaviours while playing golf. But this is something I'm totally on top of. Not that I ever play golf - but sporting superstitions in general I have now conquered. I find they don't help. Someone else wonders why she always has nightmares. (Via.)
Converting this into a potential meme - for bloggers as well as psychologists - I shall try to go one better here and write, in no more than 150 words, about two things I don't understand about myself (the count only begins at the beginning of the next paragraph).
I don't understand why small things - small bad things, small good things - can make me feel either down in the dumps or cheerful about life, even knowing that they're only small and don't really define the basics of well-being. You get something awkward to deal with in the post. Or someone pays you a compliment. Multiply by two or three on either side and it can take the shine off your day or give it a real lift, even though in each case it's quite trivial. I don't understand why knowing this doesn't change it. And I don't understand why if I'm feeling down in any low-level way of this sort, just doing something usually takes care of it. It can have that effect even when the original cause of the down feeling bears no relation to the thing I do in order to start feeling different.