Emotional Default
When most people here the word “default”, they tend to think of “automatic in the absence of anything better”. But default also has another meaning.
It also means “breach of agreement”. If you default on your loans, it means you haven’t paid either the principal or the interest when it was due. This would happen when your financial outflows exceed your financial inflows.
So what does “default” mean in an emotional context? In the same vein, it means when the withdrawals exceed your deposits from your emotional bank account that you are in breach of the minimum emotional reserves you are required to maintain your own sanity.
You’ve given everything you’ve got and there’s nothing left to give.
The covenant you have is with yourself.
What happens when you go into a financial default? You’d typically file for creditor protection or in the extreme case, file for bankruptcy. Your wages or income may be garnished.
In an emotional default, you are also seeking protection from your emotional creditors and your emotional health may be garnished week after week.
Under a garnishment, you lose complete control. Someone else tells you what to do automatically.
You’re on auto-pilot now.
This is what it means when you do something by default, or react by default.
You…are…broke.
When you’d rather sleep in until 3pm on a Saturday, watch Netflix instead of reading a book, eat a bag of potato chips instead of going to the gym, doomscrolling or doing anything other than what you know should be doing, you’ve triggered the “default mode” in your brain.
You are garnishing your future.