I don’t believe that I lack all strength. I just don’t have enough to do anything with my opportunities. I don’t want to wake up, and I don’t want to look for jobs, and I don’t want to get a new job or keep mine. I don’t want to go outside. I don’t want to talk to people, even family. I don’t want to get a paycheck. I don’t want to have a home. I don’t want to call this nice young lady I’m dating. I don’t want to go to dinner tonight. I don’t want to act or play music or teach or be a therapist.
I’m not saying i want to lose my job or go be homeless or stop dating her. I’m trying to say I’m working hard to be a normal guy on the outside, but I’m just so exhausted and detached from everything. I’ve been like this since high school, though I’ve successfully convinced myself on many occasions since then that if i just get this other job, or change my attitude to positive, i will get better. Pills, therapists, friends, job opportunities, a marriage, owning a home… Just life-projects. Things that distract me from a mental condition that had lain dormant for nearly 20 years.
“Be grateful!” “God has a plan!” “don’t be selfish!” “think of what you’d do to your family if you killed yourself?” None of this stuff makes it go away. I don’t want to be on pills my whole life, but maybe I’m stuck like this.
I just don’t have any strength for anything.,
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All the goals in life are simply distractions. When they run dry, there isn’t much time left…
One of my high school football coaches dropped some wisdom on us:
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
In order to most effectively seize and exploit any opportunity, you must dedicate and commit yourself to relentless preparation, in the hope that you will encounter an opportunity, and be prepared to seize it.
If you’re not prepared, the results will be discouraging. Better get busy!
Being prepared, seizing the opportunity then feeling empty is when hopelessness sets in. It creates a path for the future which is bleak for a guy like me.
If you’re not prepared, the results will be discouraging. Better get busy!
Being prepared, seizing the opportunity then feeling empty is when hopelessness sets in. It creates a path for the future which is bleak for a guy like me.
If you’re chasing something you don’t really want, you’re not going to feel fulfilled when you achieve it.
…which is why they say: “you gotta WANT IT.”
One of my main problems is that i do not believe that any of what i really want, can be achieved, regardless of attitude adjustments or persistence of preparation. If there will be no useful opportunities to access what i really want, then all preparation is frivolous and moot.
If failure is inevitable, i would prefer to fail as effortlessly as possible; preferably without even trying at all. I would prefer to know what is unattainable, before i ever embark… because i’ve wasted too much of myself on chasing impossible dreams, and have grown quite tired and weary of investing myself into fruitless endeavors. I only want to expend energy toward things i really want, and can actually achieve. But i don’t see anything qualifying as both of those things… and since i cannot go back, i will not go forward, toward anything that may leave me in a worse position… from which i cannot revert.
of course the law of ‘maximization of irony’ (to which i ascribe) holds that once you achieve what you thought you wanted…you don’t really like it after all
that’s fine, but if your heart is never really in any project you start, how can you relentlessly commit to it? It’s not a matter of whether or not the opportunities are there, it’s a matter of whether or not your heart is strong enough. no matter what I start, or how optimistic I try to be, I just don’t have enough energy to see it through.
I don’t _want_ anything enough, though. That’s pretty much the definition of depression. It doesn’t go away when you start liking an activity or setting a bunch of goals. It’s there. It’s there when you’re happy. It’s there when you’re sad. It’s just this lack of true drive to survive. You just don’t want any of this. And you won’t.
sometimes you do want it when you have it. You may get tired every once in a while, but when you really think about it you actually can’t imagine yourself without it. Like a relationship, or a job, or a beat up car that eats up a lot of money. you can be sad or angry about them, but you never really hate them.
I think the real question is: do I know anything in my life that I couldn’t imagine myself without? I can’t think of anything. I used to think it was music, or being with children, or healing peoples psyches, or being a really good office worker, or a bunch of other things. now that I realize I never really wanted those things enough, I don’t feel much of an impetus to keep searching. I have to do some self healing before I go running out making goals and plans and ideas. They won’t come to fruition if I don’t.
the trouble is, I don’t see much of a good prognosis.
sometimes I feel as though I’m chasing life itself, and I’m never fulfilled when I try to achieve that either. I don’t know where to go from here. if you don’t want a life, how do you achieve a good one?
there’s that absolutism rearing it’s ugly head again…
it’s not “just” the wanting, or “just” the preparation, or “just” the opportunity…
it is the maintained, unified intersection of all three.
One third desire, one third practice, one third chance.
Anything goes wrong and life doesn’t work out.
However, let’s ask ourselves a serious question: where is my heart? Is my heart in anything? Is there anything that would be interesting or important enough to dedicate the remainder of my days to contributing to any specific cause, or realm of causes?
Do i even really care about anything? And if so, do i care enough to commit to relentless pursuit? Or is my body merely incapable of relentless pursuit, regardless of whatever my “heart wants?”
But yeah, i’m right there with you. The requirements for anything possible are just too high and painful. I just don’t want anything THAT much, that i would willingly submit to repeated torture to gain occasional access to any particularly enjoyable experience. But without those particularly experiences, life isn’t “living,” and existence without truly living, isn’t worth enduring.
So in lowering our expectations, is there any way to make life both easy and tolerable? Just tolerable, not enjoyable.
oops, omitted an “enjoyable”