If it looks like a duck...

Everyday, for close to two months now, I tell myself I am going to spend significant time researching and applying for jobs. And pretty much without fail, I end up spending significant time procrastinating and distracting myself from the task at hand, only to be left berating myself by the end of the day.

I’ve been here before. More times than I’d like to admit. Lost in what can only be summed up as a void. I’m not coming and I’m not going. I can’t move, yet I’m afraid not to. Its hard to explain how I get so stuck. I’m not even entirely sure I understand it fully myself, but I don’t feel I challenge it the way I should. This lack of discernable motivation is something I’ve dealt with for years…a lifetime. It manifests as procrastination, denial, and what can appear like a general slackerish approach to life. (Slackerish…I made it up, but it works.) Well, by this point in the game, I’ve made it such a big deal, that this anti-motivational force has a life of its own…this paralysis and the trail of short lived jobs left over 5 different states and 6 years time.
I have to say it’s a sore subject. Someone suggesting that I’m being LAZY can send my whole day into a tailspin. It brings me back to being a bitter teenager and being called lazy for not doing the dishes right away, or not cleaning my room. But it never felt like an accurate assessment and it always hurt me. It didn’t have anything to do with a lack of respect, as my parents would have suggested. This bothers me not only because I’m afraid it might be true, but because someone else has noticed. I think I’ve tried pretty hard to cover up my flaws and the dirty, ugly things I don’t like and don’t really approve of, like having spent the majority of 2008 working in a low paying retail job or having to move back to my parents’ house…how do I explain that away? At best, I try to make it look like some sort of strategic move (i.e. saving on rent). Anything to keep anyone from passing judgment on a person that I don’t want to be representative of me (or even worse…if it really is the “actual” me). My inner critic has taken a precious toll on my emotional well being.

So all this to decide if I’m a true slacker that has felt for so long that people expect more from me, because despite my apparent aversion to “hard work”, I had always performed well in school and such endeavors, and people called me things like “smart”, “creative”, “talented” and whenever you have these things, people expect you to use them. I know I’ve taken other peoples desires and expectations on myself, and a little too seriously. Maybe I just need to be comfortable with the idea that I’m not one of those highly driven people, and sometimes I just want to be left alone to read my magazines, make cupcakes and partake in aimless wandering, and not have to be responsible for anything of consequence. But I can't see being satisfied with just that. Or, if not a “true slacker", what the hell am I doing and where’s my motivation? Why do I constantly have this little voice telling me I’m supposed to be doing something big…something significant? How did I get so self judgmental? If I am an “artist” like some people propose, why am I not spending all of my free time making art? What do I have all these ideas for great projects and endeavors and they never see the light of day? What is it that steals my drive? More importantly, how do I get it back? Am I being compelled by the thoughts of what I think others want me to do? Why do I feel like the only one so road blocked? Everyone else seems to be getting on just fine in their lives, not that I’d suggest everyone else has it easy, quite the contrary. I wonder what gives them the ability to overcome their obstacles, and I am often quite envious.

I’m more than guilty of a little self pity. Certainly the amount of time I’ve spent over-analyzing all this stuff that has “gone terribly wrong” hasn’t helped. The time I’ve spent trying to deal with the symptoms of depression and anxiety disorder has drained me. Though mostly under control at this point, the anxiety attacks can get so bad, that I don’t always have the ability to stay at work, or to even make it in. If I do, I cannot focus on work, the quest to alleviate the intensity of the panic takes all precedence. It overwhelms me. And the Chronic Fatigue Disorder that has a death-grip on my energy level hits me hard. True, my genetic predispositions are a major problem in gaining forward momentum, but I feel I’d be cheating myself if I placed sole blame on that.

I realize I’ve glossed over much of what has gone RIGHT and the things that I should be grateful for, and the luck that I have, because, honestly things could be much worse, and I know that. I also know that I WILL get my shit together, and that its going to take a lot of hard work and facing up to the fact that no matter how I got to where I am, it is my responsibility to get myself out of it. In some ways, owning up to that responsibility and suppressing the accompanying omnipresent guilt will be a formidable task, but its best I take it head on now, rather than living in denial any longer.