For the past week or so I’ve been taking a long hard look at myself and my accomplishments in life and came to the (not so) shocking conclusion that life as I imagined it 10 years ago hasn’t turned out the way I wanted.
I have had to deal with a lot of roadbumps on the way, so to speak. Most of them were out of my control, others however I have created myself and the road to overcoming them is longer and harder than I thought it would be.
All my life I have been struggling with motivational issues. You could say I’m lazy, but I don’t feel that way, I just feel unmotivated. At primary school I was one of the more intelligent kids in class. Due to how the Dutch school system works however all the attention went to the kids who were struggling to keep up, whereas the ones who were struggling with boredom got more or less ignored. I never had homework the way others had, I learned fast and worked fast and got everything done at school so that I would have the afternoons and evenings to myself.
This continued, partially, on in high school. Subjects I enjoyed I would be done with on time. The ones I didn’t I kept postponing untill the last minute and then either failed or got just a high enough grade to pass the class.
Fast forward to university. I hated half the program. Science didn’t interest me, I wanted to be a therapist and all the courses I had to do that didn’t involve that I made sure I put as little effort in it as possible without failling them. I didn’t go to college a lot. I skipped almost all morning lectures, unless attendancy was measured and you had to be there or you would fail. I stretched deadlines and managed to maneuver my way through 5 years of this without getting caught in lies once. I know it’s not a healthy way to go about life, but it’s a way that I have been using for atleast the past 20 years and I’m not sure how to change it.
Right now I’m still suffering from the same issues. I have gained a lot of weight over the past two years, as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, and finding the motivation to hit the gym consistently is hard. I rather stay in bed than get up and go. It’s the same with applying for jobs. I just can’t find the motivation to actively browse jobs, write letters, update my resumé and apply. It’s all detrimental to myself, I’ll never leave the house or get my own life if I don’t have work, and yet I can’t stop doing it. I’m just not motivated, at all.
The only motivation I seem to have is when it comes to playing video games. And even thent it’s waning. I can love a game for a while and then completely discard it a few months later. It’s the regular cycle on Diablo III for me, it’s becoming a bit of a cycle on World of Warcraft and it has happened on FFXIV aswell. Not to mention all the non MMO games I’ve bought over the past year and have barely played. I pick them up, play for an hour or so, put them down and then never look back. By the time I feel the need to play again I’m completely lost as to what and where the story is so I have to start over. Which I detest. So instead the games just lie there, gathering dust.
I do feel like I am on a crucial point in my life where I need to start changing some of my habits. I’m afraid I will be stuck in my infinite cycle otherwise with no way of getting out. And that scares the hell out of me.