Discipline... Finding Reasons to Keep Doing Things Even When Life Overwhelms Us
Do you ever find yourself at one of those points in your life where you just want to give up? Throw in the proverbial towel?
It's not What You Think...
It's not so much that you're actually tired of life, or that you hate what you're doing, you just reach that point where you have grown weary of having to be endlessly relentless about your work, your life, and everything in it, and you recognize that there is not only no end in sight, but there will never be an end.
I suppose we all have different personalities.
One of the reasons I got out of working a regular 9 to 5 job and switched to becoming an independent contractor, and subsequently became entirely self-employed... was precisely that I had grown to understand about myself that I grow very tired of doing things that seem to have no end.
If I know there is a definite end to something - a finite point where I can just stop - then I find it much easier to apply myself with a great deal of energy and discipline to whatever I'm supposed to be doing, compared to when it just seems endless.
For example, I'm about a quarter of the way through an "art and creativity challenge" that I'm using my art account for here on Hive, and it's a 100-day challenge. That might seem extremely overwhelming to some people but I'm finding that I will probably complete it simply because I know it's going to be a hundred days, and at the end of 100 days I can just stop.
I used to think that this feeling of hopelessness that goes with endlessness was just a product of working at a job where any potential end might only come when you retire.
In recent years though, I have come to recognize that it can actually also be applied to self-employment. In my case, particularly to the fact that I am self-employed and I recognize that I will likely have to work for the rest of my life... however long that might be.
Sometimes the prospect of that, perhaps more than the reality, leaves me feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. Don't we ever get to just stop?
Of course, as I wrote fairly recently, all choices have consequences!
One of the things I have chosen in this life is to not be terribly ambitious, and to be self-employed, and the consequence of that is that I haven't amassed a small (or large!) fortune and I don't have a great pension scheme!
Combine that with a long series of life events that essentially boil down to "unfortunate timing," and I find that some of these consequences have come home to roost and weigh rather heavily on me. Not suggesting that they are unfair in any way, I pretty much knew what I got into.
Perhaps the feeling is perhaps best expressed with the analogy of a marathon runner who can love running the marathon but can still feel dead tired around mile 22 and wish that the race were over.
Discipline is an interesting beast! I can be very disciplined as a means onto an end, but not for its own sake. When I have made enough for next month's bills, I just want to stop.
Choices have consequences...
Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!
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Created at 2024-03-16 02:12 PDT
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You mentioned something about being terribly ambitious
Can you please explain further?
It can be quite the mental game. I have been cutting trees on a lot for a good while. Some days it feels like endless! The only way I can stay motivated to stay in the game is to look at how far I have come already.
So much truth. I completely get what you are going through. I spent most of my life shunning the kinds of corporate jobs that I was certain would make me feel trapped, and instead working for myself, working on a contract basis, and filling in my income by working in restaurants. Finally, about 12 years ago I decided that I had to get serious about income and took a dreaded corporate job. It has solved some things, of course (that’s the cool thing about a steady income and paid healthcare), but at the same time my desire to be retired and done is ratcheting up daily!