need ... inspiration ...

[veronica_rich]

This is totally not an emo post. I'm just missing my - inspiration, mojo, work ethic, whatever you want to call it. I have no desire to do much anymore, and it's driving me batty. I spent years working hard - good grades in high school and college, awards when I could, worked hard on my career (70 hours a week or more for little pay) out of college, got all kinds of awards there, too. Heck, when I lost my job five years ago, I took up temping and all kinds of part-time work just to stay afloat financially. I've lived on freelancing and legal work for the past several years. But I've hit a wall; I just can't do it anymore. I can't summon up the energy or inspiration or anything.

At this point in my career, as hard as I've worked, I ought to be somewhere, not stalled at a place 12 years in with nothing to show for it except a fancy resume I can't really use anywhere. I can't afford grad school, can't really afford to move and look somewhere else for an actual career-type job, and I simply don't know what to do to keep my spirits up and my "train on the track" these days. I've become lazy and uninspired, and that really sucks.

Comments

[heartofslash.livejournal.com]

I'm not very good at inspiring people unless there's sex involved. Hot, dirty, nasty sex is a speciality. But I can do snuggly schmoopy sex if called upon to do so.

So I'll have to simply offer *hugs*

[venusinchains.livejournal.com]

The folks who get the farthest in our modern "business" world tend to be the backbiting assholes who never look beyond their own wants. I know you're socially conscious (with a "moral center" even), so you were doomed to have less luck in "business" (and all the schooling in the world won't help you if you're not willing to suck up to the boss). You should take heart that there are things more important to you than capitalism.

~

Have you tried exercise? Nature walks can do wonders (if you have the time).

[chibikat-wtf.livejournal.com]

I'm awfully sorry you feel that way. ._. I sort of know what you mean - I'm stuck in this office job until the end of the summer, when I start school up again. I've had no time to rest, so I feel like I'm wasting whatever time I do have sitting in some office, doing work that no one really cares about. Believe me, I empathise.

I guess the only suggestion I could make is that you start saving more money than before to move/go back to school/whatever it is you feel you need to do. Yeah, it's an obvious answer, and I'm sorry I can't think of anything better, but... >_O

[dejectedmadness.livejournal.com]

I don't comment much, but I wanted to tell you that I know how you feel. Not in the sense of having the slightest idea exactly what you've gone through to get to the place you are today, but in the way that I feel like I'm running and pushing on and dragging boulders behind me and getting exactly nowhere. I've been doing everything that is expected of me for the last 21 years of my life and working as hard as I can just to get through, graduate, and get out from under my parents' thumbs, but it's gotten to the point where I just can't make myself sit down and write that report, or where I think if I see another differential equation, I'm going to pop someone in the face.

My best friend gets me through. We both know that I don't want to go where my degree intends for me to go. I don't want to be an engineer. We started a band. It's hardly serious, but just a little hint in the back of my mind that says, "Maybe it will work out," is enough to keep me going long enough to graduate.

I suggest just finding a side project. Something that you can do, maybe with someone you care about, that can push you in a new direction so maybe you can discover some kind of inspiration to keep going.

I don't know if I am any kind of helpful. Hope you figure things out.

[queenoftheeggs.livejournal.com]

What I am about to tell you may sound completely naive and immature, but I firmly believe it.

Pack up, quit your job (or take a break from it if you can), and go away. Go far away and take a lot of risks. Do something you've always wanted to, or something that scares you...ANYTHING.

In order to be inspired and feel accomplished and alive you need to break out of the rut that put yourself in this mood in the first place.

Maybe this is too drastic, but as dejectedmadness said: you need a project to take your mind off of what's boring you. Whether it's a newfound love of photography, or taking a roadtrip to a random city...I'm sure anything will do. Break out of the routine.

This is much easier said than done, but I truly believe this.

Hope everything works out.

Something to cheer you up...

[gloromeien.livejournal.com]

From Jane Magazine:

PIRATE FANS CALL FOR DEPP + BLOOM TO GO GAY

Fans of magazine gossip are campaigning for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN co-stars ORLANDO BLOOM and JOHNNY DEPP to star in a gay love scene together. When readers of America's Jane magazine were asked who they'd cast as homosexual lovers in a BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN sequel, they unanimously gave the movie pirates their vote. Depp has already admitted his Pirates of the Caribbean character, CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW, has a gay quality about him, insisting his research suggested many pirates were bisexual. In one recent interview, the movie hunk said, "Pirates went to sea for years at a time. You're lonely... you have an extra ration of rum... 'Cabin boy!'"

But seriously, as an early thirties dame who is also a struggling freelance writer/editor and former overachiever, I feel your pain. In fact, many women I encounter who were driven in their scholastic years have all suffered from a serious burn-out at some time in their lates twenties, sometimes later on. It's a constant struggle to stay focused, despite low wages, fighting for the right jobs, the desire to feel established which will not be foreseably realized for a long while, and frustration with the inanity omnipresent in the world. Or maybe it's just me.

I do agree with the exercise comment, a beginner's yoga class has really helped me, but I also find a lot of encouragement in just treating myself to the things that do get my blood going, trying to enjoy cultural activities to the fullest, and deriving inspiration from the fact that these artists must have struggled at some point, too. I try to squeeze as much pleasure as I can from the things I love, literature, film, television, music, and art. Getting lost in these fantastical universes helps to distract me from the charge and reinvigorate my energies. Doesn't always work, but it can also be a comfort of sorts.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I understand completely where you are coming from and that you are not alone.

Cheers,

-G. ;D

[finding-neo.livejournal.com]

Sorry to say, I don't have the energy to comment....

I hope to hell you're at least getting joy out of watching Johnny on Letterman RIGHT NOW!!

I don't value much these days....LOL

[captsparrow4evr.livejournal.com]

Have you thought about getting on a reality show like The Amazing Race? Or Survivor? If you won, you would get lots of money. If you didn't win, you might at least be famous enough to get invited to the PotC3 premiere (and who knows? Maybe you'll meet Orlando Bloom and he'll fall head-over-heels in love with you, leave Kate Bosworth, and end up your devoted love-slave for the rest of eternity.) Okay, maybe not.;)

All kidding aside, I understand where you're coming from, love. I have to admit that I'm still in something of a depression from seeing DMC. Not that I disliked it or didn't enjoy it, it just didn't inspire me like the first one did. What we need is a good crack-fic to break us out of this. Something like Will/Kraken or Elizabeth/Bootstrap or-or better yet, Elizabeth/Kraken:

"Ooh, Krakie, you know just how to use your tentacles to keep a girl happy!":D

[a-silver-rose.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the anxiety. I've got a parent very likely coming from from hospice care next week, when said parent, in my opinion, is not physically able to handle being alone while the rest of us go to work in order to keep a roof over our heads. Which means a possibility that what little social life we have will be going down the tubes because we have to park our arses at home to make sure the parent does not get more injured than they are already. And that's in addition to not being able to afford health and dental insurance, a government that's more interested in legislating my morality than making sure citizens poorer than me earn enough to feed them and theirs, and the general suckiness of my life.

Which is why I write on the side. I'd rather get paid for it, but it's still my best way to escape right now. That, and the knowledge that what goes around comes around, so those srewing me over will get screwed over themselves. I just want to be there to witness it firsthand.

- Silver Rose