I read and identified with and commented on your post a year and a half ago. I just wanted to say I’m glad to know that you’re feeling more ambitious now. And thanks for sharing. I haven’t solved these same problems for myself nearly to the same extent, so learning about your recent experiences is extremely valuable for me.
Went back and read your comment-I remember that! It sounded like you weren’t doing too badly at the time, externally at least. Then again, I’ve never dealt with depression as a side effect of aiming for goals that were too hard. Massive anxiety, crying in the washroom at work, not sleeping, yes, but never the ongoing invades-your-whole-life apathy of clinical depression.
I can always tell myself “if you keep banging your head on this seemingly insurmountable problem, sooner or later you’ll get past it” because it always has in the past, probably because I can bang my head on something for quite a long time when most people might otherwise give up. Example: despite plenty of anxiety and feelings-of-inadequacy, I have stuck with taekwondo longer than everyone else who started at the same time as me, and will probably get my black belt next summer. The one example is swimming, where I stopped banging my head on the specific problem of getting faster, and then a large part of me took this as evidence that I was a failure with no willpower, while the rest of me went off and became a local expert on teaching swimming to kids. I still think it’s a useful skill to be able to work on a problem out of habit, repeatedly, without necessarily spending much time thinking about it once the initial exploration-and-decision is done. Helps with the frustration and inadequacy part.
I read and identified with and commented on your post a year and a half ago. I just wanted to say I’m glad to know that you’re feeling more ambitious now. And thanks for sharing. I haven’t solved these same problems for myself nearly to the same extent, so learning about your recent experiences is extremely valuable for me.
Went back and read your comment-I remember that! It sounded like you weren’t doing too badly at the time, externally at least. Then again, I’ve never dealt with depression as a side effect of aiming for goals that were too hard. Massive anxiety, crying in the washroom at work, not sleeping, yes, but never the ongoing invades-your-whole-life apathy of clinical depression.
I can always tell myself “if you keep banging your head on this seemingly insurmountable problem, sooner or later you’ll get past it” because it always has in the past, probably because I can bang my head on something for quite a long time when most people might otherwise give up. Example: despite plenty of anxiety and feelings-of-inadequacy, I have stuck with taekwondo longer than everyone else who started at the same time as me, and will probably get my black belt next summer. The one example is swimming, where I stopped banging my head on the specific problem of getting faster, and then a large part of me took this as evidence that I was a failure with no willpower, while the rest of me went off and became a local expert on teaching swimming to kids. I still think it’s a useful skill to be able to work on a problem out of habit, repeatedly, without necessarily spending much time thinking about it once the initial exploration-and-decision is done. Helps with the frustration and inadequacy part.