[Other] Feeling completely lost.

[Overflight]

Hello everyone. If you've been in IRC for the past few months you've probably heard me whine about this subject several times. Well, I decided to bother you yet again in this format in the hopes I can get some more structured responses. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Anyway, here's the self pitying gist of my life so far: during my first years at school I for whatever reason kept acting disruptive. Eventually my teachers found that by keeping me busy with work, I would not bother anyone. To their surprise, I completed everything at an accelerated rate, even managing to complete textbooks from the following year. The school then decided to let me skip a grade. Unfortunately, from that point on, my new classmates didn't like me and thus I became a bullied outcast all the way from 4th to 9th grade, despite having changed schools at one point. From that point on it stopped but the damage was done and I couldn't form friendships other than two or three. However, I kept soldiering on because I erroneously believed I was a genius, destined to change the world, a belief that persisted due to school in general coming easily to him. I was dumb enough to keep believing this despite the fact that while I was at the top of my class, I wasn't at THE top. When the time came to apply to college, I decided to apply to Aerospace Engineering because I had the childish delusion that Icould become an astronaut, this despite in retrospect not having that much of an interest in space apart from owning a couple of books on the subject. I got in despite the strict entry requirements and everything seemed to go along smoothly.

Then everything came crashing down.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, the "curse of the gifted" hit me full force. All of a sudden, the difficulty of school skyrocketed and I had zero work ethic. My grades plummeted along with my self esteem and overall sanity. Whereas the logical reaction to this was to DEVELOP study habits, which I certainly attempted, my subconscious decided to retaliate by developing chronic procrastination, which I already had to some extent but this time completely dominated my life. Thus, I am now on the verge of completing my course...after 7.5 years, whereas the course is 5 years in length. And with such undisciplined studying that my mom recently said to me "I don't know how in the world you managed to finish"

Which brings us to here: I am now tasked with writing my graduate thesis, something which has driven my procrastination to new levels. I can literally spend WEEKS not writing a SINGLE word.I have already surpassed the first semester deadline (in my defense, I heard practically no one manages to complete it in one semester) and hopefully I will complete it next year. But right now I find myself completely lost: my course supposedly has 0% unemployment but I have no idea where most of my classmates are working. I have lost all interest I previously had in this area (for example, I didn't even know about Curiosity until TODAY), I have no idea what interest I COULD pursue as a career and given my horrible procrastination habits I sometimes wonder if I am capable of ANY job AT ALL (though I can work as long as I feel like I'm being supervised or have someone else with me...which is why all this talk about the rise of telecommuting scares the crap out of me) Add that to the economy and I can't keep myself from falling into a spiral of hopelessness. I sometimes find myself looking for other things I could do but I can't keep from comparing myself to people who found their "passion" at an early age and feeling like I could never surpass them. Other times I find myself endlessly reading articles about how bad the economy is and how it may never recover, the "lost generation", how climate change will destroy our way of life, and other things...

...I don't know what to do. Anyone has any advice?

 

[Zappit]

Substitute teaching's a good job for someone with your set of problems. You could start there. Literally something new and different every day, and you'll get a sense of what you do enjoy and want to pursue. You get the challenge of adapting to new situations without feeling a real "daily grind". Lots of other people around, and I've found most other teachers to be great coworkers and very helpful to the subs. The money's...not that bad. Not great. But at least you'll get a sense of purpose.

You can also walk away from it if you need to, since you're not on a contract.

 

[Overflight]

...oops, I didn't notice that at one point the "location" thing was erased. Anyway, yeah, not sure if that would work here (teachers in this country are having a hard time getting placement as it is). Interesting idea though. Thanks anyway.

 

[MindDetective]

First off: I've been there. I was very close to leaving graduate school and finding something else to do. What you're experiencing doesn't sound all that uncommon. Don't chase after some mythical "passion". Polymaths, for instance, don't have a passion but express an interest in whatever catches their eye. Life is filled with interesting things. You do not need to devote yourself to a single one of them.

I will not speak to any of the social issues or feelings of hopelessness. I'm sure it all feels interconnected but that just means focusing on one part of the issue will influence all of the other things. So I will provide advice on the procrastination part. Having just lectured in my Gen Psych class on Motivation, this may sound a little lecture-y. Sorry about being stuck in that mode still.

We spend a lot of time making sense of our actions and our decisions after the fact. That is, we frequently will act or decide and then we try to figure out why we did it or what we did. This means that feeling motivated may follow from accomplishing something, not the other way around. We usually think of motivation as something that precedes acting. It does, but is usually inspired by some other success. So the trick to motivation may be a simple one, although it can be made more complicated by other factors. Still, it is simple enough to give it a try. So here are some concrete quick tips to get that thesis going. Whether or not you believe me, they will work, if you follow them to the letter.

1.) Find a new place to begin your work. This place should be quiet and you should not be terribly familiar with it. You need to learn the association of work with the desired behavior: writing.
2.) If you are on a laptop or other computer, make sure your browser is completely closed. If you need to research something online, use a different browser that you don't normally use. It won't have your bookmarks and history, making casual browsing more difficult. If you are comfortable doing a major portion of the first draft hand-written in a notebook, that would be even better.
3.) Set the tiniest meaningful goal you can imagine. It is easy to think of the enormity of a big project but that may seem daunting enough to put you off. Ignore it all. You have only one thing to think of: Write the next sentence. I find I work best with an outline first but you may not. Either way, once you sit down in front of that blank computer screen, you have only one sentence to write. That's it.
4.) Don't edit your sentence when you are done. Editing comes later. Worry about the next sentence.
5.) When you've written two sentences, you might as well write a paragraph.
6.) Try to write for no more than 20 minutes, then take a break. If you take a break, leave the area. A timer may be useful here, both for the 20 minute sessions and the 5 minute breaks.
7.) 300 words (a little over a page, double spaced) is a decent goal. If you are writing a 15000 word thesis, it will be done in two months at most. You'll find that many days you will write more than 300 words. Don't think about how many total words you need to write, though. See step 3.)
8.) Work yourself up to it. Tomorrow (or today), write for one 20 minute session in your new Writing Spot (tm). Then you are done. Feel good about your small success and leave it alone for the rest of the day. The next day you can work for two 40 minute sessions. You are re-learning to be motivated here. Don't expect it to come all at once.
9.) When you are done, you are done. Do not open your browser or start playing a game. Your new Writing Spot (tm) is sacred ground. It belongs ONLY to the thesis. After you have reached the day's goal, leave the area. Do your procrastinating somewhere else.
10.) Don't listen to the doubts. Those doubts are not the reason you are here. There is no Freudian unconscious conflict you are experiencing. The doubts stem from the procrastination, not the other way around. Defeating the doubts means re-learning your motivation.

11.) Go!

 

[Overflight]

Thanks for the tips! As you might imagine one of the ways I spend time procrastinating is by finding anti procrastinating tips. I will definitely be trying those.

Another book I've been following is The Now Habit. I haven't gotten to the meat of the book yet but the section that talks about the cause of chronic procrastination (especially "associating your work with your self worth") really speak to me.

 

[doomdragon6]

Haha. The "curse of the gifted", I like that. I would define it slightly differently, as "people who naturally do well do excellently; however, when it becomes a challenge (having to study), they fail"

Granted, you made it through one of the hardest-sounding courses I've heard of in a while, so.

Procrastination is an interesting thing. You can feel completely uninspired for months, then all of a sudden one day you get a burst of inspiration and can do everything.

My best example of this was having to build a website. I had absolutely no drive to do it for months and was going to hand it off to someone else. Then I got the "Fight With Smithy" midi song from Super Mario RPG stuck in my head, and decided to play it. All of a sudden I felt compelled to work on the website. I played the song (remember, this is a midi from an SNES game) on loop for about 6 hours until I was done with the core design.

I don't fucking know why that happened, but yeah. Procrastination is interesting.

 

[Bowielee]

Well, you're currently handling the situation better than I did. I had a similar situation, but ended up dropping out and working crap jobs for a good 13 years before I could get back into school. I'm now HIGHLY motivated in all my scholarly persuits because I know exactly what it is I'm working towards.

 

[Mathias]

Hello everyone. If you've been in IRC for the past few months you've probably heard me whine about this subject several times. Well, I decided to bother you yet again in this format in the hopes I can get some more structured responses. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Anyway, here's the self pitying gist of my life so far: during my first years at school I for whatever reason kept acting disruptive. Eventually my teachers found that by keeping me busy with work, I would not bother anyone. To their surprise, I completed everything at an accelerated rate, even managing to complete textbooks from the following year. The school then decided to let me skip a grade. Unfortunately, from that point on, my new classmates didn't like me and thus I became a bullied outcast all the way from 4th to 9th grade, despite having changed schools at one point. From that point on it stopped but the damage was done and I couldn't form friendships other than two or three. However, I kept soldiering on because I erroneously believed I was a genius, destined to change the world, a belief that persisted due to school in general coming easily to him. I was dumb enough to keep believing this despite the fact that while I was at the top of my class, I wasn't at THE top. When the time came to apply to college, I decided to apply to Aerospace Engineering because I had the childish delusion that Icould become an astronaut, this despite in retrospect not having that much of an interest in space apart from owning a couple of books on the subject. I got in despite the strict entry requirements and everything seemed to go along smoothly.

Then everything came crashing down.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, the "curse of the gifted" hit me full force. All of a sudden, the difficulty of school skyrocketed and I had zero work ethic. My grades plummeted along with my self esteem and overall sanity. Whereas the logical reaction to this was to DEVELOP study habits, which I certainly attempted, my subconscious decided to retaliate by developing chronic procrastination, which I already had to some extent but this time completely dominated my life. Thus, I am now on the verge of completing my course...after 7.5 years, whereas the course is 5 years in length. And with such undisciplined studying that my mom recently said to me "I don't know how in the world you managed to finish"

Which brings us to here: I am now tasked with writing my graduate thesis, something which has driven my procrastination to new levels. I can literally spend WEEKS not writing a SINGLE word.I have already surpassed the first semester deadline (in my defense, I heard practically no one manages to complete it in one semester) and hopefully I will complete it next year. But right now I find myself completely lost: my course supposedly has 0% unemployment but I have no idea where most of my classmates are working. I have lost all interest I previously had in this area (for example, I didn't even know about Curiosity until TODAY), I have no idea what interest I COULD pursue as a career and given my horrible procrastination habits I sometimes wonder if I am capable of ANY job AT ALL (though I can work as long as I feel like I'm being supervised or have someone else with me...which is why all this talk about the rise of telecommuting scares the crap out of me) Add that to the economy and I can't keep myself from falling into a spiral of hopelessness. I sometimes find myself looking for other things I could do but I can't keep from comparing myself to people who found their "passion" at an early age and feeling like I could never surpass them. Other times I find myself endlessly reading articles about how bad the economy is and how it may never recover, the "lost generation", how climate change will destroy our way of life, and other things...

...I don't know what to do. Anyone has any advice?

NASA's taking applications for astronauts. Hell, I applied too! Give it a try!

Graduate thesis writing sucks. Period. I don't think anyone in the history of graduate school has ever been motivated to finish their thesis with anything other than their committee breathing down their neck. Do what Mind suggested. Baby steps. I do recommend finishing your degree. If you're at the thesis writing stage it means essentially you have to defend and you're done. Think about that accomplishment first and foremost. If you've decided to pursue other interests that's great too. You'll still have the degree.

 

[Overflight]

BTW, earlier this week I installed RescueTime. This was the result:

http://www.diigo.com/item/image/1pkxm/7rgd?size=o



Note: despite this reaction, I now have the urge to buy this. Maybe this is EXACTLY what I need. However, I'm somewhat leery of a program that logs ALL my activity: a couple of torrent sites are on there which I managed to delete, but slip ups happen...

 

[Overflight]

Update on this: Well, I managed to get about half the page limit done...unfortunately, it has a LOT more graphs than text. I hardly managed to work these few MONTHS and the OTHER deadline (May) is already fast approaching. Luckily I managed to talk to my professor and he gave me a plan for the rest. Which includes a LOT more graphs. I fear that this will be a TERRIBLE thesis. I'm trying to talk myself into believing that what matters is that this gets done but it isn't easy.

Not only that, but now I currently find myself thinking that my ENTIRE life is a failure: I'm 24 years old, never had a girlfriend, have a total of TWO friends who are FAR more mature than me and I feel like a hassle in their presence and I'm starting to fear that my entire existence has been horribly sheltered and I am incapable of autonomy: I know how to cook, clean and stuff like that but I'm horribly indecisive, have no idea what to do with my life, my parents still treat me like a teenager and I never stand up to them and once again with stuff like the economy makes me think that my life will be hell from here on out. I'm not going to lie: there are times where I literally want to end it all. I won't do it because I don't want to cause more grief than I already have but it's becoming unbearable. My councilor says I may be depressed and that I should be medicated but my parents say it's probably because of a bunch of things that are MY fault ("You don't talk to people" "You don't get enough exercise", blah blah blah) yet were quick to suggest that my unemployed brother get antidepressants when he said he was feeling down.

I hate my life.

 

[strawman]

My councilor says I may be depressed and that I should be medicated but my parents say

Yeah, so, you've tried the things your parents have said and either it's not working, or you aren't at a point in your life where you can do them.

In other words, stick with the advice your counselor is giving you. Seek medical help. You probably have insurance - use it, that's what it's there for. If not I'm sure your counselor can point you to school resources. You are not the only person with these problems, and they are not uncommon. There are things that can be done to help you with them. You don't need to discuss your medical care with your parents if they aren't being supportive, even if they are paying for your insurance or supporting you in other ways.

It's already been several months since your last post - don't delay it any longer.

 

[Overflight]

Unfortunately, my insurance is useless since at this moment I have NO income: my parents stopped paying my allowance since I'm "taking too long". They only paid this year's tuition and claim the next one will "be paid by Ronald McDonald"

 

[LittleKagsin]

I'm sorry to hear this.

From my personal experience with depression, medication isn't a terrible thing to have until you feel for stable and slightly more in control of what you're doing. It helped me calm down and not panic so much until I got enough counsil to learn how to deal with what I was feeling. I used to feel the same way: that I was a burden to friends and had no direction, feeling outcast from my family. I know it's easy to feel like you're problem, but..I think it goes deeper than that. For someone who doesn't know exactly what you're going through, it's hard to relate and easy to forget that there are people that do care about you, no matter how much a burden you think you are (which is never as much as you believe yourself to be). EDIT: If you don't have insurance to help pay for medical help - you sound like you're in college - try up on campus and see if they can either help or direct you to someone who can help you.

Also, have you ever tried to have your parents come and talk to a counselor with you? It may help them to understand that you need their support and help. Maybe the counselor can talk to them in way that would make them better understand what you're going through.

Getting out and meeting new people is scary and I wish I could just give you a gentle shove out the door, but are there any extracurricular clubs or things going on around you that you could join? (I was bored out of my mind, found my that my old art teacher was doing a watercolor class outside of her teaching. I joined and have loved every second of it!)

Sorry I'm not more help. Just try and hold on and learn to love what you've got and explore what you don't know.

 

[strawman]

my insurance is useless since at this moment I have NO income

Check to see what, if any, services your school offers. Many universities have low cost health care and counseling. Also, if you have a religious affiliation, talk to your local religious leaders, who may also have some resources for free or low-cost care and counseling.

 

[Overflight]

OK, I'm feeling a bit better now. One of the reasons why I'm reluctant to get medication is that these episodes are pretty fleeting. The procrastination I think is another issue entirely (I see myself in fade's ADHD posts). Thanks for your advice, everyone.