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Sometimes life gets hard. Not in the sense that you are struggling from moment to moment, hard in a way that only people in the ivory towers can understand. I guess the best way to describe it is that sometimes you just go numb.

How do you get over those humps? How do you keep yourself moving?

Going over one right now. Steeling myself for when I go back down to my old place to start taking my stuff out and sorting through it all with my GF. (This coming weekend) Before making the permanent move back up here with my brother.

That's one fucking huge hump.

How do I keep myself going? Go see the "Guess Who's Single" thread for my motivation.

Put one foot in front of the other.

In the most literal meaning. Find out what you need to do to make your life better and go for it.

Dear Necronic,

The biggest secret is to make many and various short term goals. Like "go grocery shopping tomorrow" or "go see Iron Man 2 tonight". Stuff like that. The main thing this does is keeps your mind off of the hump and focuses your attention on the future. Then before you know it you are over the hump and moving along just fine!

Dave said:

Dear Necronic,

The biggest secret is to make many and various short term goals. Like "go grocery shopping tomorrow" or "go see Iron Man 2 tonight". Stuff like that. The main thing this does is keeps your mind off of the hump and focuses your attention on the future. Then before you know it you are over the hump and moving along just fine!

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Funny enough this speech applies to everything in life:

One gaping hole of suck for me is when my husband is deployed. I have learned to just take things day by day instead of focusing on the date when he returns. When things get bad, I tell myself to just make it through today and tomorrow will be another chance to try again. I give myself some pampering, like getting a monthly pedicure since it is something I really enjoy and it takes my mind off of waiting for the phone to ring. I also try to do some self-improvement while he's away. Last time he was deployed, I started taking college classes because I have put off getting my degree for too long. Having something else to focus on makes all the difference, IMO.

We got through Parris Island with the mantra "Chow to chow, Sunday to Sunday." I.E. set short-term goals during the course of your big goal. If you focus on accomplishing smaller tasks (i.e. paying bills for the month, buying groceries, mowing the lawn), then you not only get the pride of feeling as though you've accomplished something, you move ever-closer to what your intended goal is. Obviously, there is a more specific breakdown of goals for more specific tasks, but I speak merely of generalities.

Looks like I am through the hump. I like the advice about short term goals, but it doesn't really apply to me. I'm not a goal oriented person in the slightest. Setting goals is basically telling myself "I'm never going to do this". That said its something I should work on in general.

What helped me out was forcing myself to leave the apartment. I would get home from work or school and be crazy tired and just sit on the couch for 3-5 hours watching TV then go to sleep. That's really what made me feel the hump. All work and no play make Necronic something something. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but right now I am also exceptionally broke, more broke than I have been in a LONG time. So it wasn't easy for me to just go do something, I could financially justify sitting in the apartment all night.

But I said fuck it, and I've been forcing myself to go out, even if I can't afford it, and also go do some stuff that doesn't cost money. Sometimes I go to the coffee shop and sit on my laptop while spending as little cash as possible, other times I go to the local gaming store and just hang out, play some board games.

It also helps that school is now over and work has gotten somewhat better. Better is the wrong word. I guess the better way to say it is that things have gotten so bad that my boss isn't getting pissed anymore and we both have just gotten to the point where all we can do is laugh about the next thing that breaks. So, its like its gotten so bad that we aren't getting frustrated at it. Also I think he got a demotion recently, which was why he was being a pain in the ass, but now I think he's a lot happier to not have the added responsibility.

Got an A in my class too. Felt good.