Passion

I think it was a psychologist who once told me that if you don't know what you're passionate about, try being passionate about whatever it is you're doing. That's the trick, I suppose, being able to manufacture motivation and drive where there would otherwise be none. Still, often the act of believing something is enough to make it so. These may seem like strange words coming from someone like me, slightly cynical and as pessimistic as I often am. Funny thing is, I think I really believe them. I'm not talking about anything supernatural or paranormal - although I went through that phase in my teenage years - but, as I keep saying, a little self-belief can go a long way to creating confidence, and all manner of good things can flow from there. I keep harking back to this because, although I have accepted this idea intellectually, I haven't embraced it emotionally yet. I keep repeating it for my own benefit, in the hope it will sink in.

My idea of passion isn't an elitist one. I don't believe it only matters if you're driven to be a doctor or lawyer or pilot; it's not about external measures of success, it's about individual emotional fulfillment. If your dream is to become a human rights lawyer and change the world then go for it but, equally, if it's your dream to open a fish and chip shop in a seaside town then go ahead and do that. It might sound cliched but I think that regardless of what your dream is, if you've got the courage to follow it you should be applauded. I'm not talking about following a dream at all costs with a screw-everyone-who-gets-in-my-way sort of mentality. Shirking responsibility to chase a dream is selfish and probably isn't going to leave you feeling all that rosy.

At this point in my life I have no real responsibility. Nor do I have any passion. I have a couple of vaguely-defined goals, neither of which I'm really working towards. There's the writing thing and there's also faint desire to play cricket for Australia. The latter is nothing more than a daydream considering I don't actually play cricket but, for the last couple of years at least, I've thought it would be something I'd enjoy. Not that it's actually that much crazier than me wanting to be a writer, I rarely do any writing either. The reason for this inaction, so I keep telling myself, is that I'm lazy. But that's not really true; I'm not a lazy person at all. It's really because I have no faith in myself. If I did have a real passion for something, or at least enough self-belief to pursue my current goals, I know I would whole-heartedly apply myself to achieve my objective. I know that's a cop-out - putting the solution beyond the realm of my control - but it's how I feel.

To a degree, I also feel as though not trying is a way of keeping alive the idea that anything is possible. It's counterintuitive, I know, but if I follow a dream and fail, I'll need to accept that I'll never achieve that dream. If I don't try (and consequently don't fail) then, at least in theory, I'll always be able to believe that dream is still possible. In practice, however, it is pretty clear that accepting this means accepting that I'll never achieve anything.

If it wasn't already, it should now be blindingly obvious that I over-think and over-complicate just about everything. Some advice I got in a comment a few days ago definitely needs to be applied, quite liberally, to my whole life: don't think so much. If I disconnect the unnecessary part of my brain for just a minute, one thing is clear: I'm a fool if I wait around for things to happen to me, I need to make them happen. Life is going to come and go, with or without me.

A Musical Note

There's something almost spiritual about lying in total darkness listening to your favourite song. With the headphones in and the volume up, the inside of your head becomes a concert hall for an audience of one. Your other four senses numb and you just absorb the sound while it absorbs you. That's the power of good music, the sort of music you connect with.

Music often becomes associated with the best and the worst moments of people's lives; hearing songs can take you back to times and places long forgotten, instantly recapturing emotions of years past. I can remember crying myself to sleep listening to some songs while others remind me of a time when I felt a sense of possibility that now eludes me. Good times and bad times, much of life has a soundtrack. Not in a cheesy, pop kind of way - like holiday snaps set to the latest number one single - but on a far deeper level, where a song perfectly encapsulates how you feel at a particular point in time and becomes permanently imprinted with that emotion so that every time you hear it you're reminded of your former self. It's a symbiotic relationship in a lot of ways; music has the power to influence your mood and inspire you but at the same time you are able to project your own thoughts and feelings into songs so that they become uniquely meaningful for you in a way that other people who hear the song will never know.

Songs become people, places, and raw emotions, forming an aural record of your life. When I actually think about how many songs take me back to a place or a time or a person meaningful to me, I come up with dozens. I often enjoy taking long road-trips by myself because it gives me a chance to just listen to many of those songs. For three or four minutes it's just me, the road, and a reminder of who I used to be or how I used to feel and then, for the next three or four minutes it's another memory and another outmoded version of myself. You can re-live your life in a few hours. It's a great way to reconnect with yourself, to remember how you used to feel and see how much you have or haven't changed since certain moments in your life.

There's a lot of value in this sort of refection. I think it's one of the best ways to get through a difficult time. If you can remind yourself of a period in your life when you were at your lowest, when you couldn't see how you were ever going to recover and yet you did recover, then that should be enough to give you just a little bit of hope that, even though you may once again be down and don't know how to pick yourself back up again, you'll get through it. That anguish will eventually become just another song in your playlist.

Away From Me

I’ve spent about half of the last two and a half years overseas. My travels have taken me through Asia and across the United States; I’ve already seen more of the world than I ever thought I would. That’s primarily because, as a child, I never had any real desire to travel at all. I wasn’t one of those people who couldn’t wait to finish school so they could take off and explore the far corners of civilisation – I savoured the comforts of home too much for that. A couple of years ago I decided an overseas holiday would be good for me and it really was. Since then I’ve traveled on-and-off for a couple of months at a time.

I’m a different person when I’m overseas. I don’t know what it is but for some reason, when I’m away, I feel much happier. It’s almost like I instantly become a better, more optimistic version of myself as soon as I touch down on foreign soil. I’m more confident, capable, and, in general, really enjoy life. That confidence doesn’t extend to dealing with girls but I guess I can’t have everything.

Last year I spent some time in South-East Asia with a few friends. For a few days we rented motorbikes and rode around a small town in the south of Thailand. The first day we had the bikes we took it pretty easy – I’d never ridden before – and we did a few laps of the main streets of town while we were getting the hang of our hogs (they were only about 100cc). After a few laps, a fellow tourist on the side of the road waved me down. My friends were riding ahead and once they realised I’d stopped it took them a few minutes to turn around and come back to me. The girl who'd got my attention was in her late twenties or early thirties, European and, if I may say so, pretty attractive. We were a couple of kilometers from the centre of town and sort of in the middle of a desolate area and she explained that she was looking for a monument she’d read about in her guidebook. We’d passed it a little way back and I told her it was about a half hour’s walk down the road. She wasn’t enthused about the prospect of walking all that way in the mid-afternoon heat and asked if I would mind giving her a ride. I didn’t mind at all except that, after only about twenty minutes of riding the bike I didn’t fancy my chances of being able to maintain my balance with a passenger on the back. When my friends eventually caught up to me and I explained what had transpired they just laughed at me. I’m forever whining that I can’t pick up a girl and when one literally asks me to pick her up I decline.

Then there was the time I was wandering around a mall in New York and out of the blue a girl comes up to me and nervously says, “my friend overheard you talking and thinks your accent is really cute, where are you from?” Somehow I manage to walk away from that situation having politely explained that I was only in town for a day and in a couple of weeks would be heading back to Australia. What was I thinking? In fairness to me, I was working that day and was in a bit of a hurry but I didn’t think to get a phone number or an e-mail address or anything. Opportunities like that never present themselves to me and when they do I don’t recognise them. The universe is probably thinking, “what do we have to do for this guy, send him a singing telegram?” Maybe that would help; at least it’d get my attention.

My monumental ignorance notwithstanding, I really enjoy my time overseas. It takes a lot to get me down when I’m away. When I get home, for a few days at least, I maintain that positive state of mind but it doesn’t take long for me to lose the momentum and sink back into an apathetic stupor.

It’s tempting to take off again but, right now, it just doesn’t feel right. It would almost be like I would be running away from my problems, which are all pretty much inside my head anyway. There must be a reason why my mood alters so drastically depending on my geographical location. I will head overseas again sometime this year but I first want to work out why I’m so unhappy while I’m here. I’ve got no reason to be – my family and friends are supportive and I have life very easy. Maybe my discontent and disconnectedness is my way of telling myself that, right now, I should be somewhere else.

A Different Approach

I was at a barbecue today, thinking that all I ever seem to do is play tennis and go to barbecues. I still haven't done any writing, despite wanting to. Or at least thinking I want to. This week I will do it - I'll make myself do it and accept no excuses.

I got a comment from Kylie yesterday, talking about how my friend's suggested approach for talking to the girl seemed a little much. She suggested being a little more casual about it and slowly building a rapport by making small talk a few times. In theory, I agree. Being too direct could scare someone off. Strangely enough, it scares me more to think about just making small talk. I'd be less afraid to just ask her out. That's a little weird, right? How can it be harder to make small talk? I don't know why but I feel like I have more to lose doing things that way. It's almost as if I'm expecting to fail and want to get it over and done with more quickly. Spending time trying to get to know someone feels like it would be time wasted and just a way of falsely getting my hopes up.

Maybe I don't think I can take any more rejection. It's not much fun. But how am I going to break the cycle if I don't try? I feel like anyone who would agree to go out with me would only do so out of pity; like they'd be doing me a favour. I just can't believe that I'm desirable, on any level.

I remember asking someone out about five years ago. It was someone I'd gone to school with and had stayed in semi-regular contact with after we graduated. A mutual friend told me that, unbeknown to me, she had been interested in me for a few years. I called her up and we went out for a cup of coffee. Incidentally, this isn't the story I alluded to yesterday, where I, according to a friend, behaved so pathetically I disgraced all mankind, but this isn't much better and I would probably do things differently if I had the opportunity. Come to think of it, I could probably write a (humorous?) book about how not to ask girls out. I've figured out quite a few of the wrong ways to do it.

Anyway, we met for coffee. I hadn't been having a great year and was struggling to figure out where my life was headed. I was pretty depressed. So I told her that. It was a really stupid thing to do but it felt right at the time. I told her that I'd liked her for a while and that I wanted to go out with her but I thought it was only fair to her to let her know I was going through an emotional rough patch at that time. How dumb can I be? I mean, really? Looking back, it's quite obvious that I was subconsciously trying to sabotage myself. What astounds me is that I didn't consciously realise it at the time. I'm happy to say that I haven't repeated that mistake - I realised that moroseness isn't something most people find endearing. But I do think I've probably been the victim of self-sabotage on numerous occasions. And that begs the question, is it that I only think I'm going to fail or do I really want myself to fail? If I continue to undermine myself the way I have done in the past I'm probably always going to.

A Lark

On a less serious note than usual:

I played tennis again a couple of days ago. I mention this only because there are a couple of girls who work at the reception desk where I play tennis with my friend. A couple of very attractive girls. They're not always there but about half the time one of them is there behind the desk. As you may have guessed from my post a couple of weeks ago ('The Girl') I find it difficult to even make polite conversation in these situations; I'm usually all business: pay for the court, collect the key, and get out of there.

As my friend and I were walking out of the reception area and down the path towards our court I asked him how he would ask one of the girls out, just to get a different perspective on things. He knows how much I struggle in these sort of situations - he's known me more than ten years so he's seen it first hand on more than one occasion - but he's got a girlfriend and he doesn't seem to struggle talking to the opposite sex. If it seems like I'm approaching this as if I'm a nervous high school kid, it may explain a lot if I tell you that my last relationship was when I was in high school. But that's a story for another day.

My friend's response was simple: just say, "I was just wondering if you're seeing anyone?" He went on to say that if she says yes then he would say, "he's a very lucky guy," and if she says no then he'd just ask her out - to dinner or a movie or whatever. Simple as that. I was rather astounded by the simplicity of his approach. I asked him whether he was serious or whether he was just winding me up and he assured me he wasn't kidding, he figures being casual and up-front is the best way to approach it. No stupid pick-up lines or anything, just be straight-up. Do people actually say stuff like that? My friend seems to think there's no harm trying. I'm just not too sure. I've since contemplated saying something like that and it doesn't feel right. I've never been able to say anything like that in the past - although I've rarely been able to string coherent sentences together when talking to someone I'm attracted to so maybe I should just throw caution to the wind and try it. What's the worst that could happen?

Realistically, nothing that bad could happen. She could say no. She could laugh at me. That's about it. Nothing would be hurt except my pride, unless she's a judo master or something who attacks guys who hit on her, but what are the odds of that? I usually can't work up the courage to say something like this, partly because I don't exactly see myself as the catch of the day, and partly because I don't like making people uncomfortable. I don't want to put someone in a position where they've got to either make up a lie about why they can't go out with me or hurt my feelings. Just writing that down makes me realise that's such a cop-out. And I've been hiding behind that one for years. It doesn't even make sense. All someone's got to say is 'no thanks', or something to that effect, how difficult could that be? I'm not going to use that excuse anymore.

I've asked, at most, maybe a dozen girls out over the last ten years. They've all turned me down. That doesn't fill me with confidence. A couple of years ago I couldn't have been more pathetic when I asked out this one girl out. I literally couldn't have been more pathetic. I told a friend about it afterwards and he told me I was a disgrace to all mankind. Now that some time has passed I look back at the situation and laugh at how ludicrously stupid I was to say what I said. Actually, there are a couple of instances where, through nerves or whatever, I've handled it very badly. Again, I'll write about those another time. It might give you a laugh.

Now that I think about it, why should I let my less-than-stellar track record stop me? Really, why should I let that hold me back? What have I got to lose? Even if I just did it as a lark, worst-case scenario I'll have something to blog about that day. Stay tuned for updates - if I ever work up the courage to actually go through with it. I know it's going to be a lot harder in the moment than it is just sitting here in front of my computer.

Fear

Over the last couple of days I’ve been thinking about what’s been holding me back these last few years. I’ve said in previous posts that I lack confidence, and that’s a big part of why I haven’t been moving forward for a long time. But more than that, I think for a long time I’ve been afraid. Not afraid in the most obvious sense which I think is being afraid to fail and therefore not trying (which is a part of my problem) but I’m talking more about being afraid to succeed. On the surface, it doesn’t seem to make sense to be afraid of success; what is there to fear in achieving something?

I think that if you spend long enough in a situation, even an unpleasant one, you can become comfortable in it. To qualify that, I’m speaking more metaphorically than literally, and there are obviously lots of unpleasant situations that no amount of time could make comfortable. What I mean is, you can adjust your thinking over time so that you become accustomed to and even comfortable in situations that you initially don’t find pleasant. In my opinion, depression falls into this category. When you first experience it it’s no fun, but if enough time goes by it can start to feel familiar and even normal. Over time, your emotional barometer sort of resets and you can’t see a way to feel better and you don’t really know if you want to. You just sort of accept it as part of who you are. At least, that’s sort of what it was like for me. I remember a few years ago, sitting in a psychologist’s office discussing my depression and he asked me if I wanted to feel better. My honest answer to him was, ‘I don’t know’. I really didn’t know. I wanted to want to get better but I didn’t want to get better. I’m not sure where you draw the line between wanting something and wanting to want something but, at that moment, I knew what distinguished the two. I’m not sure I still know what I knew then but I at least understand how conflicted I was feeling.

To get out of an emotional hole you have to believe you can and you also have to believe that you deserve to. The latter is where I was, and am still, struggling: I didn’t feel like I deserved to get better, I felt as if being depressed was punishment – for what I’m not sure – and that I should just accept that I’m not supposed to be happy. Put simply, I just didn’t like myself. I still don’t. Just let me stop myself at this point to say that I didn’t write that in order to get people to feel sorry for me or tell me that I’m a good person, I did it to just put it out there so I can acknowledge it and hopefully move on. I’m not sure how much I’ve changed in the past few years but I think I can upgrade my 'wanting to want to get better' to 'thinking that I want to get better'. There may not even be a difference between those two things but it feels like there is to me and I think that small amount of difference is a step in the right direction - hopefully the first of many.

Getting back to the point I started to make a couple of paragraphs ago, why would someone be afraid of success? Well, once you feel like a failure, it can start to define you. It can erode your feelings of self-worth and how you perceive your abilities but, in a strange way, it can become comfortable and familiar. Once you stop expecting anything of yourself your world becomes safe and predictable. Sure, you’re not happy but the world feels like it makes sense. From this perspective, success is unpredictable because it breeds expectations. If you regard yourself as a failure you know that you are unworthy of those expectations. Make sense? Perhaps it can be better summed up by a joke I remember reading in high school drama: “I hate broccoli. And you know what? I’m glad I hate broccoli because if I liked it I’d have to eat it and I hate the stuff.” If you liked it, you wouldn’t hate it, just as if you succeeded you wouldn’t be a failure. It’s a situation where emotion rules over logic.

Once you feel comfortable where you are, the alternative can seem mysterious and even frightening. If you already feel like you’re at the bottom it would make sense to start climbing back up again except, of course, when you know you’re always going to fall, irrespective of how many times you try. If that’s the case, why even bother?

Please bear in mind that while I’ve felt that way in the past, I don’t feel that way right now, I just felt like writing about it tonight. I’m trying to un-learn a lot of the subconscious negativity that’s been standing in my way. Progress is slow but I think that, little by little, I’m getting there.

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P.S. Happy Australia Day.

Blank

I’m at a bit of a loss about what to write today. There are a couple of semi-constructed posts floating around in my head but I don’t think I have the energy to type either of them out tonight.

I’ve been sitting at the keyboard for almost an hour now and nothing’s come to me so it seems like what I’ve already written is as good as it’s going to get today. I’ll write a real post tomorrow.