do you feel unmotivated and pathetic sometimes too?

#dyftwt2

welcome to my column do you feel this way too where i try to give life advice. take just what you need with a grain of salt. if you need life advice, you can drop it here.

i graduated from university and i'm working part-time. i don't want to pursue a career with the degree i graduated with. i feel too burned out to go back to school for another degree. i feel so unmotivated and pathetic. i feel like I'm going nowhere in life. do you feel this way too?

dear reader,

no matter how good life gets, there will always be a time when you feel unmotivated and pathetic. trust me, i know. the feeling fortunately is transient at best. motivation is a lot like waves, it comes in ebbs and flows. it definitely isn’t possible to be motivated all the time. that is why we rest and play. when i struggle to get things done, i simply rest and play.

rest and play have morphed into a reward deserved only after we get things done. but rest and play are actually what sustains us. just because we’re not getting the outcome we want, doesn’t mean we’re not trying. that effort means something.

congratulations on graduating! this is a milestone worth noting. now, “real life” is very different from school in the sense that you don’t have to do anything. you don’t have to go back to school and you don’t have to work in the field you studied. you no longer have to do A in order to get B by C amount of time. “real life” is far more convoluted, and the timing is unclear, but this also means there are many different paths to get to where you want and it is never too late.

but to get to where you want, you actually have to do and change some things. if you feel like you are struggling to get motivated or feel like your effort is going down the drain, it is likely because you’re doing something you don’t like or isn’t suitable for you.

so think of all the things you’ve enjoyed doing in the past. think of all the things you’re good at. if this question is hard to answer, ask yourself this instead: what do you enjoy doing if pay or people’s opinions doesn’t matter? come up with a list of things. it doesn’t have to be work and school-related. when you have your answers, do the simplest and most plausible iteration of that.

the journey is never easy. everything comes with its own set of stresses. but if you’re doing what you enjoy on most days, the bad days are less frequent and more tolerable, and it is far easier to do a good job at it. good luck, i am rooting for you.

yours truly,

joy