No, I am not dead

I realize that I have missed two days of sessions, but no I am not dead. That would be a nice little dramatic return if I had some regular readers or perhaps a long history of doing sessions at least once a day. Ah, but there is time to build up all those things, time enough for everything, time enough for love (a novel by Robert A. Heinlein, one I haven't actually read, but which sounds very good). Actually lately, I have felt time closing in on me a little, with my application to grad. school and my looking at career options. But that is because the time of a part of my life is closing down, the undergrad years at the most can last one more, and then... well, then presumably grad. school, though I'm kind of annoyed at the prospect. It is more school, and more delay from actually having a career. I always call my career part of my life "my real life," but life doesn't get more real or less real from one stage to another really. Perhaps it's just that in the career stage I have more power, and that definitely makes the career stage more attractive to me. Yet, I don't think I can ignore this part of my life, especially after my experience during winter break. During that period I realized (although this was an exaggeration in a depressed state) that my life right now involves nothing really meaningful. My social relations are defective, I'm not making a difference helping others, and I'm not really working towards a career I want (I haven't making great progress towards becoming a writer, and I can't say I really want to be a teacher (or at least I have an emotional pull to that position), although I have been writing somewhat which is an arguement against this). Overall I just felt that my life, or at least my life as myself, didn't make a great difference, if I was stripped of my particular characterisics, the world would be no worse off, and neither would I. That's definitely an exaggeration, but it gave me a desire to build up my current life to a point where I find satisfaction with it day to day. So that's that, and that's something I'm working on.

I realize that sounds like something out of a pop-psych. book, and I'd avoid it if it didn't actually have a good amount of significance for my life. If I can't get satisfaction day to day, it will be very difficult to maintian my will to live during a breakdown, and without that, fatal actions become an option (of course even without a will to live I still have fear, reason, and my faith to keep me alive).

The question remains, as it always does when you have a determination to improve your life, what is it you actually must do and how to you push yourself to do it when parts of your mind are actively working against you. The answer is what plagues most people who have made this determination. Again and again I have come to this point, only to become exhausted and frustrated with unrealized hopes of self-improvement. But if I cease to try, my mind will lack the motivation necessary to seek out social contacts, some of the more deeper forms of happiness, and career or life goals, which will in the end make me pretty miserable. Given this, what is my move or moves. One of them, I think is working on this, as well as perhaps a diary (a diary, yes, a diary, I'm not going to skimp on the words here, it's not a journal, it's not a log, it's a diary, and I'm still as manly as they come (they being moderately manly men)). Other moves, well, doing more stuff with my friends (though I'm uncomfortable asking to do stuff with them that doesn't involve money and I'm still a cheapskate) (I'm a bit worried how my friends might react if they ever read that part, but whatver). One of the most critical moves I must consider is the choice of career I should pursue. Yes, I can always change my career, but if I want to be satisfied with my life day to day pursuing a life which I really want would be helpful. But pursuing a rational course that might lead to a life I might like would be ok if I could build up other sources of satisfaction, like friends, volunteer or club work, submitting stuff to magazines and such, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Such indecision is not natural for a man like me (actually it is my normal state), but circumstances have been very confusing for me of late (and by of late I mean for the last 10 years), but such things must just be deal with. After all, such is the way of the world.