This isn’t really art related… well… unless you count philosophy.
I don’t even know where to begin with this. I’m completely burnt out. I’m trying to take a step back and evaluate my life as it’s been for the past year (which hasn’t been very long). My energy is completely shot. I don’t think I’ve made a video for the past couple of weeks now. I’m still planning on doing Rome Stories, but I’m starting to think maybe it’s best to put the social media on a hiatus until I get my energy back again.
The biggest stressors: school, work, and social life. All these things are feeding into each other and making things worse.
First of all, there’s school. I just got my logic midterm back and I really didn’t do well. The teacher said he’s going to calculate a curve at the end of the term, but you know there’s always that one asshole who got a perfect score that makes it invalid. It’s not just this one class either. To be honest, I really enjoyed it, but I’m just not good at it. This is my last term before graduation, and I’m just burnt out. I’ve been driving myself so hard and now that it’s the last term, even though I’m taking fewer credits than before, I have to fight with myself to sit down and do work. There’s the big change that comes after spending so many years in college, and that in and of itself is really scary. I’m at least fortunate enough to know where I’m going from here, but, then again, leaving the country isn’t exactly a cakewalk either.
I’m tired of it. I’m tired of having a project hanging over every week that I need to force myself to work on, I’m tired of my braindead classmates, I’m tired of teachers who are more concerned with pushing with a political agenda rather than encouraging different thoughts and viewpoints… you know… discussion, and I’m tired of keeping my mouth shut even here to an extent for fear of being scrutinized or graded unfairly for daring to have a different opinion (I’m just happy when the election happened, I wasn’t taking any on campus-classes, that’s not a safe place to be anymore for anyone). I’m just praying to God it’ll be over soon and I pass. That’s it. I don’t even care about getting all A’s anymore, I just want it to be over.
Work has not been all that kind to me either. I work a retail job, and I know no one really likes working retail, but for some reason, I HATE working there. I’ve never hated it there before. I used to like my job. No matter how bad things got, I always thought “It could be worse, I could be not employed,” and that would be enough to cheer me up again.
I left a department I really liked to grow and develop in the business. That’s probably the reason my attitude’s changed so drastically as well. Before, I liked working there, and felt like I had an attainable goal, but ever since I found my calling. It’s like there’s nothing there for me anymore. I’ve stopped caring but I don’t want to. I’m not going to be there much longer anyway, but until I finally have to leave, I want to be a good worker and do my best.
The customers have been getting worse. I even though about this. Is it me? Is my attitude making me project them this way? At least that I could control. Ooooooooh no. My coworkers have noticed it too. I come home every day feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. My muscles have all been hurting (which has also made it really hard to sleep), and having been dealing with rude, demanding, and downright horrible people makes me come home at the end of the day feeling exhausted. I want to paint, but have no energy to. Malcom in the Middle is on Netflix now, that’s been a welcome distraction.
And that feeds into my social life. I haven’t really hung out with any of my friends in months. Because of work, I just haven’t really wanted to see anybody either. Anybody except my boyfriend, but with the trip to Florence coming up, if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know what the future of that relationship is going to look like. The isolation feeds into everything else. This is also why for the first time since high school I feel the need to blog about my problems.
I’ve really been trying to stay positive about everything. Which is why the teachings of Marcus Aurelius have been really appealing.
Heh. This quote was on Reddit this morning:
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Despite everything I just said. I know at the end of the day, the only thing I can really control is myself. While it’s tempting to scoff at the power of positive thinking, that’s really the only thing one can do in these situations. Sure, I can’t change a lot of things that are happening in my life, but I think I could be handling them a little differently. I think I’m going to try this:
School: So, I got a bad grade on my midterm. Up until relatively recently, I always tested poorly, and still managed to pass every class I’ve ever taken. I’m hopefully going to meet my teacher for office hours tomorrow and every afternoon I’m available for the next four weeks and hopefully I’ll understand the material better. Hopefully I’ll ace my final after this, but I won’t bet money on it.
Work: Well, I can’t do anything about the customers. But it’s really stupid that I’m allowing my life to be ruined by these assholes. As shitty as work’s been, they passed a policy that says that we are no longer allowed to “clopen” (close then immediately open the next day) This gives me the opportunity to get into a better sleep schedule. I’m also going back to gym this week now that people who tried to make working out their New Years resolution have hopefully given up by now. Getting back my Amazonian figure would do wonders for my self esteem as well as get the endorphins going giving me energy to do work and the other things I’d like to do.
Social life: That’s easy. Make some calls and go hang out with people. I really think going to Paint Nites and other social gatherings would do me some good as well.
Ash Meyer Art 