Thursday, January 26, 2012

A ghost of my former self

Happy Chinese New Year!

I know, such a big difference between my post title and my chirpy first line. I forgive you if you think I'm schizophrenic. Frankly, I'm starting to think I am.

I'm in a slump, a funk that I'm trying to dig myself out of. But it feels so difficult. So difficult. The lure of simply sinking and never finding the surface sounds almost too tempting.

I'm being melodramatic of course. The worse thing that could happen is that I continue coasting through life, failing to find the lust and drive that I once craved and exuded.

Work is... not great. I find it hard to find motivation to even get there on time every day. I look at my work and feel it's insipid, boring, lacking in writing and... conviction. A ghost. A shell. Simply existing and creating for the sake of it.

I've tried throwing myself into my personal life. I barely have time as it is to fit in family, boyfriend, friends, while planning for mad vacations, one after another. But then I find myself sitting at my desk, wondering what the hell I'm doing there.

The boyfriend tells me to quit. That it's eating my soul and being miserable simply isn't worth it. My mum said she'd feed me. The boyfriend said he'd give me an allowance. I have some savings. Probably could live like a hobo for a year even.

Problem is - I'm afraid. I simply wasn't brought up that way. To lead a life of idle. To leech off my parents  (more than I am at the moment, anyway). To be financially crippled. To weigh every purchase against a depleting account. To know that I don't even have the excuse of being a student to explain my lack of job.

I simply can't.

And the other problem is, I don't know what I want to do. A second career. Yes, I fell into this job. And for better or worse,  I'm adequate at it. If I can just control my temper, control my dreams, control my wanderlust, I can probably survive. But therein lies the problem I guess. It's getting harder to bite my tongue and resist the urge to flip the bird and walk out.

And then where would I go? I honestly believe that I have learnt very little in my current job that would serve me well in the real corporate world. For some reason, I feel that I've existed in a bubble for the last 4 years and if I force myself to wake up, I would find that I actually have no market value, no skills that will enable me to survive the real world.

Depressing. And that knowledge fills me with rage, with self-pity, with fear that I've become a coward. Fearful of change because what if I can't adapt? And that fear makes me angry and sad.

What a sad, vicious cycle indeed.

Oh, and does anyone want to employ me? I'm open to crazy ideas. Haha.