Where is all the motivation gone… ?

Not motivated to find a decent quote — Andi

I don’t get it. I bought a travel vehicle, had a nice weekend and i have one week of vacation to get stuff done. But I’m not motivated at all. Maybe it’s all the stuff to get done piling up. The pornstyler still runs like shit, I haven’t even had a thorough look on the travel vehicle yet. Yesterday my cellphone decided to factory reset itself. The last backup probably was some time ago because I can’t remember doing it. So data loss is expected… I have got plenty of organizational stuff (writing bills, quarterly tax declaration stuff, …) to do as well and I even have to clean my flat. I have to prepare the station wagon for sale. And I have to enjoy myself because I’m on vacation. Or at least off work…

Hmm. After writing that down I think I know why I’m not motivated. I’m thinking about all that stuff at once and I think I have to rush though all the points as fast as possible before I actually can enjoy myself. I’m not giving each point of the list the time it needs and I’m craving for fast success but only get disappointed. As an IT-Professional who loves agile software development I know the idea of “steady pace”: Do stuff at a velocity which you can maintain (almost) indefinite. It seems I have to prioritize all the stuff, estimate the duration of each task (if possible) set timeboxes for stuff which I can’t estimate (and life with / mitigate the fact that I don’t know if it will be “done” after the timebox has passed).

So much for vacation. My private life is a hard job as well as it seems… Maybe I really should go on vacation. Well, that’s “the plan” actually. But before that I have to get stuff done. And find the motivation. At least now I know how it has to be done. Thanks blogging for pointing that out. One step at a time…

Different faces, same person?

“A good relationship is a lot like a car. If you want it to work smoothly, you gotta put a lot of work into it, and have the right tools.” — MacGyver

Sometimes when I look at the faces of people who have been very close to me I get the feeling that they are not the same person anymore. It’s the same faces, only a couple of years have passed but somehow that special something I loved about them is gone. I don’t know if my perception is playing tricks on me or they really changed.

Lately I was searching for a landscape photo and stumbled over some photos of my former girlfriend. I got very sad when I saw her face and thought about the good time we had. I met her a couple of days later, she told me what her plans for the next couple of months are, I did the same. To sum it up: I wouldn’t enjoy her plans and she wouldn’t be able to join mine (if we still were together). But the weirdest thing was when I looked her in the face and realized that “she” was gone. Same person, almost the same haircut, maybe two years passed since the photo was taken. Maybe it’s just that her way of looking at me changed. Not that open hearded, beloved look anymore. More distant, maybe even shy or scared.

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I found the picture a couple of days later. Originally I wanted to use it as the banner on the top of the page. But somehow I like the mountains better, life isn’t just black and white…

Since we are not together anymore we both changed our life. As far as I can tell both lives improved somehow. She found a guy who understands her much better and loves her for what she is and not for what she could be and made some progress job-wise. I haven’t been that lucky on the relationship side yet but at least I managed to get my ass off the couch, turn the TV off, come up with “the plan” and got a job to raise the funds to actually do it.

It’s been a hard time but now I know that splitting up was the right thing to do. We could (and probably still can) give each other so much. But on the other hand we stood in each others way by wanting our partner to change. But we both couldn’t.

I really hope that we can adjust our relationship accordingly and that one day I can look in her face and see a little bit of this special something that I miss and love her as a close friend for what she is and not for what I wanted her to be.

This “perception vs. reality” thing reminds me of the allegory of the cave by Plato. My perception is the wall, my head is the cave and the stuff going happening on the walkway the “real life”. But my reaction to the revelation of the setup would be quite different. I embrace change and I’m eager to understand how stuff works. And I will certainly fight slavery and cruel experiments any time…

Parts parts parts…

I managed to get next week off. That means a solid ten days without work! But much hobby “work” todo, most of the parts for the pornstyler arrived…

Saturday I’ll have a look at a travel vehicle which (of course) would also need some love… But I won’t start before Monday, first it’s time to visit a good friend to relax and enjoy ourselves…

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The hour of the wolf

Quote

“Have you ever heard of the hour of the wolf? My father told me about it. It’s the time between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. You can’t sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and the problems and the ways that your life should’ve gone but didn’t. All you can hear is the sound of your own heart. I’ve been living in the hour of the wolf for seven days, Lyta. Seven days. The wolf and I are now on a first-name basis. In times like this, my father used to take one large glass of vodka before bed. To keep the wolf away, he said. And then he would take three very small drinks of vodka, just in case she had cubs while she was waiting outside. It doesn’t work.”
—Susan Ivanova

 

After last night I was trying to remember this quote and now I found it. Luckily the visits of the wolf become less. Also I quit drinking on weekdays completely quite some time ago. It really is interesting how problems in life have the tendency to affect your body like a sickness. I should be aware of this signal and keep good care of myself. I think I should take a week of vacation to fix the pornstyler and relax.

How I am feeling today?

“Suck it up, buttercup!” — Edgar Hansen

After breaking up with my girlfriend I spontaneously took on a project in another city. Limited to less than half a year, decent payment, freelance consultancy & software development.  So now I’m a little cogwheel in a project which itself is a little cogwheel in an even bigger project which is one of many projects in a very big company. I knew it wouldn’t be self-fulfilment. I wanted to raise the funds for “the plan” fast before the summer comes and didn’t see any better option. Other projects / customers and being sick for quite some time (nothing serious) did occupy all my spare time. After that my car troubles & preparations started to take over bugging me. In short: I’m not feeling that well at the moment, I’m unfit, exhausted and there are too many thoughts at once in my head.

When I tell friends about it they often get concerned in ways like “oh, poor thing” or “your live is good, my life is bad” or (the worst kind) “you want to much, be grateful for what you have, lower your expectations”. Don’t get me wrong: I am grateful for living in the “first” world, having a decent education, …”. But I measure my own “success” by my potential. If I have the feeling I use it then I feel successful. If I don’t I feel bad because I know what I’m capable of.

Sometimes (like now) I have to take a “loan” on my happiness and bring myself in a situation where I don’t feel well to follow a higher goal. Sometimes I am put into such a situation because some plan didn’t work out, I took a gamble and lost, … In these times it is very difficult for me to switch to a good mood. This has always been difficult for friends and partners. I try to understand the mechanism and to get over with it but that’s a work in progress. Maybe it won’t change at all. Maybe that’s a good thing because it’s driving me to do stuff I normally don’t. It’s difficult to describe, maybe a film scene might help: You take a deadly hit and you are on the ground. It doesn’t look good. But somehow you get your shit together, get going again, yank the throttle to max and speed out of the danger zone to search refuge and take time to heal your wounds.

“Not yet Kameraden, not yet!” — KaLeu in “Das Boot”.

If I wouldn’t take the situation as serious as I do my reaction would more be like another movie scene:

“It’s just a flesh wound” — The Black Knight in “Holy Grail”

The funny thing is that if you compare both scenes (they are on youtube), the black night seems to be much happier. He isn’t scared or in pain or anything. He feels good… But if the price of happiness is ignoring reality big time and being maimed by life I happily choose to be unhappy at times. I’m really looking forward to the moment when I will finally head out of town in my travel vehicle yanking the sound system to the max and screaming something similar to the KaLeu. Life didn’t get me. Not yet… Without feeling unhappy I probably wouldn’t have considered something like my plan but would enjoy my well payed eight to five job, my big TV, fancy ride, flat, … Disclaimer: I’m neither a nazi nor a submarine.

Back to the point / some advise for friends: I don’t need your pity, it makes me feel sick. “Good advise” also only helps in rare cases, if I want an advise I’m almost always perfectly able to ask for it. Try a different approach: Just be nice to me, show some affection and spend some quality time with me. Make me forget my sorrows and enjoy the moment. I love enjoying the moment. That’s probably the reason why I feel so bad when live isn’t that good at the moment.

Memo to self: stop taking loans on happiness or learn how to feel good when life isn’t by anticipation of what’s to come. Until then I probably have to just suck it up…

26 working days to go…