ardour said:
There were some posts discussing this on a thread and few months back, but I wondered if anyone else here finds the prospect of being single for the rest of their lives really lessens their interest in work and career advancement.
Other things still provide some limited enjoyment, but when it comes to anything work-related, even in areas I was expecting to find interesting, I'm ambivalent. That and when people (who are usually partnered up) talk about career as if it should be the be-all/end-all I end up resenting it.
Yes, definitely. It drains my motivation because it makes me wonder, if I am the kind of person who is in danger of being single for the rest of my life, am I just naturally a loser (my recurring fear, in case that wasn't clear) and everything else I set out to do would be doomed to failure as well no matter how hard I try?
It also makes me feel like no matter how well I may do in the other things, I will only do so well overall, and if I already know I can't win then it's over.
I keep going though because everything I want to do costs money and I don't want to spend my life complaining about the bills as I've seen so many people do. I want to know what having extra is like and I want to shed as many limits as I can. If there is one thing that I know for certain, it's that I didn't go through all of school, the studying, stress, boredom, the sacrifice of time I know I could have spent doing something that would have made me happier....putting up with the people....I didn't go through all that to be poor anyway, **** it. Something I've always known about myself is that I can't accept myself as a poor person, I can't feel good about myself that way because as one, I can't believe that I have any competence or power, it makes me feel like a victim, like maybe I'm a stupid person after all, and I hate that. I feel like I already have something invested in getting somewhere and if it turned out to be a sunk cost it would only piss me off more. I have to cross a certain minimum threshold before I can confidently say I don't suck, and feel pride in myself.
That's one thing I've noticed about myself - I'm pissed, I'm angry, I'm dissatisfied. I want to do better than some levels and there are certain people I want to beat. I definitely feel like I have the anger part of motivation in abundance. When I say I hate something, I hate it. The problem is all my energy and aggression is blunted by my fear that I just don't have enough natural aptitude or that I'm just fundamentally not good enough, so it's unfocused and just winds up turning into heat.
I also keep going for that tiny chance that maybe, if I work hard enough and keep searching and brainstorming and trying for a way and taking everything apart and putting it back together again, that I'll get a girlfriend someday - maybe even one I find desirable. I keep thinking maybe there is something I can do to be an exception, an underdog success story. I see-saw between feeling like I probably won't get far, probably don't have enough aptitude, that it's probably hopeless, and feeling like maybe just because I haven't been able to see the way yet, doesn't mean the way doesn't exist.