Feeling like you want to quit doing something you tell yourself you love

You mean DJing?

writing about music mainly, I guess I could still DJ

ILx

Misery OTM.

Oh. I didn't know you wrote about music.

everything

this is basically my life right now

ok not all of it
it is complex and psychological, this issue

i think about leaving the industry i work in all the time and going back to school. make more money. but i love what i do. a lot.

i sort of feel that taking ecstasy has damaged my ability to enjoy things without questioning whether i'm 'really' enjoying them. i'm always second-guessing my enjoyment of things.

having said that i think this kind of doubt is pretty universal and healthy - it would be weird if you didn't have days like this.

Poker.

"what makes love obsession"

the words of a great philosopher named Andre 3000, no less.

x-post that's an interesting theory. i think ecstasy does strange things to ones conviction alright, for definite. (then again does it, lol)

The music business in general:/

I know a lot of people in this position rgiht now, so I'm wondering if it's some sort of general societal malaise. No money + dumb war = effect personal change?

I mean, probably not, but it seems like everyone I know is doing this in one form or another right now.

the words of a great philosopher named Andre 3000, no less.

I had a dream about him coming to our house last night. Don't remember why, but it was nice.

people grow up

xpost

I think the people I'm talking about might be a little older than you expect.

age is not the concern

every day of my life, with everything that i love

in my case you can remove the "dumb war" from the equation.

the 'paradox of choice' concept to thread, too - it's never been easier to visualise what you're missing out on!

paralysis by analysis

i kind of have the opposite which is related to the paradox of choice thing perhaps.. i hate what i'm doing right now, but i'm finding it hard to quit this thing i hate just out of fear that whatever i get afterwards is worse.

^^^ken-doll, i feel exactly the same way :(

Making a living through writing (or any art) is always a tough row to hoe. It sounds like you do need to diversify, and better feed some of your other interests. Don't think of it as quitting so much as finding a different approach that works better for you; it could involve a hiatus, or just a reallocation of some of your attention and energy.

Doing something like this might also revive your interest in writing about music by jolting your brane out of its rut.

MUSIC. every damn day. and then i hear something wonderful and it's back to square one.

I think you're right Aimless. It is a rut. I am looking for a job at the moment, a non music one. I guess in the time while I look for jobs it seems to be all music all the time.

i sort of feel that taking ecstasy has damaged my ability to enjoy things without questioning whether i'm 'really' enjoying them. i'm always second-guessing my enjoyment of things.

I do this and I've never taken recreational drugs at all!

I think overall, though, that feeling like you want to quit doing something that you tell yourself you love is kind of a universal human need for variety. I think that's true regardless of money, but I'm willing to admit that Not Enough Money would make things worse.

Drugs teach you how much your state of mind is reliant on the chemical state of your brain, which ought to teach you a bit about the overall reliability of brains in general. Your brain with added ecstasy has very little relation to your brain without it. They are two separate creatures; don't compare them.

oh i don't know about that actually

[he sits primly, legs crossed, chin up, staring into space]

part of my issue is pressure of 'hey you're smart and talented you should do all these things that use your smarts and talents' and then i do these things and it builds to overwhelming point and then i watch tv and dream of like part-time data entry work. it is all totally self-sabotaging and ridiculous! it comes and goes though. at least i know i am hu-man.

drugs have taught me certain things
but so have a lot of other things

CIGARETTES

Everything I've suddenly quit liking has been during a weird mental state (non-drug-induced) wherein my brain, for no apparent reason, crumples at the thought of ever participating in said thing.

Mushrooms always made me unable to watch TV for weeks after, though.

this is how i've felt about journalism for a couple of years now, yes. which is why i'm trying other avenues. already i feel much better. i'm not turning my back on it completely ... we're just, y'know, being less intense around each other. or something.

DONT FIGHT THE FEELING GUYS

OK, my experience...
15 years ago I quit doing something that I loved, call it X. X would probably be my career now if I'd stuck with it. The reasons for my quitting X boil down to a) I didn't think I was good enough at X to make it, and b) if I screwed up at X a lot of people were going to give me a hard time.
On top of that, I wasn't really sure if I was doing things because I wanted to or because other people wanted me to. So I was always second guessing myself. The net result was that I was unhappy for a long time without realising why, and the mess from that took years to sort out.
So my answer is "do what you really want to do". The alternative is usually self destructive insanity.

Can't be sure if I really want to do this, is the problem.

Sometimes I think "well this life isn't particularly great, perhaps I should tear it up and start again".

Your brain with added ecstasy has very little relation to your brain without it. They are two separate creatures; don't compare them.

-- Aimless, Thursday, September 27, 2007 5:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

O RLY?

i kind of have the opposite which is related to the paradox of choice thing perhaps.. i hate what i'm doing right now, but i'm finding it hard to quit this thing i hate just out of fear that whatever i get afterwards is worse.

This is OTM, I fucking hate working in corporate IT jobs, I feel like any talent I had in other areas is wasting away rapdily and I'm compromising everything I am, and yet here I still am.

Er well, except today I'm not, I called in sick.

OTOH I quit my corporate IT job to follow my dreams, and found I couldn't resist the gathering momentum. Now I'm homeless, unemployed and single. There's not much left for me to tear down.

Oh dear! :(

I'm actually in a verrry deep "I want to quit this *&&%#'in job and see if I can make some money playing music gigs" mood right now. Because I love what I do to pay rent/eat but having to work under passive aggressive tyrants is getting to be a little rich for my aging ass.

rrrobyn completely otm.

i think it's based on personality to some extent, too - there are people who will be happy almost without regard to what they do, and people who will only be happy if they do one particular thing they love, and people who will never quite be happy with what they're doing no matter how much they love it. i am in category 3, and i hope realizing that will help me settle down into something i do love eventually instead of going on a vain search for perfection. this sounds really depressing but what i mean is that some level of unsatisfaction and some ruts will occur no matter what so it's best to stick with something that does really matter, if you're that type of person. which you may or may not be, ronan. you might be category 2 and just in a bad spot?

WOW i just found out that our stupid wages protocol/system has screwed me over and it worked out that i get paid the lowest out of everyone else in my team doing the same (reads: less) work than i do. and i bet there's nothing anyone can do to change it (i'm working it out).

this kind of shit would make me and my job not want to be with each other. everything sucked enough about this job already.

Jesus Ken, that is harsh. Let it be the final kick you need. Onwards and upwards etc.

My target is to be in a position to hand in my notice by Christmas.

Good luck Ken.

ditto. i hope you can find something better.

Wise choice. Is there an xmas bonus worth waiting for? Is it really worth waiting for? (xxpost)

people who will never quite be happy with what they're doing no matter how much they love it

I'm pretty sure I'm one of these. It kind of stresses me out.

I keep thinking that someday I'm going to find some magical thing that works and I'll be happy and content and well paid and all that, but it never seems like it's going to happen. I get stuck in mediocre jobs because the alternative might be worse so I can live with what I have, but I'm never happy.

It's funny, I find myself getting kind of mad at people who are either:

a) totally content with what I see as a boring-ass office job of some sort and their seeming ability to stand for it until they retire

or

b) super seat-of-their pants and willing to drop everything to do something new and random despite lack of money, incurring debt, not having insurance, etc.

Basically I crave excitement and stability in equal doses and can't deal with all of one or the other, so I feel I'm doomed to be unhappy forever with the compromises I make.

Hooray!

there are people who will be happy almost without regard to what they do, and people who will only be happy if they do one particular thing they love, and people who will never quite be happy with what they're doing no matter how much they love it. i am in category 3, and i hope realizing that will help me settle down into something i do love eventually instead of going on a vain search for perfection. this sounds really depressing but what i mean is that some level of unsatisfaction and some ruts will occur no matter what so it's best to stick with something that does really matter, if you're that type of person.

Bittersweet & true...I get this feeling a lot, and just think of good old Charles Schulz, who suffered from those feelings all his life and made some of my favorite things in the whole world.

revive revive..........fucking great big revive.

caught between not giving a crap about what I "do" anymore and worrying that's me being needlessly destructive.

seriously....when does an ambition become something you need to amputate?

I remember when I was seriously thought I might quit skateboarding 2 years ago, and right now I'm doing it more than I have in the last 4 years.
It's useful to remember that this (really unpleasant and confusing) issue isn't as basic as either do it or don't. I recommend playing around with it -- alternate of experiment in the ways you can do something outside the routine (which is certainly what's been keeping me listening to new music, for example). If it's hard and frustrating, that probably just shows there's still passion, even if it's only latent, which has been carved away yet. If you can tap into that and rebuild in a new ways, that might help.

When you stop enjoying it.

OK, amendment to that - when your lack of enjoyment of it starts to affect other areas of your life.

I've actually started to enjoy music again a hell of a lot more since I stopped doing it professionally. I don't really know why I carried on so long. Yeah, sure, it sometimes feels like there's a bit of a hole in my identity where "My Band = My Self" used to be. That's the hardest part to deal with, the change in self identity. Not having to do something you really don't enjoy any more is actually really freeing, otherwise.

mehlt's answer rocks so much im considering ASK MEHLT thread

yeah mehlt, good advice, thanks a lot.

I hope Zora has since become homeful.