Time Padding
Posted: Thu 26 February, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Thoughts 2 Comments »Over the last two (nearly 2½) years, I’ve been banging on about my five-year plan, and the work that’s been going into it. The project is still going on, but I think I may need to add a year to it. That’s annoying to me – it means that I get it done by the time I turn 41 instead of 40 (and fuck me, does that really mean I’m going to be 40 in 2½ years? Shit) and thus lose some of the nice roundedness of the idea. It also means that I don’t live up to the ‘five-year’ part of the title.
The thing is, since the inception of the plan, there’ve been things going on that have delayed some of the work I planned on doing. The house purchase – and the ongoing work on the house – has had a significant effect on some of the plans, as we’ve been doing one hell of a lot that wasn’t really in the initial plan as such. Yes, they’re in the original set of planned tasks – but I wasn’t realistic about how long they’d take, or how much work would be involved.
So that’s one thing that’s kind of superceded other plans.
But the other one has been far sneakier, and far harder to get to grips with. It’s one I’m familiar with (and it’s mentioned in the categories up there) but that I don’t always see without some hindsight. Yes, I’m referring (of course) to Ye Olde Depression. Again.
I still don’t know if I’ve actually been fully depressed – but I do know that for the last eighteen months or so my motivation has been pretty much non-existent. The ideas have still been there, and some things have sparked some desire to work on them, but the real motivation to work just hasn’t. I’ve let things drift, or not started them at all. OK, the bits for this year are coming on, and there’s a couple that can be checked off, I still feel like I’m lagging behind.
I’m working on it – things this year have started off OK, and the motivation appears to be on its way back – but right now I’m not sure whether to add a year to the target, or leave it as it stands for now, and just see how I do.
I suspect that for now it might be the latter plan – I’d rather do the five years and see where I am at that point, to be honest – but it’s something that’s worth thinking about as time goes on. I’ll most likely review it come November, when there’s only two years left on the list.
But of course any ideas or suggestions are welcome in the meantime…
Rip the 5 year plan up, and just enjoy the flow of day to day living for a while.
You had a plan, its kept you focused, but you cant go through life all the time like that. Enjoy your life and live it with freedom.
I rather agree with Chris. We tend to be expected to keep going through setbacks, illness, bereavement and stress without it affecting us, but it catches up, and often the main symptom is low-level depression, exhaustion and a lack of motivation. Taking time to let yourself get over that, and doing things you really enjoy and want to do (this may include long hours of doing nothing at all) is good for you and lets your batteries recharge fully. Then you can get back to implementing plans. And there’s plenty of time. And you’re only 37. That’s very young. You’re young enough to be my child and I’m not old. Sunk deep in the morass of middle age, sure, but not old. You’re young.