Bare Minimum

I feel like there are several things holding me back from working on PhD applications. But perhaps the worst is that I have what seems to be a complete inability to imagine myself in 4+ years time. It's not that I think I'll be dead, just that I can't imagine this story continuing on that long.

I feel like this is a reoccurring feeling for me. I keep waiting for the ride to end so I can get off. Every job I've had, every responsibility, every move. I always feel like it's temporary. And not in a bad way. But perhaps in a paralyzing one.

Every week somehow feels like it ought to be the last week I have to do x, y, or z. As if I could work for one more day and then, having done my time, be free of it. And honestly, sometimes I feel this way about my life in general.

I think it's a coping mechanism. You know that old saying like, "you can do anything for ten seconds" - the strategy of breaking tasks into smaller pieces, of breaking time into more tolerable bits. I once had a co-worker who often referred to his hours left on the schedule that day in terms of 15 min intervals. "Just six more 15s" he'd say when he had an hour and a half left on his feet working for the store. I feel like my mind had subconsciously done that for my whole entire life - except I don't know how many "15s" are left, and I just keep pretending like maybe the next one will be the last one.

Not in any sort of panicky way. Not like the way people mean when they say "if today was your last day on earth what would you do?" - it's not that kind of worry. It's in the same way that we break up difficult tasks, not good moments.

I think my mind is under the impression that I don't need to worry or plan for years in the future, because there's no chance that I'll make it that long. Or rather, there's no chance that I will be asked to make it that long. As if any second now God is going to show up and say "ok, that's a wrap. you made it! You never have to do that again."

I'm not really talking about death. It's hard to explain the difference. I suppose when you believe in the afterlife there's not a whole lot of difference between being alive and dead. And what difference there is seems to be in favor of the dead.

I think I've mentioned on this blog before - or if I haven't let me do so now - about the fact that while I have never been suicidal or anything near it, I have in the past thought it prudent to marshal my arguments in case I ever need them. And my greatest argument against such action is basically that it would be an act of mistrust - mistrust that the God who put me here doesn't have a good reason, and can't fix things for me. But just because I haven't ever taken an extreme act of mistrust doesn't mean I've exactly been acting IN trust either.

I don't think, deep down, that I DO believe all that. That there is a plan and it will get better. I wish that I did. I tell myself to. And hopefully, I am learning to believe it. It's like. I do believe that it is correct. But that acknowledgement of fact doesn't MEAN anything in my life right now. And I've been operating on the very bare minimum of trust so far.

This all came about because I tried, again, to research PhD universities, and started reading some of their course descriptions/requirements, and I keep getting slapped in the face by how difficult a PhD would be. And how long.

But then, when I look at my next best alternative right now - the teacher training course I've started, towards the end of becoming certified - the more I do it the more I remember that I don't actually WANT to do this either.

I feel like I'm not cut out for this life. But I cannot fathom a life I am cut out for. I know that I need to change. I want to change. But I also cannot fathom me changing, nor do I honestly believe that I have the ability to.

When I was at my lowest in Oxford, every told me basically "if you hate it that much, just stop and come home." and I told them no. I HAVE to finish what I started. And at the time, I used the reasoning that my parents had already paid a lot of money, so I had to finish the course. But in reality I think I had another need to finish what I started. Maybe I knew that if I gave up on Oxford, I would end up giving up on everything else too - and I don't mean give up on other specific things, I mean life in general.

At Oxford I felt like "all I have to do is hold out until the end, and then it will be over." And I feel like I'm still telling myself that, except that I don't know where the end is, or even if there is one. And instead of waiting for it, if I want there to be an end - a change, I should say, I'm not talking about death here - then I need to go chase it myself. But it's awfully hard to chase something you can neither see nor imagine.

My life philosophy at this point has become "Don't fix what isn't broken" - which, taken in the direction I've taken it, is another way of saying "do the bare minimum". Do what works and nothing more. But that's no way to live life. Except that it IS the way to live life if all you're concerned about is being able to say that you survived another day - that you've held up your end of the bargain, that you're going to hold out until it's over.

I don't know what I need right now. Do I need a different job? Or do I need stronger commitment to the one I have, including the certification training? I didn't realize that my Depression was running so strongly in the background these days. But it's questions like this that reveal just how much of that joy-sucking apathy is plaguing me.

Maybe I'll just keep repeating to myself that there IS a plan, and it IS going to get better. As if by saying it enough I could make my heart and sol believe what my mind assents to. And believe it of myself. But I really wish someone could give be even a tiny hint of what that plan might look like. Or how much of it is my responsibility to set up. That's a terrifying thought. I'm sure it's almost all on me, but the thought of it being even a little on me is enough to terribly scared and depress me on its own.

I bet you weren't expecting all this when you clicked that blog link huh? Well than you for reading all this way through. This is one of those posts significantly more for me than for anyone else. Unfortunately, the more people give me suggestions on ways to change, the more stupidly combative I tend to become. I wish I could change that too. I'm just already convinced that I won't change. So I can't. And I don't know how to change that either.

Thanks again for reading. Sorry about all this. You really didn't have to.

R