Finding My Focus

I am the best at being everyone's therapist, but the worst at taking my own advice. I help others figure out what it is they truly want, while I remain stuck, too stubborn or lazy to heed my own words. I've found myself in another rut. (This seems to be a recurring theme with me). I was offered another job, but in an industry I told myself I would never consider because I knew I would hate it. I mulled over it for weeks, and I have come to the conclusion (along with everyone else in my life) that it would be better for me to stay where I am for now, where I've been for two years, and leave only for a field in which I have interest and excitement. I'm hoping to get more hours soon at the job I do have and if that doesn't happen, well then the search for a second job begins. The truth is I am so bored with part-time work. Twenty hours a week is not enough for me. You may think I'm crazy, and I will probably long for my twenty hour work week when I am employed full time, but right now the lack of doing something meaningful with my time is slowly draining me. I never thought that I could watch so much bad television in one sitting. It has become my routine day after day to park in front of the TV, moving only for a snack or bathroom break. I find it not only sad but disrespectful; I've been disrespecting myself and my abilities. 

I still try to write in my journal every day, but my enthusiasm for that has become lackluster at best. I try to take the occasional walk to clear my head, but it only creates more worries as I over-think every decision I have made. I have become a basketcase of worry and regret and what-ifs, the exact thing I preach against. I have lost the ability to take joy in my days off and instead lament that I have been exiled to the couch for yet another long series of hours. I have lost confidence in myself and my ability to do something more with my time. I have lost the desire to write, to reach out to people, to discover something new. There is so much more I could be doing with my time. Watching a marathon of the Real Housewives of (insert name of major city here...) never solved anyone's life problems, so what is my problem? I need to take pride in my life, I need to show interest in myself again. 

Ironically, Carolina Liar's song "Show Me What I'm Looking For" just came on my Pandora station. For those of you readers who are not familiar, the chorus is as follows: "Save me, I’m lost/ Oh Lord, I’ve been waiting for you./ I’ll pay any cost,/ Save me from being confused./ Show me what I’m looking for." I find it a fitting addition to my post this morning. All of us get derailed from the bigger picture at one time or another. All of us get discouraged and put our dreams on a high shelf, only to be admired but no longer to be reached for or achieved. I want everybody to take those goals back off the shelf and start going after them. I am pushing myself to do the same. I want to take more interest in myself and my writing again. I've been losing myself in the familiarity of the couch, in the monotony of comfort. It's about time I made myself uncomfortable again.