Stress from the gap between expectations and reality
Cognitive dissonance has always been one of my favorite phrases just due to the fact that it can be used for so many things in your life. I mean, come on, as an excuse for common depression, cognitive dissonance rocks. I use it often to describe that gut wrenching feeling I have when I view my life sideways and remember what I had expected in High School. I guess life has a habit of doing that to you… making you realize that you are wrong and always have been wrong about your life’s path, and then swiftly kicking you in the nuts to remind you of the fact.
My wife says that I need to let God into my life more. Give up the control to the skies and give up the worry about where I am headed and what I can do about it. She says that God is not going to let me go anywhere if I don’t let him handle the wheel. I know she is right, there is no doubt. But I honestly don’t think that I really control all that much in my life to begin with, and in that sense, I am a freaking monk of giving stuff up to the big guy. I am a take-it-as-it-comes kind of guy, and by that definition, I am not really trying to control anything to begin with. People say I am driven. And I say they are tards for thinking so.
What scares the shit out of me is the fact that I am lacking the dreams. I am lacking that glimmering shining destination on the horizon that so many people make a plan for. Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong, I would love to have a five year plan, or whatever hokey it is called nowadays, but honestly it would be bullshit because I know more about your five year plan than I know about any sort of plan of my own.
I guess the realization is that my expectations were wrong to start with. And deep down I know that I would have been unhappy had my expectations panned out. And that, my friends, that is the swift kick in the nuts that I just mentioned. Knowing that you were wrong for expecting one thing, then being bummed about being wrong, and being bummed that it happened all for the best anyway because now you just feel like an idiot.
So what to do with my proverbial life? It is already more than a quarter over… I am approaching the half time show and the board is showing the away team as being seven points ahead. I need to pull the playbook out. I know that I don’t want to fix people’s problems for the rest of my life. I am not a doctor, or a shrink, and I sure as hell am not a janitor. But my job sure makes me feel like one some days. All I do is clean up other people’s digital shit and I am expected to smile about it. What I am smiling about you tards is the fact that I read all your email and I know that you have erectile dysfunction and your wife is just pleased as punch that you are no longer touching her. Sucka.
What I need is creativity in my life. I need that driving fire. That massive spark that energizes your day and makes you miss lunch because you love working with your passion. They say find your passion, turn it into a job, then do that for the rest of your life. I guess I need to start looking for a passion. For the longest time I thought it was computers. For the longest time I thought it was creating something new to solve a real business need or make a new IT approach for an old existing problem. But honestly, unless you work for a big bright beacon of hope in the IT industry (like Google) it really is the doldrums. It sucks balls. And every prick thinks they are god’s gift to the IT world, when honestly all they are is a janitor in a t-shirt that reads “l33t”. No one has specialized skills in IT… it is just a matter of dedication and learning ability, and unless you are sixty and made the freaking internet, you are just another monkey with a messenger bag.
I just don’t have any creativity in my life right now. I am definitely not a programmer, I am barely a writer, and I can barely put two pieces of wood together with a nail. So what the heck is a geek that loves the geek culture supposed to do? How can I create something great? How can I contribute to something that is larger than me? I have everything… education, smarts, will power, guts, time… just nothing to aim for. I need to brainstorm something soon or I think I am going to die. Either my wife will kill me for a being a grumpy gus or my head will simply explode from the overwhelming boredom.
no no no, can’t get no satisfaction.
A friend of mine linked me to your post here
You can still contribute to an open-source project even if you aren’t a programmer. People always need QA testers, documentation people (programmers HATE documentation), all kinds of non-programming tasks. Find a project you like, then see how you can start contributing.