My Motivation is Pretty Low...

Life has been pretty laid back here. California just seems to do that to everyone. I’m about to finish up at one company and I’m moving soon to work for another. They’ve got some huge, cool project they want me to be on. I feel like I’m making progress. That probably doesn’t say much though because studies of only children say that they always feel like they’re accomplishing something. I’m going to try to finish my Ph.D. program in the fall. That will be an actual accomplishment. It’s completely unrelated to my career – so my motivation and sense of urgency are pretty low. I’ve managed to keep up my amateur interests in psychology and still run my websites … maybe that’s enough for now. Work stuff is going well.

In my personal life, however… my college sweetheart cheated on me last year, got pregnant, and then got married. Have you ever had someone pull your heart out of your chest, throw it to the ground, and just begin stomping on it? That was a lot for one summer. I was in no shape to work so I quit my job, packed up my apartment in Atlanta, gave away all my furniture, and went to Manhattan for a couple of months. Manhattan is always therapeutic for me. It’s so big and out of control that it reminds me that life really is big and out of control. It’s kind of like the people on a roller coaster that cling to the bar, while other people just throw up their arms and scream. Every so often I need to be reminded to just throw my arms up and enjoy the ride.

Anyway, I dread the thought of dating again. While I was in New York, I finally decided it was time to re-engage with the world. I was honestly entertaining the thought of moving to China and teaching little kids English for a year or so. I realized that this salary would never support my ever-growing need to possess the latest techno-gadgets nor allow me the luxury of traveling on a whim. What can I say; my interest in depth psychology is inversely proportional to my sometimes amazing superficiality.