Hi guys.
I just wanted to write this down as I’m feeling a bit stressed and it helps sometimes. Apologies in advance for this being possibly ranty.

A while back (maybe 3 years) I lost my job and due to the economy I couldn’t get another in the same field. That job was my lifelong ambition and my passion and my identity was intertwined around it. Losing it was very much like losing myself. I found a job in a different field and thats where I am now. I have no interest in my job but it is better paid (Though not exactly a good wage) than my previous job but it is so easy and boring I could have done it straight from leaving school and not bothered with any more education. It is dull and though I may seem happy at work I am bored out of my mind and do not fit in with anyone there, I’m a square in a circular hole.

After a year I decided to get my ass into gear and get back on my feet, get an action plan. So I looked around and decided to go into web design / development. I learned HTML and CSS no problem and got a bit of JavaScript but now I am bored. I never had passion for it and  now I just struggle to force myself to learn which means perhaps I don’t want to do that for a job anymore. (If I ever really did). So now I feel like a lost lamb again. Pretty much nothing interests me like it used to, I have absolutely nothing I am passionate about and all the things I may be interested in if I have them a shot feel like they take so much time to develop skills in and I just do not want to have to wait another 5 years before I can get out of the job I am in. But I am not qualified for anything else either so I feel trapped like there are no options available to me. I am stuck in my little box now.

I used to be the guy people respected. My friends admired me, I have been told by all of my 3 real close friends that they were inspired by me and followed my example pursuing their goals. I was dogged, I put in the work, I was talented. I was no prodigy by any means, I was perhaps average at best but in my university I was certainly in the top few percent in my field. Yet now I fell out of the bottom of my industry and my friends have surpassed me. Somehow I am a loser now. They have not changed their opinions of me but I am the one with little money and not able to progress further even if I could decide on what the hell I wanted to progress in. I have no vision anymore.

How do I go about picking myself up? Do I just put my life on hold until lighting strikes and I suddenly get my fire back? Or do I just pursue something for the sake of it even if I have no passion for it at all? I mean I like the idea of being a web designer / developer but writing code bores me. I am or was an artist by trade but there’s little work available in that field and I don’t have the time nor the drive to make a portfolio in the hopes I may get lucky and get work out of it. I’ve had half a dozen ideas in the last 3 years and nothing comes of it. I get started or learn a bit then get bored.

About the only thing I am interested in at the moment is perhaps starting my own business. Though I have no skills I could leverage for this purpose. I just like the idea of being in control for once. I always used to value being laid back and not getting stressed, these days my resting heart rate has gone up by almost 20bpm and Im certain its just constant anxiety (I have been to the doctors they said I am fine).

I think all this is being made worse by me turning 30 this year and getting married. I have 3 months until I am married and hit the big 3-0 and I am just constantly aware that I am nowhere near as successful as my friends even though I am older than them and that if I want a family I gotta start soon and me and my fiance do not have nearly enough income to do that (even if she wanted kids). I struggle to remember things these days too and I feel like my eyesight is getting worse at a scary rate as well. I feel like there are a million things on my mind at once and things are getting to me. People ask me if I am worried about the state of the world and I have to laugh because I couldn’t care less about all that, I am just trying to hold my own crap together. I’m also trying to lose weight and improve my fitness so I don’t have a heart attack at 40 but I feel like I just don’t have time for that either.

I just wish I had a job that I actually cared about. I wanted to join the police or fire and rescue but you need to be able to drive to do those and I can’t and can’t afford to learn either. I search for jobs every night and find nothing but the same depressing crap no one wants.

I feel very much like my life is circling a drain and that this is it until my current employer makes me redundant and I have to go back to working in a shop as a pathetic 35 year old man.

I normally just chug along trying to get somewhere but I just found out a friend of mine is pregnant for the first time. I could only dream of being in such a stable place that the thought of a surprise pregnancy wouldn’t send me running for the hills.

I feel hopeless and that I have no direction. What makes it even worse is my fiance is in the same boat and every day I have to help her through it and pick her up when shes down and pretend like I have a plan and I am the guy who knows what I am doing even when things go bad. She knows I have off days but frankly at the moment my off day has turned into an off switch thats always ‘off’.

I am so jealous of my friends. I am happy for them and do not begrudge their successes but at the age of 29 I feel like my best days are far behind me. I am sure that had I been single now I would have done something insane just for the sake of mixing it up a bit. That or I would be a raging drug addict or alcoholic. I am running out of ways to cope with this constant anxiety. It feels like a constant weight on my chest, the only fire I have in me anymore is the one fuelling my jealousy and envy of those around me.

Anyway I guess I will end it here.

Thanks

B