Too much meh and too little motivation

When I don’t know what’s wrong – getting myself into a muddle

(This is an audio version of this letter, recorded by me, imperfectly and without editing. I hope you enjoy listening.)

Hello, I’m Philippine and to be honest, I feel like a beginner at life – I am forever trying to make sense of it. You can find my attempts at this, plus reflections, musings and experiences right here, in my newsletter. Subscribing is free! For everyone who feels like a beginner at life, and wants to connect in some way.

I have never done this before, starting to write a post without a clue as to what it would be about, but here we go. At this very moment I simply don’t feel capable of writing about a predetermined topic, even if ‘pre’ means just seconds before starting to type. So here I am.

I’ve set a timer for just five minutes, because I didn’t want to skip writing altogether, nor did I want to overwhelm myself. I can stop after those five minutes,¹ but I don’t have to. In fact, I want to do more writing, but it’s somehow not always easy to do what you want, even if accessible.

I’ve been lacking motivation, or just feeling too restless to choose one thing and do it. I’ve wanted to do nothing, just watch telly, and simultaneously I’ve wanted to do something extremely fun and exciting. I’ve wanted to enjoy life with plenty of joie de vivre. But I’ve been unable, indecisive. I didn’t know what incredibly fun thing to do or how to make it happen. And so instead I beat myself up for wasting time.

This is when I keep considering activities I could do, but never land on anything, or if I do, I stop and switch to something else within minutes. I sit at my desk but realise I don’t feel capable of doing anything productive, I sit on the sofa and take ages to decide what to watch – Friends, too boring because I’ve seen it about a dozen times before; that series I’ve been wanting to give a try, too much of a threshold getting to know new characters, etc. But most of the time I don’t even get that far, and I’m simply stuck in my own thoughts trying to figure out what to do.

I used to get this desperate and dreadful indecisiveness a lot when my fatigue (burnout and long Covid) was worse, feeling too tired for everything and therefore not having a clue as to what to do. So this is an improvement really, actually having some energy, merely not knowing what to do with it. It almost seems spoiled; my sicker self would envy me fiercely. That’s not exactly a helpful thought though. In fact, I’d say it makes it worse, because it leads to me beating myself up even more, getting me stuck in a vicious cycle of self-judgement, of which I don’t know how to free myself.

However, it’s not only unclear what the best way to go about this kind of feeling or state is, it isn’t even straightforward what exactly is occurring and why. Is it a lack of motivation or discipline, is it restlessness, decision fatigue (hello overflowing to-do list), or perfectionism resulting in procrastination? Emotions or unhelpful thoughts? Mood, menstrual cycle related things like pms or period, or a lack of energy after all? Under or overstimulation, overwhelm meets paralysis? I would really like to know.

Knowing would feel like an anchor in the middle of a wild and wide sea. It would tell me: it makes so much sense that you feel, think and act this way – it’s completely understandable. It would take away some self-criticism, exchanging it for self-compassion. It would give me some direction as to how to respond – do I rest or nudge myself, give into or struggle against?

And I’d be able to trust that this is not forever, because there’d be a clear cause and thus an obvious solution or endpoint. If it’s pms, I know it’ll be over in a matter of days (maybe weeks if it’s a bad month); is it my brain needing a bit of extra space to process a big change in my life and all the accompanying emotions, then I can give into it with peace of mind.

This kind of thing, I find, makes all the difference. It doesn’t solve anything, but it lightens the load. It’s like the sun breaking through the clouds, even if it’s still equally cold.

Unfortunately, getting to the precise what and why of my current state isn’t so straightforward. Consequently, I often spend a large part of my time in this state, wondering and speculating, and not with an innocent curiosity, but with a desperate energy instead. Frustratingly, this actually lengthens and worsens my experience, until I figure it out, but that moment often arrives only after a long time or, more likely, not at all. So often I don’t get further than speculations that can be summed up as ‘probably a combination of things’, which doesn’t satisfy me much.

As well as an attempt to understand what is going on and why, this desperate energy also consists of a need to fix or solve it, leading to a rather volatile inner environment. I don’t like it there. But my attempts at an escape only aggravate the whole thing. And so I’ve realised that it would be more helpful to give up trying to understand, fix or escape.

Instead I can trust that something – whatever it may be – is going on and that there is a (good) reason for it. I can have faith that it’s temporary – for everything is – and that it’ll naturally change for the better. This, of course, is in fact as hard as it sounds simple. It entails giving up not only understanding and fixing, it also means giving up trying to escape that very attempt. In other words, paradoxically, I’ll need to accept that I will try to understand and fix.

And I need to accept that I won’t know whether I am taking the right approach. Perhaps, though, I can be comforted by the knowledge that I also can’t know, at least not right now. Right now all I need to do is own this lack of understanding and knowledge, and own my very likely to be suboptimal or outright wrong course of action. Here I come, desperate energy, crappy feeling, uncertainty and unhelpful strategies – I’m ready.

I cannot deny that it is only now that I am no longer in the midst of it that I feel ready for it. But these difficult things need to be practised during the easier times, don’t they? So that eventually we can apply them to the hard times too.

What is your strategy for this kind of meh state?

In this post you can find out a little bit more about me and my journey.

1. Spoiler: I did stop writing soon after the timer went off, and finished this letter another day.