Comfort

Sometimes, the only comfort you routinely experience is your work, whatever that might mean for you. It could be your regular job, or your hobby, or your passion. Sometimes I'll have just gone through severely difficult days, and I've just felt...drained. Things like taking care of yourself or engaging in human interaction are experiences that just feel empty; as if you want to summon the energy to do those things but the will isn't there.

More often than not, my instinct is to lean into my work. That occasionally means I'm diving head first into whatever project I'm working on, and other times it means I'm going to my regular job and working my ass off in the hopes that I don't have to readily think about things.

But it's not really the most healthy way to touch on my creative potential or my work life productivity. I really wish I was a little more capable, to be able to feel inspired by my own abilities enough to not need to push myself into a comfort zone; a place where living up to my potential is more of an escape rather than an organic desire to explore the only parts of myself I enjoy. I assume that's a familiar struggle with most people. We don't want to face our passions because they burn so strongly that you're afraid of your ability to live up to yourself. It's not a situation where you want to impress people or be some big success; you want to be proud of yourself. And when I do some passion project or I actually push myself, I get to a certain threshold where I no longer feel good about myself. I only accomplished those things because I forced myself into a position where an escape was the most desirable option. It's something that prevents me from being a professional on any conceivable level.

Ultimately, the ideal goal would be to work and to love my work without feeling like I need to run from something else in order to love it.

I'm working on it.