Every once in a while I have emotions to just give up. I don’t mean commit suicide; I mean walking away from all that I have and all that I do and go do something else. Anything else.

There is nothing overtly wrong in my life. However, life’s routines sometime feels too much and not worthwhile to keep going. This usually occurs when there is nothing happening but the daily grind.

 

C.S. Lewis wrote in one of his books that people don’t succumb to disasters so much as by attrition:

 

“You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere. The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it – all this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition.”

 

This feels right.

 

There are 4 ways to address this;

 

1)     Be patient and wait it out. I know from experience they don’t last. Something splendid – or bad – comes along to shake up the sense of complacency. 

 

2)     Change things. Perhaps Intuition says it is time for a shake up. Do some Self-examination and look at what truly needs alteration. When libido is sucked down into the depths, it is a sign to sit up and assess things.

 

3)      Act on the ideations. I know people who do this and it is tempting. When they feel lackluster they get out of whatever they do. They often move. This usually doesn’t work well; they may be leaving all behind but they are taking themselves with them.

 

4)     Change the attitude. Men and women in the monastic life literally do the same thing day in and day out; and the seasons have a familiar pattern as well. They have peace in routine. There is a name for “joy from the routine” in Tibetan monasticism, but it escapes me. It takes the negative term ‘stagnant’ and turns it into the positive form of “unchanging”.

 

I don’t have much success with #4. I have never done #3.  I do #2 all the time and even that gets a bit dull. So I guess I will settle with #1.

 

While I don’t have much patience in short term endeavors, I am very patient in long term matters. How else did I get through school until I was 30?