Finding direction sucks when you don't have a compass

[itsallgood25]

I know your pain, everyone. I am not the jack of anything except maybe screwing up. The thing is I know I am smart and motivated, I just can’t seem to find the thing I am good at. I have chosen a career that I thought I wanted but I am so bad at it that now I just want out of it. So I continue to search, search for meaning to my life and a good balance of work and life.

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[Anonymous]

itsallgood25, what would you like to do and how different is it from what your doing now?

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[itsallgood25]

Something important and something I am good at. I am in a trade and I am not good at it. I make mistakes that cost money, or I forget steps and have to pull apart what I am working on. The boss says I don’t seem to have much nac for mechanics but he keeps me around to clean the shop or get parts. Its frusturating because it won’t ever make more money.

I don’t know what else i would be good at.

I’d like something that I could be creative at and talk to people, maybe even help people

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[Anonymous]

OH MAN!!!!!!!! I can resonate with EVERYONE ON THIS!!!!!! I’m exactly where everyone is right now. I’m 31 and feel like I am trying to beat the clock! I have no savings, no real specialized schooling (except one year of graphics! Just a general university B.A!!!), debt up to my eyeballs, no real relationship, no assets. AWESOMMMMMEEE!!! I go on Facebook and want to delete myself every single day cause I see everyone moving along with families and engagements and marriages, and new jobs! BARF!!!!! Like whatever!!!!! and they are doing fun stuff like going to the Olympics (which if I actually took the time to plan 4 years ago I could have done the same!) I have to stop comparing myself because it’s driving me batty! I feel I have all these things I know I can do as well, and have a lot of interests, but I don’t know which one to focus on!!!! BRAIN!!!! FOCUS ALREADY!!! I really know that I want to help people but how?? Therapist? ummm…more school and money. A Business owner…ummm…yeah. I would if I knew what my business would be. Haha…I feel like a 12 year old reject friend amongst my friends. They have houses, and mortgages and families and relationships…I can barely feed my dog! Poor thing really. Baha….and all this energy needs to be managed. I’ve started taking the course THE ARTIST’S WAY and highly recommend it to anyone trying to unblock their fears, and creativity. It keeps you focused and committed on yourself and brings you through some ups and downs that’s for sure. It’s a 12 week course and I’m on week 5! I’ve tried it 2 times before but lost focus and didn’t really complete it because other people were telling me I should do it. This time I did it for myself. SO for anyone struggling like me…it’s an amazing tool to really get to know yourself and really uncover all those amazing ideas you’ve had locked up!!!! and makes you play and be young at heart and take care of yourself!!! I think most of us judge ourselves or feel useless or stupid, or like itsallgood25, a screw up!!! I get that. I make the stupidest mistakes at work…missing a word here and there and my boss likes to make it known! Even though he makes even stupider mistakes where I’ll throw it back at him! BAHA! This course allows you to forgive yourself and just create!!! Let the ideas flow through you…let our gifts shine!!! We have been living in a world that doesn’t get us, and being in that kind of world makes you try to be something we are not.

This has gone all over the place! Anyways…that’s my answer to this.

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[Anonymous]

Wow Lianne … you have so much energy )

I hope that briochick logs back on at some point. I’m wondering about handling the sensory overload of relocating to South Korea. It would be interesting!

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[Bettyboo]

Hi Lianne, wow I can hear the pressure you put on yourself to be someone, somebody, something, somewhere, sometimes. someday…etc . I truly believe when we are still (what am I thinking – just work with me on this), we take a direction that works for us in the meantime…in the meantime is safe and exciting (there is a future with in the meantime)…the key is to create a baseline (habit) so that you can feel success…one of the videos stated inorder to change low self-confidence is to experience success which creates better self-confidence. It has taken me a while or what I think is a while to say to myself…it’s okay to know the big picture and it’s okay to stop and realize I need help getting to the big picture. We are big picture thinkers and that is why it is hard watching everyone else achieve THEIR big picture and you not achieving any. We compare ourselves to non-adders and we can’t it is like comparing apples to veggies…not even close. Society puts us on a timeline which we have all taken on having ADD or not and because of that it dictates our self-worth…so let me ask you.

Who said you need to be married by 31? Do you want to be married?

Who said you needed to have a house by 31? Do you want a house? or Condo? maybe you want to live in a tent? What do you want?

Who said you have to have a career? Who said how much is enough education, money etc? What is good for you and you dog ?

And so many more questions….

What I’m trying to get it is that it starts with us and not what everyone else wants for us. We need to dictate what’s working for us and make the changes for us and not for someone else…we want to take on a persona to fit into an non-adders world and I it’s not possible…but I bet you if the non-adder could be as free thinking as we are then they would jump into to the ADD boat a long with all of us…but we may not all be in boats because I’m a little sea sick I could be on a plane or car or a train…I diverse. I hope you understand what I mean…take it easy on yourself. You will achieve…you have too much life not too!!

Be grateful for you – that is were the stillness comes from…keep us posted on “YOU”.

You have a lot of energy and excitement for life that is a lot more than many of us or anyone else…be proud of that and pat yourself in the back you deserve it and a lot of it.

Elizabeth

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[Anonymous]

HAAAAA laughing myself silly while speed skimming all these. Not at you all, but with you all Im 40 going to be 41 and running along the same course some of you are. cant find a job that fits and cant fit into one that exixsts. Thought about self employment and it works in some ways on a small scale IE. odd jobs and repairs, my daughter calles me Handy Manny after the guy on disney channel. But i guess I have no real Idea other than what I am about to try which is to make myself a personal contract to find a job with limited social contact and variable environment something where iI can let my mind run while my body does the work. Lucky for me I have an opportunity with our local sanitation service. Ride a truck stop and go different routes daily but not weekly. the other guy is at the other end of the truck most of the time and my brain is only engaged partially with work. Will let ya know how it goes. Btw the pay is pretty good too LoL

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[Anonymous]

Wow…well thank you both rhawkers and Elizabeth! How true in both accounts…I do put a lot of pressure on myself. I’m figuring out what I want slowly I’m trying to break out of the box I put myself in! The Artist’s Way is helping me through that…I definitely wanted to break free and figure ME out. I do want to be married and have a family I guess…maybe I have a ton of energy because I’ll be having kids later! haha I don’t know about living quarters…definitely don’t mind living in an apartment at the moment I need to surrender to whatever is happening in the present and yes be still. Most definitely! The energy is a little overwhelming at times bahaaha I really appreciate your posts I feel very grateful!!! And I didn’t want to hijack this forum!!! I hope Briochick comes back too and I hope South Korea works out!!! What an adventure! And Malevalent…good for you!!!! Sounds like you’re very happy and grateful with your position and the movement of the job sounds perfect!!!!

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[Anonymous]

Hi all. I’m still around, just pretty busy. I promise I’ll catch up reading and say something relivant. In the last three weeks I moved to South Korea, had orientation, moved to a small town, started work at two schools, moved into an apartment, and had to get an emergency root canal. So, sorry I haven’t been around.

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[Anonymous]

Briochick…look at my gratitude post! Just BE-ing…people posted some great info that may help you feel less frustrated…cause I know exactly how you’re feeling with the frustration. We just need to change our perception of what happiness is and contentment outside the confines of the conditioned lifestyle we’ve grown up to know. Hope you fine some time to relax soon!!!! I can’t believe you had to get a root canal on top of all that! jeez!

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

It’s amazing how we think we are free and rebels and we dread being like everyone else or fitting in and simply becoming another mindless consumer in the vast multinational corporate consumer culture…

But at the same time panic if our lives don’t look like they are supposed to in the movies and TV shows and magazines.

Maybe this is what’s behind a study (done at the University of Michigan in 1998 by P. Wu “Goal Structures of Materialists vs. Non-Materialists) which showed that watching too much TV triples our hunger for more possessions and can reduce your personal contentment by 5% for every hour a day you watch.

Are you old enough to remember the headline: “Parents Go Berserk Trying To Find Tickle-Me-Elmo For Xmas.”

Do you remember what you got for Christmas when you were five years old? Nope.

Do I remember what I bought my kids when they were wife years old? Nope.

But boy, did it seem important to spend all that money.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Rick, I remember what I got for Christmas when I was five: A Fisher-Price Castle and a Fisher-Price Farm, with the Little People that looked like wooden pegs with a ball on top for a head.

I remembered this, because the other day, I read in the Toronto Star that Health Canada has issued a safety warning, urging everyone to dispose of all those old-style Little People, and not pass them on to children today, or resell them at yard sales or on Ebay. The warning was issued after a 10-month-old child choked on one of them. It seems the old-style Little People are the perfect size to lodge in a child’s throat. This is an unforgivable error in design from a company that was always known for the safety of its toys…until you consider how many millions of children played with those Little People over the decades, without choking on them. And that the Little People were never meant for 10-month-olds to play with. They were for ages 3 and up. Fisher-Price made other toys for infants and toddlers.

In 1991, the toys were re-designed with larger Little People, after 8 choking incidents. And ever since then, there hasn’t been a single recall of Fisher-Price toys for safety…

Except for all the recalls over the lead and cadmium paint on them…and the toxic chemicals used in making the plastics…and the bits that can break off and injure or choke a child…

Frankly, I’d feel a lot safer letting my kids play with my old Fisher-Price toys, than with all those new “safe” ones that are being mass-produced in China, where companies are always cutting corners to increase profits, even if it means replacing the more expensive materials with cheaper-but-toxic ones.

I wonder if that safety warning is just a ploy to get people to dump their old toys (which seem to have been built to last forever) and rush out to buy all that new made-in-China junk.

I believe in doing everything possible to protect children and to prepare them to eventually go out into the world on their own. But I think we’ve taken things way too far when we’re flying into a tizzy over toys that were safe enough for generations of kids, and replacing them with junk.

More proof we’ve gone too far with this mad desire to eliminate all possible risk: A couple of years ago, I saw a paper doll book that bore this ominous warning on the cover: “To avoid injury, remove staples before giving this book to a child.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that if little Johnny is unable to play with a book of paper dolls without impaling himself on a staple, then little Johnny isn’t going to last very long in this world.

(Hey, that’s something else I’m good at: pointed satirical observation—AKA smart-aleck rants.)

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[Anonymous]

I definitely agree Rick about the contentment factor in relation to TV watching. It is true!!! The media has been shoving the idea in our heads that we need this and need that for happiness, and especially for kids now growing up with those messages, that would lead to a lack of contentment for anyone! It’s feeding our ego so that we don’t have to look inward at ourselves and grow as people and find happiness that way. I hope one day that will be a larger message on TV…that you don’t need things to make you happy! That you have an imagination to do that! I remember as a kid having more fun playing with my grandma’s colourful button collection, and making forts out of dish towels, or rocket ships out of comforters, then I did playing with other toys. I know that that message is certainly starting to trickle into the mainstream, but not loud enough as of yet.

Interesting Definitely have experienced that lack of contentment! haha…mainly because of the happiness factor. Personally possessions aren’t what make me happy…money certainly helps, just for the freedom factor. The freedom to be able to travel and explore is much easier when you have the funds to back up those adventures! I definitely have experienced the panic of not being like the people on TV or magazines. Not because of the materials they possess, but because of the places they are in their lives at the ages that are portrayed. They have a successful career, being financially stable, having a family, a house, kids, dogs, parents that help them out when they are financially in need….and all at the ripe ages of 25 or 30 or whatever! We’ve been conditioned to think that there is an order to things…and people have lived by this order for so many years that when you aren’t following that order you panic and feel abnormal…or a failure! You go to school…get out of school 4 years later…get a job…find a mate…buy a house…get married…have kids…retire…blah blah! BAH! Struggling to get to that “normal” order in life doesn’t help either and only blocks you your inner voice is telling you what your path is all about. It’s hard to be a fish out of water in a society that finds comfort in swimming the same stroke, down the same stream in pond of life. Or a fish out of water, when you see people put together…so figured out. I think that’s when you wish you were like everyone else. Just to get rid of that anxiety surrounding the fact that you’re not on that path…things are still in the unknown!!! You know you have a purpose in this life and the drive to reach it, but what the hell is it?? However, then there’s the scene from The Last Kiss where Zach Braff has it all figured out…has a great girl, a great job, everything planned out and he’s feeling the opposite…that there’s no surprises in life. I guess the lesson in all this is that we just need to stop looking outward and be content in the moment and stop trying to be somewhere else or fill our lives up with stuff that doesn’t really matter in the end, to fill that void.

This message is completely all over the place!!!!! sorry!

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[trashman]

hi just read all the post can i ever relate iam 47 going on dead when i let myself panick iam not officaly been diogniste please forgive the spelling i only have my grade 8 but ihave made it this far . ican tell you manny diffierent jobs some iwas reely good at and some not somuch. iloved driving a garbage truck because ever day was different and yet every week was the same. my point is nomatter what you choose to do do it with passion then when it gets boring then it time to move on. i have offen been asked to decribe my work, and i will say you will learn t apricate me and when ileave you will learn to miss me. that may sound strange but i haved that is true about me. i have learned i have adhd whitch igot from my dad he died last year @84 ;he allways said there is no shame in what you do as long as its honest and you did your best you have nothing tobe asamed of. every thing else matters not. you cant take any thing with when you r dead. my point is dont be to hard on your self be happy with the talents you have. share them with the people you meet if you are true to yourself learn to live on what you earn because the wourld will be spining at different speed then you . so i dont we will fit into the so called normal mould any way so be happy with the important life you have two you and all the people that get to know you.

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[Anonymous]

I could have written Briochick’s comments word-for-word. I’ve burst into tears numerous times because being a jack-of-all-trade I’m “okay” at pretty much anything but never seem to be particularly GOOD at any one thing. I can ‘make it’ anywhere, but never seem to do much better than that.

At the same time, being okay at any task makes it really hard to decide what you should be your hand on career-wise. I’ve had a dozen pretty wildly different jobs (I was in the army for a good chunk), and haven’t found one that I want to ‘settle’ in… yet I really need to find something I can earn more than minimum wage doing. I’m just about done my associate’s degree (which has taken longer to earn than it should thanks to the focusing/concentration issues) and it’s time to choose where to go for the 4-year part, but I’m kinda terrified to do so. I’m 31 and it feels like whatever I choose is going to be “it” and I’m scared I’ll choose something that I’ll suck at, or more likely, get bored of after a few years. I also want to have kids in the next few years, and I’m worried about how I’m going to do that when I’m trying to start a new career of some kind.

Like Brio, I also feel “behind” — other people I went to school with have kids, a house, a major career… even my little brother has done really well for himself, and here I am still in the “college kid” rut, and quite frankly kinda confused about how to get out of it. For me it’s not the material part so much, but the pre-programmed “chapters” or steps that we’re “supposed” to achieve. I mean it’s one thing if you’re not making the steps because you’re climbing Everest or exploring the Congo, it’s another when you just feel “stagnant”. I was generally happy in the military, moving all over the world, until I suddenly started hating my actual job… now I feel like I’m in the exact same place I was when I graduated highschool — you hit this “what now?” point and feel stuck. I swap between being pretty happy at what I do happen to have, and being deeply depressed because I’m somehow failing life and stuck like a car in the mud.

I’m glad that I can sew, fix my car, paint a picture, vaccinate a cat, design a garden, layout a newspaper, plan a wedding, hit a bull’s eye at 300 yards, insulate the attic, and do CPR on a baby…. but sometimes I wish I was really, really good at just one thing and paid other people to do everything else — like most people do. I could survive the zombie apocalypse with flying colors, but normal life is confusing the hell out of me ;oP

I’m smart and talented, but what the hell do I do with it??

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