Stuck? Sluggish? Unhappy? If so, Project Yourself!

Sometimes a person becomes unhappy not because of any identifiable problem in a specific aspect of life. Work’s ok. Home life’s ok. The person still enjoys meeting up with family and friends and watching movies with their significant other. Everything is ok, nothing has fallen apart, but life still seems empty (or emptier), and the thrill is gone. A certain sameness and lack of direction have set in.

A person may feel sluggish, stuck, suffer a chronic low-level dissatisfaction, but this state seems to relate not to anything currently present but instead to something that’s missing. But what is it? What is it that’s felt through its absence? And why hasn’t the person been able to put their finger on it yet? Perhaps they haven’t thought much about it, or perhaps they have, but whichever the case, that person doesn’t know what to do next.

For many of us – perhaps for you too, but I don’t wish to presume – a feeling of grayness, stuckness in the mundane, and a lack of passion, energy, and focus are due to living too much in the present tense.

What do I mean by living in the present tense? And, aren’t we supposed to be more ‘present,’ more mindful of all the nuance that surrounds us and that arises from out of us?

My response: Yes, many of us, me included, should be more aware and responsive to the here and now. I should listen more intently, appreciate the beauty of the world more frequently, and give thanks more forthcomingly. I can and should do all of these.

However, at the same time, some of us – and I plead guilty to this – need to project ourselves into the future to be happy. We need to imagine and work towards changing the world – our small part of it – in some desired direction. We want a future that seems more exciting and vibrant than the present and need to work towards it in order to feel fully alive.

What’s so hard about this?

If you’re this kind of person, there is nothing too hard about it. There simply is one piece missing: that of identifying and accepting yourself as this type of person. Let me explain.

From my many lifetime conversations pertaining to some aspect of this future-focus and its lack, I’ve learned that many people who seem like natural future-projectors, makers-of-that-which-is-not-yet, don’t realize this about themselves. They are unhappy doing what they’re doing now, but what they’re doing now, which contributes to their unhappiness, is a particular type of work. What kind of work is this? Answer: routine work.

These are individuals with the “founder’s curse.” They are only happy when imagining that which isn’t, researching and planning it, and – what is especially gratifying – implementing it.

Once this new thing, be it a new company, research lab, fellowship program, or invention, is secured and all the bugs have been worked out, and normal operations have been established, the ‘founder’ loses interest.

One can ponder: “But they’ve put in all the hard work, suffered the long days, sleepless nights, painful and embarrassing setbacks, and then they want to ‘get out’ just as they’re about to reap the rewards of their hard work. What gives?”

What gives is that for the founder-type, the rewards lie in manifesting a new reality, instantiating a new form of something, bringing the possible into the actual. Once done, they no longer see a role for themselves. They flounder, lose interest, start making mistakes, see themselves as flawed and blame themselves for it, and mentally and emotionally check out. They mope, and they fidget. Sometimes they start doing dumb and reckless things, like a child with ADHD. Or, instead, they suffer a long silence, their flame diminished for the rest of their lives. (It makes me sad just to write about it.)

My main point: For a founder-type to be happy and to make the world happy through their driven efforts requires them to engage and deploy themselves in the work of bringing on the new. Sometimes, these individuals are like – and I don’t mean to be rude – idiot-savants: they are geniuses in some areas of endeavor and mediocre or incompetent in most other areas. And maybe they could do well in many areas if only they maintained a modicum of interest and motivation. But they can’t. Routine is just a living hell for them, living as a shade in a gloomy underworld.

One last point: If who I’ve described is sort of like you, you may very well ask, “But I’m already in my 40s or 50s, and I’ve never felt this way before. I’m not sure you’re describing me.”

My response: Because the profession of physician or other health professional requires such a long period of schooling and training, with frequent changes of setting and medical specialty in rotations, followed by navigating a career filled with change and increasing responsibility, it is only in middle age – or later – that you arrive at a plateau. It may have taken you into your 40s or 50s or later to finally hit a patch of flatland. You’ve spent your career working hard, receiving accolades, increasing your wealth, raising a family, and implementing many improvements in every place you’ve worked.

And you look back and appreciate it all. You probably wouldn’t change anything. But, but now … now what?

Now, just continue being a change agent, a maker of the future, an idiot-savant of invention, a founder of enterprises big or small. Die in the saddle. Retirement is not for you. Even if you quit your job, you will not want to retire because to retire means to die a small death every day.

Keep getting up, kicking ass, listening mostly to your own counsel, and working towards beneficial outcomes. The world needs you in all your perverse focus and single-mindedness.

Until next time,
Dr. Jack

Quote of the Week

“I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise” – Emily Dickinson, I Dwell in Possibility