Sunday 7 August 2016

Idenitity Crisis

I am confused, or maybe depressed; or both. I don't know what I am doing with my life. I am in my thirties and I have no clue what I want to do with my life, my career is depressing, my personal affairs even more so. Most of my friends are in the same boat when it comes to relationships and family matters, but almost all of them have at least figured out what they want to do for a profession. I can't say the same for me. I changed track 2 years ago, decided to go into research instead of clinical practice, but over these two years I haven't found satisfaction in this career choice either. The daily routine, the need for round the clock dedication of headspace does not agree with me. I think I have written this same post some time back, in between I have tried to work harder on what I am doing but it didn't bring me any satisfaction. I am too inclined towards the arts to completely immerse myself in science. I need an artistic release. I was going to art classes to keep my painting habit alive, but the circumstances ended that phase this month. Now I am unsure whether I will be able to carry on painting or whether it's the end, those beautiful canvases will just sit gathering dust for me to look at them and feel even more unhappy at how I have let my life go down paths I didn't even want to tread. I want to have the motivation to come back home from work and sit with a canvas but I doubt that I will, since I have given up on everything unless I was forced to keep doing it. Last time I had quit the art classes because I was too depressed to do anything, I could hardly get out of bed. Rejoining the classes and starting painting again had been a step towards recovery. But ever since I started working in my current position, I have been finding it more and more difficult to sustain the weekly art sessions. And moreover, what I was painting was not even from the heart, it was skilled alright, and very beautiful, but it did not have my voice. I want to paint for myself, to find my voice in the brush at last, but with the extremely demanding phase of starting a career in scientific research, I am afraid I will just lose whatever connection I had with art completely. I don't even have the dedication and the drive that some people in my current profession have. If they are the ones who are supposed to "make it" in this line of work and I cannot even put in the effort and hard work it takes to "make it" as an artist, where do I stand? A wasted, mediocre life? Realizing at the fag end of your life that you have wasted all your time doing things that never made you happy and that you have no more time or energy left to do those things anymore? I never wanted to end up that way. But if I am too afraid to take risks, too lazy to work hard on the things I believe in, then that is how I will end up. 

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