Loss of motivation...loss of ability to focus on much of anything. Anybody?

Question

I live in Kabul. I've been here for 12 months and until recently things have been going okay, I guess. I'm supposed to go home and start Grad school full-time in January. In my spare time over here, I'm taking a couple of grad school courses now asychronously. Can't motivate myself to write more than a couple of lines or read more than a chapter a night, opting to zone out and check e-mail for hours on end or play that stupid Orbitz "Swing for the Fences" game. Gaining lots of weight. Sleeping a lot and feel tired all the time. How do you get past this temporary block? Does it go away?

Answer 1

Maybe you’re a little tired. Somebody who’s done as much as you have (a self-described “boy from the corn” who’s been in the military, studied various academic topics and earned degrees in them, and somehow ended up working in Afghanistan) might be a little burned out. Perhaps rather than diving into your graduate program early as you’ve done, a couple months doing some things a little less cerebral might have been a better option.

You seem to be somebody used to change, and has a great deal of flexibility built into your personality, but for most people transitions like going from working to being a full-time student again can bring about some stress, and depending on a number of factors that stress might express itself as general malaise.

But let’s say it’s not that. Given your rather excellent answer to the question regarding “conviction,” you pretty clearly have that. But there are times where even the most motivated among us winds up in a period of experiencing some mental doldrums, and for no apparent reason. I think that some important considerations when it comes to dealing with this are what you’re doing physically, and the first question is whether you’re getting sufficient exercise. That is actually one of the most important things you could possibly do, and it has benefits that go beyond just elevating your mood.

While it might be difficult, I’d suggest something else: TURN OFF THE COMPUTER. I’m sure your G4 is really cool and wonderful (and I wish I had one sometimes, but my Toshiba Satellite is working really well for now), but taking away that stimulus is going to free up a lot of time. If television exists there, don’t use that either. If you can muster up some of that “conviction” and redirect your focus from hours of e-mail and some on-line game towards your readings by eliminating the alternative to reading, it just might get your nose into the journals rather than messing around with the Mac (albeit I hope you read this before you shut it down!!!).

Another simple thing is to think back (and in your case, you probably won’t have to think back very far) to a time when you were succeeding and evaluate what techniques you were using to achieve that success. Let me relate what I mean by an example from my own experience. As an undergraduate, I did really, really well. I took notes in class that were almost like essays, in four colors of ink! I made flash cards and went through them at every opportunity. I studies with other people, vocalizing the information as well. I was keenly interested in going to grad school and getting a PhD and working in academics. Having done so well, I was accepted into a number of the places where I applied, but ended up selecting the one that didn’t offer a Masters’ degree first. Thrown from the objective world of the undergraduate (where you’re evaluated based on your mastery of the given subject matter) to the nebulous world of the graduate student (where you’re evaluated subjectively based on the quality of your arguments), I totally floundered, and everything blew up after I took my orals. I gave up and left the program. I did a number of things after that, achieving objective success, but never really feeling happy about anything. After a particularly negative experience as an account manager with a small software company, I was looking for a job and found one that I thought was ok, but nothing spectacular. But what I decided to do was to think back about the last time I felt “successful,” and that was back at UCLA as an undergraduate. I decided I’d apply the exact same techniques that led to my success there (taking copious notes in four colors of ink, studying harder than my peers, and so on), and it worked. I got promotion after promotion, and when I expressed that I was getting sort of bored with what I was doing, they made some considerable effort to put me someplace where I’d be energized again - - which led to my relocating to Singapore this past January (and it’s been GREAT). So the idea here is that if you can try and apply the techniques that you know have worked for you in the past, they should work again. It’ll take some discipline to get things going, but the concept is that you’ll get some positive reinforcement from the success, and it’ll motivate you.

Last but not least, there’s the possibility that it’s purely bio-chemical. I know we don’t like to wind up in the realm of physical reductionism, but changes in brain chemistry can come about and present as depression. It takes a consultation or two with a qualified professional in this field (which I’m not) to make that kind of determination, but I’ve known plenty of people who have experienced the kinds of things you described, some on a long-term and some on a short-term basis, and have had fantastic results with the right kind of medication that seemed to give them their motivation back.

But personally, I’d look at the bio-chemical possibility as an absolute last resort. First I’d try working out. I’d CERTAINLY turn off the computer, and sort of make myself use those old techniques that led to past success on your current topics that you need to focus on. Try these simple things first. For somebody like you, it’ll probably be very effective.

Good luck with it!
mz

Answer 2

conscious, a ware, understanding the talents to pass mass states by potential of suggestion, programming, manipulation, stimulation, coaching, preaching(pre), of what's obtainable for reason by potential of individual, wakeful ? what's wakeful, a state of understanding ? attentive to what ? Time ? Spirit ? Spirits ? the potential of understanding is comparable to the degree of conscious, for there is an order of all issues, an echelon, while the order is so as then hundreds are moved, while the branch is summed into one, then one rises in gree(conditional)=jointly(collect)+to assert=circulate of mass. occasion; JESUS. BEATLES. ELVIS. Fads of hair, cloths, track, the hulla-hoop, peer rigidity. greater examples, the civil conflict, the crusades, international wars, programming by potential of tell a creative and prescient, the flintstones comic strip which develop into for little ones, Barnny and Fred sitting on the fence contained in the back smoking a winston cigarette, it truly isn't any ask your self to ask your self why we've a era of people who smoke, the youngsters have been fed imput, those cartoons have been aimed right this moment at little ones in basic terms as they're right this moment, there is plenty extra to all this than could be placed right here in so few words, yet thid does say plenty appropriate to the eyes being opened.

Answer 3

Firstly, Yes, it does go away! Secondly, I believe that you need to be more kind with yourself. Don't allow conflicting priorities to stress you out.

A good maxim to adopt is: "Goals in concrete, plans in sand!". Keep your sights on your primary goal, then take each step one at a time, i.e. Don't think of 'the mountain' you're climbing, just focus on the next step, then you'll suddenly find yourself looking back and saying "Look how far I've come!"

Good luck!

Answer 4

It sounds like you're feeling burned out and depressed. I don't know what kind of health facilities you have in Kabul, but try to get checked for depression.

Answer 5

I was coked out when I went through all that, and it passed for me once I stoped.