This is my word for today. Wanderlust. Lately, I have been ready for an adventure. I realized I was suffering from a little post-graduate-degree-completion-malaise...it appears to be a common condition. Its signature symptoms are low-grade depression along with a feeling of "is that all there is?"..."now what?"..."I'm bored." I believe it is caused by the sudden halt of momentum that goes along with being in a program where there is constant stimulation and pressure to think and create. And it is all on YOUR shoulders. At times that is overwhelming and entirely too stressful, but mostly it is fuel for doing really good work once you determine a strategy for good time and stress management. Now here I am. I have a job I love and life has really settled down which is wonderful, but I find myself sniffing out a new challenge. Will it be taking a class? Teaching a class? Joining an organization? Volunteering? Going on a trip? Setting myself on fire? Who could know? I certainly do not. I recently joined the gym so that, on my lunch hour, I can get out of my office and move. Movement is very important to creativity. Sitting all day, breathing in the same recycled air, looking at the same screen, listening to the same music is a recipe for creative death. So that is my immediate cure for digging my way out of my PGDCM (post-graduate-degree-completion-malaise). Does anyone else have any good suggestions?
2 comments:
Learn to play the guitar!
i had the same disease for a while. i don't remember when it went or way or if it did. compared to school, a real job always seemed more like a short meeting. i was bored and i felt a little empty and generally didn't know what to do with my time.
i'm positive i didn't join a gym though. or manage to do any sort of activity. there's probably a way to meet in the middle. it's all very anticlimactic. like one of those movies that just ends.
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