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unemployment and no desire to work

S

Sobrietysucks

Bluelighter
Joined
Sep 4, 2016
Messages
394
I have a hard time accepting that life sucks. I live at home and see my parents work 60+ hours a week just to enjoy weekends.
Is this what life is about? I used to have a part time job, I loved it. I didn't love it because the job was fun. I loved it because I used adderall to work and it made me enjoy it. Ever since I stopped the adderall and entered sobriety, I dont even want to look for work.

How do people do it? Do you guys force yourself to get up in the morning? Do you work due to the fear of consequences if you stopped working? At one time I used to be like that, forced myself to go, great pay, but ended up horribly depressed after doing the same shit for a year.

Life sucks, we slave ourselves through most of it and then die? This is it?

I do not have interest in anything. Never had. I racked up loan after loan to live life on my terms. Maybe I was never cut out for this world.
 
Mods feel free to move this to sober living if it might get me more answers. But this is more of a dark situation than anything. I hope someone will share their thoughts on this.
 
This is a great topic, one that many people struggle with. I think many people accept living for the weekends as a necessary evil and jump through the hoops they have to in order to sustain their level of life. Others have the foresight to choose a career that they are passionate about so they truly enjoy their jobs. Personally, I tried to sustain a career that I hated because it paid well and stayed horrifically depressed...now I'm working toward a career I am passionate about so it's not mind numbing tedious work.

I do think your brain is still adjusting to sobriety and that is part of the issue. I also think if you're not doing something you enjoy, or are not able to get those types of jobs, that is also a huge motivation suck.

I am going to move this to Sober Living because I think you may get more replies there. Again, great topic, I am looking forward to seeing what others have to say as well.


TDS --> SL
 
I can relate. My parents are exactly the same way too. I don't have the answer unfortunately but I will say that you are showing classic signs of clinical depression. If you treat that you might feel better.
 
The trick is clearly to find a job that you like doing. As Allan Watts, the great philosopher, once said, "if you do something long enough, eventually someone will pay you for it."

Become masterful at something you love and eventually you will get paid for it! Someone out there wants the magic that you create.
 
I'm not sure if many people ever do figure out what they want to do for a career... I'm guessing most people just pick something and stick to it.

Even if the job is getting them down due to inability to quit (family to support, don't want to go back to school, bad job market, ageism, complacency, etc)

If you're young enough and living with your parents I suppose you could try a bunch of different jobs to have a better idea of what you want to do
 
I know what you mean...sometimes I think I was born into the wrong era, or wish I could just go live in a cabin somewhere and live off the land. The country and times what we live in require that we provide a good or service in exchange for wages. With a population of 7 billion people, there is more competition. I worked for 10 years as a business analyst for one of the leading computer manufactures in the world. Little ole me made deisions on how this billion dollar company was going to spend its money. I felt empty. Sitting in meetings day after day listening to people come up with the same ideas over and over again. It was like watching a revolving door of corporate robots. My depression and addiction finally cost me that job...even though it was that job that caused the depression and addiction in the first place. Funny how that works...i've been unemployed for 5 months and am getting sober, and am generally more happy in life, but have beome stir-crazy because I dont know what to do with myself.

I started thinking to myself, what do I like doing? What can I spend my days doing that make me feel good about who I am and the legacy I am leaving behind...and to be honest, I haven't figured it out yet.
I am now in my 30s, have been to college and have an engineering degree (because it was supposed to make me rich) and worked for top tech companies...and never have felt fulfilled.

I said all that to say this...for people like us we have a few choices, we find something we love doing or something we find fascinating, and figure out how to profit. If that doesn't work, find something tolerable, and live life for the moments in between work (like your parents have done) or we find ourselves a rich lady and woo her lmao.
 
i generally think having a joh (any job) is better than having no job. unless you are already disciplined and have some direction. doing nothing is boring to me, i feel a boost of momentum when im working and have to go out of my comfort zone. if u hate your job, i think that is a gd place to expand your options and try new things. i dont necessarily know what my purpose is in life, but ill keep trying new stuff out to see what fits.
 
OP, how long ago did you stop using Adderall? If it was recent (or even if it was not) that's probably the most likely explanation for your evident anhedonia and probably slight depression.

You say you're not interested in anything, but I'm sure that's not true, or at least, it wasn't always true. I identify with that feeling though, that nothing is really that interesting or exciting. To be honest I feel like that pretty often, and on the topic of working I have thought recently that I don't enjoy anything about my job except the money, it had interest for me once, and I hope will have some interest again, but I like having money and choices of how to spend my time or live my life, more than I like having no money and far fewer choices.

For that reason I believe I am committed to continue in my current path, until I can think of a better option. I don't fully buy into the current dominant cultural ethos of Western capitalism and the value of a person as a function of their productivity and employability, but for better or worse, in order to live a reasonably comfortable life in the current era of human history we must bend to this ideal. That said our perception of the level of interest that reality has is not reflective of reality itself, but is a feeling that originates from within, and perhaps my own anhedonia like yours has been somewhat induced either by substances or other life experiences. On that basis, I have some hope that it won't always be like this or feel like this, and if it ever seems like it truly will be forever I hope that I will take it as an indicator that it is time for a change of lifestyle... the more things you try, the higher the chance of finding something that truly interests you.
 
Mysterie said:
i generally think having a joh (any job) is better than having no job. unless you are already disciplined and have some direction. doing nothing is boring to me, i feel a boost of momentum when im working and have to go out of my comfort zone. if u hate your job, i think that is a gd place to expand your options and try new things. i dont necessarily know what my purpose is in life, but ill keep trying new stuff out to see what fits.
Click to expand...

I agree, having a job allows you to interact with people on some form instead of just sitting at home... also gives you some sort of structure to your life. Even if it's minimum wage, lousy working conditions, the boss is a jerk, etc... if your coworkers are funny the job usually becomes tolerable.

Some of the best advice I got on this forum was "try shit and try shit and try shit until you find something that you end up liking enough"
 
I'm lucky in that I have a job that I love. In fact it's one of the only things in my life that I'm truly proud of, is the work that I do. When I'm really into my work, being successful and just generally killing it, I get into a mindstate that is probably the closest I've ever come to a "meditative state"...the thought that comes to mind is "this is who I am; this is what I should be doing". It's not even "work" for me then, it's something I love doing that I also get paid for. Plus I turn out an identifiable commodity (fish) and I feel like I contribute positively to society as a whole, in my career as an agricultural worker/fisherman...feeding the planet and all that...

Unfortunately my career is the only thing holding my fragile psyche together and without it I'm a complete fucking wreck. My parents are workaholics too.

It is strange that people spend so much time at work in today's era, yet our productive capacity is such that you'd think people would be working 4 or 5 hour days at this point. It's one of the fundamental ironies of modern life, IMO.
 
Places all over the world are adopting the 4 5 and 6 hour work days. Studies have shown they are just as productive if not more than the 8 hour day.
 
Hey Sobrietysucks,
I can relate. I'm sober off adderall for 4 months now and don't have a desire to work. Working on adderall was fun and interesting. I don't think it will ever be the same without it. How old are you? How much adderall were you taking? I had close to a 600mg/day habit.
 
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