well, stop paying your bills for a while. you'll soon realize that it DOES matter what you don't do.

:shocking: :shocking: :shocking: Put up lots of Christmas lights and think solstice. Only 19 more days and the dark will start going away and the light will return. That always helps me about now! :shocking: :shocking: :shocking: :shocking: :shocking: :shocking: :

Well now I have my eyes burned out from your smilies... :eek:

Occupational therapy of a sort... for a display starting tomorrow

Oh my god! The aliens are going to eat baby Jesus! Somebody do something!

An orgasm-i nativity. :eek:

mind's in the gutter again, Bruce.
That's origami-nativity :lol:

Actually, quite nicely done. Bored at work, Steve?

It's spooky how wise LJ is.

No I did it in a rush last night. Gotta go deliver it today. (I'm surprised LJ didn't recommend the purchase of a new Nissan vehicle as a soothing activity! :angel: )

(edit to fix a typo)

are you really? you strike me as someone who dreads the car buying experience. remember, i'm spooky wise. i know things.

Yeah, what else do you know???

And yeah, I dread it, not so much for the process (though I find that annoying). I dread it because I hate spending so much time to acquire something I loathe. (I hate driving.)

I couldn't take it anymore
 

so about 10 days ago I basically said take this job and shove it. It was a decent paying union job and I was #1 in seniority with 11 years on the job and 3 weeks vacation and about 6 months ago the #2 guy quit which really was my catalyst to get out. Even though I do not have a job and will take the rest of the year off, I feel very good about my decision. Last weekend I tried to work up some remorse about quitting, but I couldn't and I still can't.
Life is too short to be unhappy with your work. My living expenses are very small and I actually feel a sense of adventure about things.

My first year at my last job we had a guy who got fired that we thought might go postal because he owned many guns
and seemed to have bubbles in the think-tank. I can remember eating lunch and thinking what I might do or run to if he came back shooting. Once you reach that frame of mind, possible or not, it gets scary.

For SD. Don't know if this makes sense, but trouble I find with the downers is that there doesn't seem a way out. The old negative spiral bites - e.g./i.e. hate job but need job, so can't give up job but feeling negative about it makes me short-tempered generally which puts me at odds with others - maybe even (usually even) family. Issues I should be handling at work aren't so I'm a PITA at home. And that just adds to the problem.... Then more things add to the grief, and you feel you have absolutely no means to control or influence events.

Truth is that you can get control - and you have to in order to reverse the spiral direction. The way you do that is to attack the real issue (on much the same lines as Lumberjim said). This could be the job. For example, perhaps the work presents no challenge/satisfaction - only problems. If you cannot improve the situation (that is remove the problems either solely by having the authority to do so, or by being able to influence others to do so) then you will need to change the situation (that is find a place where these problems don't exist) so that you have something to strive for - this will get you on an upward path. What this means can be different for different people - it may mean changing your job (maybe not), it may mean changing your life - but be aware that whatever it is will have its own set of positives and negatives and you need to have your eyes wide-open to what these are before making any decision. So think before acting, but do act and don't just think about it - and take personal responsibility for the decision you make (your decision may be to stick with what you have), so you have no reason to gripe if you don't like the end result.

Personally I have always tried to work out problems without personally introducing major lifestyle threatening change, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't (I have 5 redundancies behind me and the fallout these can cause to back that up - you then get the lifestyle change whether you wanted it or not!), but I still prefer and will always go the route of facing out the problems - I find this more rewarding from a self-esteem and sanity perspective (but that is just what suits me - doesn't mean it is best for you). Whatever, always remember to involve people that matter along the way during the course of making and also once you have made your decision. If other people understand what you are going through and what you are doing (having to do) to solve the situation they will (if they are decent people) be more tolerant of your actions and even supportive of your efforts. If you leave them out so that they don't know what the hell is going on, then you shouldn't be surprised at the reactions you get in return.

Hope the above doesn't sound all to hypothetical - without knowing specifics it's only possible to outline - can't propose anything more detailed knowing as little about your situation as I do.

Hey, it's OK. I've been cured.

http://images.despair.com/products/d.../potential.jpg

I'm OK now.

Well, OK, seriously, blech, I just feel like I work, sleep, repeat. It may just be seasonal--we've had a hell of a semester with a lot of new stuff online (or not online as the case may be) and we really could have used another positoin that we got turned down for in the last budget cycle. Now that the semester is drawing to a close things should be better after the break.

I have, however, upon reflection, determined to not let myself get into quite as much of a rut by forcing myself to partake of more extracurricular activities. (And you're probably all going to be victimized by this because I just got a new camera.)

(I will note that the original post in this thread was followed shortly by UnderToad's x0th birthday party, which was a nice chance to get out of the house. Perhaps the answer is simply to show up at his house once a year with a case of beer.)

Not everybody who owns lots of guns is some kind of a wack job, you know.