Strugglebus. That’s about the only way to describe life since my last post, three weeks ago. Still been in a bit of a creative funk. I have multiple post drafts that I need to go delete. Also been in and out of emotional funks, and I’m honestly pretty deep in one right now. Also, this long holiday weekend just kicked my butt and the butts of the few of my coworkers that also worked long, tough shifts. I think there were 4 of us that worked every day from the 4th through the rest of the weekend, with a lot of the staff not wanting to be team players on the 5th (I had to schedule myself for a 12 hour shift, which turned into a 15 hour shift, and my other 3 full-weekend warriors had to pull like 10-12 hour shifts that day too). The fact that I work at a sub shop and almost worked a traditional full-time weeks worth of hour in just three days (not including my other two days of work, and the work-related tasks that I do on my days off) kinda shows that it has been a rough week. Being the boss sucks sometimes. Lately, it has been sucking a lot more often than not. I wouldn’t say that my job is the reason I’m the driver of the emotional strugglebus right now, but it’s definitely the fuel keeping it going.

[One-ish hour later]

So one of the main reasons I started this blog is because I had hit some weird spot in my personal growth where I felt like I couldn’t really progress until I get more comfortable with being vulnerable. If you’ve been keeping up, you know I’m an INFP. And if you look into that personality type a little bit, you know that most of us naturally write so, BOOM. Blog. After finishing that last paragraph, I struggled with how open I wanted to be about where I am right now as far as where this strugglebus has been driving. Obviously, this internal debate on what to share with the entire interwebz tossed me straight into some sort of breakdown. But I’m back! And I’m not going to go into the bus map because I know that my work team has the ability to read this. I don’t mean this in the sense that this post would be an attack on them, because it wouldn’t. It would actually be the complete opposite, but could be read wrong because this post is coming from my angle and the stories that my mind formulates about certain situations, whether the story is actually true or not. Most anyone that’s gone to therapy knows what I mean by the stories created by our minds. When your depression likes to come up with negative reasons for things, typically masking the real reasons for the situation. I feel like some of these stories that my depression is creating might make some of my team feel bad or like it’s their fault that I am where I am on the emotional scale right now. So, I won’t tell you guys those stories. But I WILL remind everyone struggling out there to keep working on training your mind. Don’t be afraid to get help if you need it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with not being okay.

So here is where I’m going to ask for help. Anyone have any tips on improving self-discipline? Any good books, websites, methods? My depression has me in some sick cycles, most of them stemming from my lack of self-discipline. The worst part of this low is that I know of ways to help pull myself back out. Many of these ways are things that I genuinely enjoy doing AND are ultimately good for me. But between the depression and discipline thing, I’m stuck doing stupid, useless things. Main example is that being outside is a mood boost, even scientifically. I LOVE doing outside things, and I live in such a perfect place for it. Hiking. Biking. Fishing. Longboarding. Even just going for a walk or hammocking outside on my deck. These are all things I could be doing right now, or have done yesterday (even with the bouts of rain) on my days off. Everything aside from the hammock session would produce endorphins, and ultimately be good for me. Even a walk or skate to the bar to ingest depressants would probably be better for me than sitting in my living room high all day, primarily playing Bloons Monkey City on Ninja Kiwi. [**If you ever enjoyed any Bloons game, this one is Bloons on steroids. Really fun, really addictive. Do not play if you have no self-control.**] 

Any advice anyone has to help me get my life back together, let me know. Once I get over this hump, I have so many fun and exciting plans and directions I want to go in life! I’m still really stoked about the future, just struggling to get on the path to get there. Such is life sometimes.