The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Is it possible that I have some kind of ADD?
DirtyDirtyVagrant
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm twenty five years old and I cannot fucking decide what I want to do with my life. I am constantly moving on to new things and new ideas, abandoning old projects for new ones only to subsequently abandon those and restart something I was working on before. I work on things sporadically for only as long as they hold my immediate interest. I have a hard time focusing on things that are not video games - probably because entertainment is better at keeping me interested.
For example, the following is a list of ideas I've had about what I can do for a career in just the past few days.
Art/Illustration
Computer programming
Video journalism
Professional hold'em
Teaching
Law
Medicine
Business (Finance, MBA maybe)
Counseling/social work
Writing for publication
Politics
These things are all things that I am deeply interested in and passionate about, and I could do any one of them if I could just settle down and focus on one for any longer than a month or two. At first, my attention is very strong. For example, when I started learning how to play cards, I was intense. I was reading the books, watching videos, talking to pros, making friends with players better than myself and discussing hands with them, etc etc. But eventually I just kind of backed off of it, and now that the DoJ has shut down the US legs of the major sites...meh.
I own dozens of books on art, writing, and programming. The former is the field I would most love to move into, given the choice. One of the most satisfying ways for me to flex my creative muscle is to create worlds and settings and characters. Some of the people I look up to the most are artists, and I've always seen my drawings as setting me apart from other people. They were always my thing.
Sooner or later, I'll start drawing again. For a month or two. I'll study like crazy and learn a ton of stuff. And then I'll move on to something else and not draw for a year. It's so fucking frustrating because I know I do it, but it seems so normal to me at this point.
Obviously I should bring this up with my psychiatrist, but I thought I would bounce it off you all, too. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
For example, the following is a list of ideas I've had about what I can do for a career in just the past few days.
Art/Illustration
Computer programming
Video journalism
Professional hold'em
Teaching
Law
Medicine
Business (Finance, MBA maybe)
Counseling/social work
Writing for publication
Politics
These things are all things that I am deeply interested in and passionate about, and I could do any one of them if I could just settle down and focus on one for any longer than a month or two. At first, my attention is very strong. For example, when I started learning how to play cards, I was intense. I was reading the books, watching videos, talking to pros, making friends with players better than myself and discussing hands with them, etc etc. But eventually I just kind of backed off of it, and now that the DoJ has shut down the US legs of the major sites...meh.
I own dozens of books on art, writing, and programming. The former is the field I would most love to move into, given the choice. One of the most satisfying ways for me to flex my creative muscle is to create worlds and settings and characters. Some of the people I look up to the most are artists, and I've always seen my drawings as setting me apart from other people. They were always my thing.
Sooner or later, I'll start drawing again. For a month or two. I'll study like crazy and learn a ton of stuff. And then I'll move on to something else and not draw for a year. It's so fucking frustrating because I know I do it, but it seems so normal to me at this point.
Obviously I should bring this up with my psychiatrist, but I thought I would bounce it off you all, too. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
DirtyDirtyVagrant on
0
Posts
I can't tell you how many times I've thought "Well, if this art thing doesn't work out, I can totally become a train conductor! or I can learn how to code! Or I can become a construction worker, that seems cool!" Not two days ago, when I was sitting at my desk at my job, I thought to my self "It would be totally sweet to own a bar. Oh my God."
A couple months ago I wanted to take up silversmithing (shit, I still do).
With that said(and IANAD), I think it's possible that you have ADD, but I also think it's possible that you just have a lot of interests and just can't decide on one to stick with. See what your psychiatrist says.
Check out my art! Buy some prints!
And possibly it goes to a larger point. Deep passion and interest does not really wear off after a month or so... that's called fascination. But using those descriptors, coupled with the mention that video games hold your attention well, suggests to me that what you are doing is escapism. Escaping into the list of things you put up there, with all the passion and interest needed to not just enjoy a thing but be consumed by it is not sustainable after it stops being fantasizing and escapism and starts being hard work.
You have been given the choice. What remains is for you to choose it, and recognize that your payoff is in the future but your work is now. I don't think you have ADD - I think you have trouble committing to actions that aren't rapidly gratifying and a habit / pattern of escapism that you've tried to continue in the more serious aspects of your life.
Also, sorry. I kind of suck at picking appropriate descriptors sometimes. I wouldn't say that I was deeply passionate about cards. I just was really gung ho for a while about everything on that list. That's a much better way to say it. I was crazy enough about learning to play that I had ground $50 up to over $1000 in a pretty short period of time and read four books cover to cover in something like two days.
So you're pretty much saying that I just need to knock it off. How do I go about identifying why I do this? There has to be some kind of underlying reason, right?
This right here I believe to be the core of the issue.
You have a very wide range of fields/topics up there. Everything is super exciting and interesting at first, but most usually don't stay that way, especially if you go at it with extreme intensity from the start (e.g. the poker you mentioned). You can either push through the burn-out and see if it's a long-term passion, or you can move on to another immediately gratifying activity. The latter is what you're doing, which is obviously not good for the long term.
It sounds like something with art is your top choice. Great! The most important thing to remember is that those other things? Yeah, they don't have to go away. Almost everything you listed there, save for law and medicine, could be done as a hobby, side-job, volunteer work, etc.
You might have ADD (or you might not) but either way, this isn't ADD.
Honestly, a lot of people have problems following through on projects. I'm the same way - I get super-interested in a thing for a month and then burn out on it. I don't know if there's a name for it, but it's not ADD.
There's also no cure except for just doing it. Pick something - preferably something that you've gone back to a few times, and can be done as a job - and just do it. Do it for 30-60m every single day. Even if it's not fun, even if you're tired, just keep doing it. Eventually it'll become a hobby, then it'll become a habit, and eventually it'll become your calling.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This. Part of the trouble is that you've built up habits that are counterproductive to a longterm commitment. Change these habits by doing different behaviors!
Is there an underlying cause for a love of escapism? Maybe, but maybe not. Honestly, escapism, fascination, fantasy, and rapid gratification are all fun things. It might simply be that you have a set of bad habits, not that you have an underlying flaw that needs to be addressed.
Even if you did have some underlying flaw, one of the main things you'd do to address it is to build up new habits...
How about "the human condition"?
Humans are smart, and we're good at thinking. We think of a lot of things. But because we're smart, we also get bored when we're doing something that isn't fun.
But to get good at something, you need to work, and work isn't fun. I mean, on its face, it's not fun. What is fun about work is when you're really interested in the subject and you complete a project or something and afterwards you look back and think "Wow, that was fun!" But the work itself is not going to be fun.
Quick example: earlier this week I had to research, compile, and write a report. I scrubbed through websites, organized the data I found, and then wrote an analysis. When I finished, I thought "Hey, that was fun!" And because I like doing that sort of stuff, when I'm in the middle of doing it, I'm jazzed up and motivated.
But it's still kind of boring and stressful when I'm actually DOING the work. It's only fun at the end, in hindsight, and when I get to the next project, I can look back and think "hey, that was fun, this one should be too." That helps keep me more engaged.
Another quick example: I play double bass, and I'm starting to get pretty good at it. It's taken years of lessons, learning to read music, and hours and hours of practice. I should practice more, and play more things. It's hard work, and I joke that buying an instrument for a gift is like telling someone "happy birthday, here's some work!" I bought my own instrument and chose to do this myself, though, so my motivation is internal -- I want to improve, I want to be better at this, and I want to be better at this to the exclusion of other things.
You need to be able to focus on something you can actually do, enjoy, and attain, and that means making decisions and sacrifices. You cannot be ALL of those things on your list.
As for what you want to do with your life, often you can't just "pick" a thing. A lot of the things on your list are really super vague. What does "politics" mean? For comparison, I work in "technology." But that's not what I do with my life, nor does it describe my qualifications, interests, or job. I have a background in technical communication, experience in XML and electronic publishing, and now I work with ebooks. Loosely, I describe my personal professional interests currently as "electronic publishing," which I didn't go to college for (even though it is very relevant to my degree). What's more important, though, is that I realize a lot of the things I do aren't slotted into just one job, and a lot of people realize that there's, say, 75% of their current job that applies really well to another job, and the remaining 25% is something they want to learn. So they hop over. I talked to one guy on an interview who worked at a data storage company in their marketing department and now works for a publishing company in their electronic products strategic development department. Both involve "putting things on servers and reaching customers" but he went from "IT" to "Publishing."
None of this stuff is fast. You thought of a dozen things in the last day. It's taken me YEARS to actually figure out what it is that I like doing and how I can go about doing it. It's taken me years to get decent at playing double bass, and I realized in the process that I can't get distracted by thinking about learning other instruments.
What I'm saying is to write about the things you've tried. The act of putting thoughts in to words has the weird effect of clarifying them. Have you started a blog?
So I need to pick something and stick to it. Something I enjoy. Something I can do as a job. Something I'm already able to do to some extent.
I'm pretty sure I know what it's going to be. Thanks everyone! I'm really sorry for always coming in here and asking you guys to help sort through my insecurities and general mental problems.
It's much easier to sort through those things when you're comfortable saying "dudes I have problems" and can hear "yeah we all do."
Congratulations - You're normal. The hardest part of adulthood (and life, really) is sucking it up and focusing on certain things for long periods of time when the rewards are either intangible or so far from immediate they might as well not exist.
I have ADHD. Let me tell you this- if you are afraid you have it, read this. I don't know how encessarily credible that website is, but it's got most of the basics down from what I can tell.
I know that you aren't necessarily looking for AD/HD in this thread, and it was probably just part of a clever title, but it's worth it for you to look into. Figuring out how your brain works is an extremely important process for any person.
AD/HD can be responsible for you having trouble finishing things, that much is incredibly true. Here's a list of things, ask yourself these questions.
1. Can you get wired on caffeine? Does it keep you up when you need energy?
2. If you break your concentration, can you jump back into work in a reasonable amount of time? How frustrated do you get when someone breaks your concentration?
3. Can you multitask? Basically at all?
If your answers were: "No, in fact caffeine tends to put me to sleep." "No, and I get extremely frustrated because it takes me a long time to get back into the zone" and "No, I've always been very bad at that," then you are likely to have AD/HD. Specifically that first question is the giveaway. It's not the comedown of caffeine that puts you to sleep, it's the ingestion itself that tends to let you focus, and makes you maybe a bit drowsy. If you do have AD/HD, then it's important you know that you do. If you don't, just take the advice of the other posters- welcome to the conundrum that normal people face, try and go do something, and be decisive about it.
If you think you do have AD/HD, let me tell you a little bit about it.
If you have it, your brain works differently. As in, way differently. I will say stuff like "I can't concentrate on more than one thing at once," or "when I break my concentration I lose a lot of time getting it back," and people tend to respond with "oh man I know, amen brother! That sucks!"
That is not an appropriate response, because for the vast majority of these people, they have no idea the profound differences between the way a they think and the way a person with AD/HD thinks. When I say I cannot multitask, what I mean is I am literally incapable of writing notes in class, because I have to stop paying attention to the professor in order to physically write them. When my concentration is broken for even 10 or 15 seconds, it takes me 15 minutes, sometimes more, to get back to work, because I quickly forget the details of what I'm working on. That is the sort of difference- and it's important you know about yours.
There are several different types of AD/HD, and they don't quite know how to classify them all yet, however, there are some common threads among them. For one thing, a very poor working memory is exhibited by all forms of those afflicted with AD/HD. This is what makes it difficult to finish things. What it means is that after leaving something, when you come back to it, it tends to look very foreign. Even if you are intimately familiar with something (a piece of art, a block of code) you will need to spend an unreasonably long amount of time looking at it in order to get back to where you were at when you stopped.
This can lead to a lot of frustration and thoughts of doing something else, because "obviously you can't just do this, you're not even doing anything right now."
I'll head this wall of text off at the pass for now, because like I said before, I know you weren't really looking for advice about AD/HD, however, if you do think this might be an issue for you, I strongly recommend you seek out some literature, and continue to post in this thread, or send me a PM, since there is a wealth of knowledge I can impart to you about likely scenarios in which your brain works in a completely different manner from the way in which you might think it does.
And trust me, trust me when I say that knowing and compensating for these differences can quite literally mean the difference between a productive day and a day where you're depressed about getting nothing done.
Flat panel computer screens "project" light out, and that seems to affect mental ability.
Try wearing anti-glare glasses (yellow tinted, "gamer glasses") in the office, or even full on wrap around sunglasses (I recommend polarized).
Also, check out the Blood Type Diet to help with handling ADD. www.dadamo.com
Rend hits a lot of good points in his post (I'm the only gamer I know who can use a Mountain Dew as a sleep aid). If I need to stay awake, I usually go for one of those energy shots with the B-Vitamins in it, or I'll nap.
Dieting can't affect how your brain is wired- and from what I've read of the blood-type diet, well... let's just say I think the only weight you'll be losing is a few pounds in your wallet for buying the book.
If you honestly think you have AD/HD, then get tested for it.
I can has cheezburger, yes?