Undefinable

LegacyUser

I'm having difficulty pinning down my life. It's a sprawling complicated little mesh of partial significance. I try to go with the flow but sometimes it seems to result in tangled messes. I know Im being obscure but I'll try to give some examples so stick with me.

When I see opportunities I try to invest myself emotionally (work and relationships) and try to offer a reasonable amount of commitment. I feel life is something of a lottery because I don't trust fate enough so I don't just go headfirst in a single direction unless it looks promising to me (usually gut/instinct helps me choose what I want but logic tells me I'm honing in on wasteful targets). Sorry if this is confusing - imagine what its like for me! Maybe my life is less complicated than this but if I tried to list the things Im dealing with it'd take too long and probably ruin my anonymity...

I don't even know what replies I want from boards members but I do know that it gives me comfort to read the responses that others write to the issues in this forum. Still not giving you enough to go on? Ok. Sexual desires of varying direction (It seems I can orient myself primarily hetrosexually though), people (friends, colleagues, love interests, family, flatmate), work (goals, passion, happiness) location (holidays, working abroad, choosing where I want to spend my life) age (starting to notice a change in direction that I can't control - perhaps this is spurring my feelings of unease or need to change/settle down/find a clear path) religion (this one's not too bad at the moment but I had some shakey times before a friend helped me resolve it).

Amongst the topics listed above are specific examples that I'm juggling - so far so successfully. It's like the internet in terms of complexity but fortunately there is no serious pain or problems in any of these many things. It's been like this most of my life but the branching responsibilities (even if small) concern me because I wonder if I'm just lucky my little web of life hasnt been too badly distorted by anything nasty and if I should focus things a little better in case things ever get rough (deaths, serious illness, finance, stress etc.) I still dont know where Im going with this request but I was hoping that if I spilled a little to the web there might be some guidance or I might even be able to pin down some important issues by sharing as self-reflection can be a merry-go-round for me.

Love life is one issue I think a lot about lately. I've been lucky enough to have a few decent long term relationships but nothing in the last year or so. I usually try to take relationships very seriously (I was very choosy and then I'd work hard to try to make it a success) but now I find the age thing is changing my ways. Now I feel slightly more desperate. Instead of focusing and taking risks I'm playing it safe (as I've done with my career). Educated guesses and smart thinking have got me a reasonable job and a nice quality of life and now Im starting to apply that kind of logic to my love life (a sanctity of pure heart until now) and it bothers me that I'm treating this like I'm some kind of machine. For example, there's a girl I really like which is rare for me and an indication that I'm ready to go all out and do my best to make it happen and make it a long-lasting success but rather than focus entirely on her I've been trying to maximise my success by setting up dates with other girls too in the hopes of finding someone faster and I wonder if it hasn't lost me the special opportunity I needed with the girl I really like (I can't be sure if I've jeopardised my chances with her because of such division of attention but I suspect that I have). I'm starting to be "clever" with my love life to in order to manage it more efficiently. It's like my brain has said - "ok heart - you had your chance and we're getting a little older here so I'm taking over". I focus most of my attention on this girl sure, but the distraction of the other girls is hard to balance emotionally. Sometimes I'm able to juggle my emotions as I juggle other things in my life but sometimes I just get upset about the rapid switching of focus...

I don't know what to do about my love-life any more and I worry that it might drag my other achievements down into meaninglessness. I guess the suggestion would be to stop juggling the women and let them fall so that I can focus on the one I like (regardless of logic and the potential for failure) but I've weaved a little trap for myself in the coming months that makes it difficult to step away from one of the girls without making a bit of a mess. I'm losing motivation - Im well aware that my life in comparison to starving/ill/suffering millions over the planet is probably some kind of paradise and I should shut the hell up until I actually have something serious to complain about but I don't and I'm still struggling with the insignificant details of my little world.

Any words of wisdom or did you all give up after the second sentence ?

K_P

When there's no definable single problem here, just lots of feelings of unease and confusion, it's hard to give a simple answer. But here goes. You're over-thinking things, over-analysing and tying yourself up in knots as a result.

Trying to apply logic to every area of your life is never going to work. It's a good idea for your career and education maybe. Work hard, reap the rewards. Reasonably simple. That kind of approach isn't going to work with your love life. You can take your heart out of the situation and be as calculating and cool-headed as you like, but the other person is still ruled by their emotional and illogical heart.

So my advice is calm down, stop trying to be everything and do everything. I suspect if you can't even decide on something reasonably simple like a holiday, then you're ruled very much by fear of missing out. You want to experience everything and you're hedging your bets in every area of your life so that you will never miss out on anything. You need to get rid of this attitude and... really I don't quite know of a better way to put this, but just calm down.

LegacyUser

Thanks