Value of my life.

Parthalán Ó Cusantín

Good day/night to anyone reading this.

Lately I am struggling with my own life, in interior, spiritual, or mental sense. Since few years in a row I am interested in writing poetry, novels and philosophic works, the latter of which won't be ever published for sure (not even talking about how they might not even be finished). However I can not help but waste my life by watching YouTube's videos and listening to music published there every day. Sometimes I manage to sit and write, but then I am blocking myself. There is always a fear of failing in my mind; I prefer not to create at all than creating something not good enough. I'm just sitting in front of the screen and thinking that the next day I will succeed, just to waste my time again.

I have problems with basic living aswell. I will not lie, I'm only 18 years old, I am here because of my pure interest in this breathtaking country, culture and island; I come from and currently live in Poland, where what we call 'middle school' (technician, high school) last from 4 to 5 years, I am near finishing 3rd year/grade. Someone could say I picked the right way, as I chosed IT technician school (in the west probably just called 'IT school'), but just in the 1st grade I already felt like it is not my path. Now I'm just choking, feeling like I'm locked in a cage. It might seem hasty and deceptive, but every day I am dreaming of moving to Ireland just with my bundle and what I will wear on myself, wandering around and trying to actually start living. Not only for an adventure but to settle down and probably die on this gorgeous land.

xyz13

Dream is free OP.

Graduate (try to work PT if you can and invest part of your salary, don't leave it sitting in a standard current account), use this time to explore other avenues and see how the market is in 2yrs time. You might decide it's best to stay in Poland, move to the US or even stick to the Irish dream. Either way, don't give up.

One thing if recommended is exploring a city/county before you make the decision to move permanently. Life is rosey when you are on holidays, the day to day challenges of life abroad are not to be taken lightly. Luckily, you can hop on/off a plane and be home in a few hours, reasonably cheap.

taxAHcruel

The Irish podcaster/writer/artist Blindboy talks about part of your post quite often OP. Which is the fear of failure when creating and the "block" it can cause you. Unfortunately I do not follow his podcasts closely enough to tell you which episodes to listen to to hear this - but it's been quite a few episodes now I think where it has come up.

In general though he talks about learning to love the process of creation in itself rather than being too attached to the output of it. If you get too caught up in worrying about whether the output is good or not - you will never put your best self into that creation. Rather you need to get into the flow of creating and not care at all if what comes out is quality or not. Because for most artists and creators - the majority of what they produce isn't "good". We the public only tend to see the best of it because it is what they release or publish. We do not generally see what hits the cutting room floor or the waste paper basket.

He likens this to going back into a child state. "Play". Generally when a child is drawing or coloring or creating with lego they are not invested in whether the final result is good or not. They get lost in the process itself. To that end he spent a couple of years on Twitch just making up music and lyrics "in the moment" and most of it was utter drivel. But he did it as part of the creative process of play and failure.

A lot of very successful comedians seem to say much the same thing. While they finally manage to piece together an hour of material with which to record a "special" for the likes of Netflix - they say themselves the vast majority of material they try on stage bombs and flops. But very often the material that makes it into the special was born of those seeds too. Tag lines that came from otherwise abandon bits.

And I know as a black belt in Jujitsu that I did not get there through a path of perfect. I got there by going to the mats and failing again and again and having my ass humbled and handed to me over and over until my process was refined to medal and competition winning levels.

So rather than be afraid of failure or poor quality - actively make it your goal to seek out ways to fail and produce poor quality as part of your process. And judge yourself not on that output but on how much you invested yourself in that process. Learn to embrace and celebrate your failures as much as your successes - because even a failure means you did the work which is already streets ahead of doing nothing.

Otherwise I guess you think that you will produce nothing until the day you sit down and produce end to end gold quality out of nowhere. That the flood gates will open and your magnum opus will just pour out of you pure and perfectly formed. And very few things in life work that way most of the time.

Jim2007

I don't know if this will help you in any way, but in a past life I have been a financial advisor to several well known and lesser well known Irish artists of one type or another and here is a two observations:

They all learned some kind of profession or trade outside of their craft and used it to put bread on the table while they worked on developing their craft. So rather than thinking of your IT education as be an end, think of it as being a means to fund your development as an author. And as it turns out IT happens to be a high in demand and well paying way of keeping you going while you develop your craft.

They all treat their craft as a job. That means they have a disciplined approach to their craft and work regular hours on it. So most of the well crafted material you read and music you hear did not happen from a flash of inspiration but from long days of hard work, with much of it being deleted at the end of the day, the week or the month as not being good enough.

So yes, you are right, whiling your days away watching YouTube will not make you an author! Only you can make it happen, so start tomorrow morning with a plan to professional and spend a fixed amount of time working on your craft and on the qualification what will keep bread on the table for now.