I'm recently noticing, that I seem to have something of a problem. Namely, I'm often not quite sure what I enjoy anymore. I don't think I'm completely incapable of having fun, even if I do have difficulty putting my finger on exactly when it is happening—though I suppose that is often so, not something one thinks of in the moment—but it does feel like there are a lot of things I do either out of habit or because I like the idea of being a person who does that thing or liking something, instead of doing it because I actually enjoy it.
At the same time, it feels like my fear of failure might at times go deeper than I had even realized before, to a point of actually contributing to the problem. I noticed this most distinctly recently, when loaning a book. Firstly, finding a book that seemed intersting enough to try wasn't actually all that difficult, loaning it however took some thinking because I just kind of kept wondering: "what if I can't finish this book either?", probably because I actually do have a number of unfinished books I could be reading but am not.
Even once I got past that first hurdle, actually reading the book was also difficult because even though I think I was enjoying it and making decent pace, I kept second-guessing both my enjoyment and my capability to actually finish the book, along with a certain level of guilt of not having finished the other books I have started and why am I reading something new instead of those.
I worry, that this mentality of unfinished things, even things I might not want to finish, are bothering me to a degree of actually then being unable to enjoy the things I usually enjoy, and the guilt making it hard to actually do those things I want to do.
I also worry, that I not only need but also want to actually make rather drastic changes to how I am living life, since as noted above it feels like I am letting habit and familiarity determine the things I do regardless of enjoyment instead of actually changing things and doing things I enjoy. Why is this worrying? Because big change isn't easy, and that means it will take a good while to actually get done, which means the status quo which I seem to not be overly enjoying at the moment is likely to continue for some time going forward.
On the other hand, having identified the possibility of this being the case, does allow me to make smaller changes that I think are where I want to be, and thus test the waters as it were and see if those changes are ones I would actually enjoy making.
Thinking through what I have written, once more having been one of those journies we take together dear reader, it seems to me the problem is that unfinished tasks or desires have a cost associated with them, and unfortunately that cost also makes it more difficult to actually finish them. I suppose, along with testing out different things I actually do want to do, I should look into ways of enabling myself to actually do the things I want to do instead of just thinking about doing them. That's the hard part though, I suppose, taking that risk of actually doing, potentially failing or just simply not enjoying it. That's another thing, then, allowing myself to say: this wasn't for me, I'll do something else instead; without it becoming some sort of mark of shame.
This was already unusually rambly, so I think best end it there, though I think I discovered more new questions than answered old ones.