These past 4 days have been crappy. Friday was horrible, Saturday and Sunday were pretty benign, and today has been a fucking nightmare.

The thing that continues to pulsate in my mind and distract from any other avenue of thought is my almost total inability to handle these things. Overall, much of what has gone on in this period of time has not been life-threatening. I don’t think anyone can blame me for being upset that Spartacus died, but his death brought up emotions that went far beyond that, that I thought I had put behind me. The problems with my car are troublesome, but not the end of the world, and if I bothered to take an interest in maintaining the thing, it wouldn’t have happened. I brought it upon myself. Same goes for my weight; if I bothered to do something about it, it wouldn’t be a problem. And I’ve had a horrible day at work, but who doesn’t now and then? I may have been left out to dry in some ways, but a normal person should be able to deal with a bit of criticism.

When I’ve related my woes to friends, they seem incredulous that this is the set of circumstances that has me joking about killing myself or running off to start an alpaca farm. They miss the key difference, though.

I have absolutely no joy, hope, happiness, optimism, willpower, ambition or strength to offset these little roadbumps. In all things, the good must outweigh the bad, whether the good be literal or perceived. You might be able to put up with a horrible job if, say, you have a loving family to come home to. It makes it so much easier. It is your rock, your anchor. If you have a bright career ahead of you, it might make college easier to get through, because the prospects of whatever field you’re entering outweight the dullness and immaturity of your classes and classmates.

Hope is like a carrot dangling in front of you, beckoning you to continue on, making it easier to take the next step, even if you’re tired. It makes it worth it.

I have no carrot. And that makes it harder to buck against an onslaught of small problems. A mornings worth of steady but insignificant irritations can make me feel completely worthless. A bad day at work will fill me with self-doubt and despair. I have no reason to persevere. I’m not fighting for anyone else. No family, no girlfriend. All I have to worry about is myself, and I’m not worth worrying about. When the going gets the slightest bit difficult, I wonder why I’m bothering.

Today has been such a day. A disastrous meeting set the tone. A bad call on diagnosing a problem perpetuated it. My outlook on life was already shot from the terrible weekend, and then I see my grandparents out and about. I’m reminded of just how quickly supposedly unconditional love can turn sour, and your entire ideal of what family is supposed to be is thrown out the window. I wasn’t equipped mentally to fend that off. Every word seems wrong, every movement seems misguided and clumsy. Nothing is right. Nothing is needed.

I’ve been reading Atlas Shrugged and there’s a character who, in his idealic outlook on life, says that a man without purpose is the most depraved type of man. I think I agree. A person with no purpose or goal is aimless and has no responsibility to himself or to anyone else. It makes it much easier to slip into sin, because in the end, what does it matter? Time blends together, days are indistinguishable, actions become benign. Consequences are not something you consider.

Combine that with an almost unbearable amount of guilt, whether deserved or not, and you get a feeling of eternal frustration. You are going nowhere. Every memory is tinted with remorse, for not being what was needed, for not doing what was necessary, for failing everyone, but never for failing yourself. You deserve your own failure. You give of yourself in order to feel needed and loved, but it never works.

Anyway, I’m rambling. The point of this whole thing was to explain why I’m not as resiliant as I should be. I’m starting off in the negative, sometimes neutral; more negative, even tiny amounts, cannot push me into the positive. I know it’s hard to rationalize this type of thinking to yourselves. You’re probably thinking to yourself “Just do [positive activity] and stop complaining!” but you have to understand that that’s practically impossible because I do not care about myself in the least. In fact, I’m sure at some level I believe I deserve every bit of annoyance and insult that I’ve ever gotten and ever will get. Self-improvement is beyond the reach of such a person. Why improve upon an utterly useless being? What good would that do? It’s a catch-22 situation. I would need to feel better about myself to feel motivated to do things to feel better about myself.

Instead, I’m going to lock myself away in my cave and will the world away.