Mojo and the lack thereof

[snousle]

I find it so interesting that my mood can change so much over time. It's kind of inconvenient, actually - the times when I'm wildly ambitious, I have lots of great-seeming ideas which I jot down for future reference. Then later, I think, WTF - you must be kidding. My task list gets weighted down with all sorts of interesting-seeming things that are NOT going to make my life better. I've come to accept that "ideas" are not really my friends, that I don't need to follow up on them, that they aren't an important part of who I am.

Here in the country there's a tendency for visitors to see all sorts of exciting possibilities that get expressed with the phrase "You should..." To which my favorite response is "Don't should on me!" I've come to really dislike this word. Especially when it applies to work that I would have to do and the speaker wouldn't.

Perhaps the most interesting variable is what I tend to think of as "mojo". The drive to be sociable, to get to know people, to be out in the world. This swings real hard and by definition most people see me in the high-mojo state and perhaps think I'm like that all the time. Not so! It's a real finite resource. I have to learn to stop thinking of low-mojo periods as having "something wrong" with them.

It's just that the high-mojo me and the low-mojo me don't quite understand each other. I wouldn't say I'm bipolar or anything, just that I have to be careful of what commitments I make, because it's easy to get the ball rolling faster than I want it to roll.

Comments

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

While it might be problematic to manage, at least you do have "high-mojo" times/phases. What you describe as you "low-mojo" state is akin to my normal state of being. ;)

[dorisduke.livejournal.com]

How about if someone says to you, you should do whatever you please.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Well, that's easy because it's what I do already!

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

I used to beat myself up for not doing all my ideas and then I realized that it's not possible to do them. In fact, isn't it great that I have more ideas than I have time to do? Some people have one single idea in their life and then when they do it they wander aimlessly. It's better this way.

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

Ever since the 2008 crash, I've allowed myself NO NEW PROJECTS, I can only work on projects I already have. I spent some 13 months unemployed and have only started to get caught up with all the things I said I was going to do one day. I threw many of those undone projects away, too.

Now I think having too many ideas is distracting. It seems better to take the most interesting/plausible idea out of the pack and pursue that one at a not-breakneck pace and take someone along on the journey with you, just to be social.

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention that.
Our cul-de-sac is changing ... the men especially are becoming more sociable. sometimes this is good, but sometimes when I just want to be out enjoying the front garden ... someone or someones want to be sociable when I'm not in that mood. Kinda puts a damper on things. Most the time all this sociability is OK, just sometimes it's not.