Apathy at its worst.

For the past couple of weeks, I feel like I've been in some sort of slump. It's quite odd actually, because I can't put my finger on what exactly has been bothering me. The more I think about it the more I realize it is really a combination of different things. For one, I know it has something to do with my job. At times, what I do gets so repetitive. Make a pizza, cut the pizza, box the pizza, and then hand it over to a customer who more often than not is ungrateful that I just prepared their dinner for them. Then of course there's school. I've been going to college for what seems like forever, and I still have very little to show for it other than a bunch of money that I owe to the government. I guess what I am trying to say is that lately I have been feeling so indifferent to everything around me that is has been more or less affecting the very way I interact with others on a daily basis, and even more so it has been making it incredibly difficult for me to find some sort of motivation to get on with my life.

In short, as of late I have just simply been going through the motions of life.

When I think about this, my mind can't help but to drift to the movie "The Big Lebowski." In this film, the main protagonist The Dude (aka, Jeff Bridges) has numerous encounters with a group of German Nihilists. When the Nihilists eventually catch up with The Dude, Bridges asks them who they are, and they reply by telling him that they believe in nothing. What The Dude says next, is something I still find funny to this day: "That must be exhausting."

Somehow I think this quote seems applicable in some way, shape, or form. Because even though I haven't really felt like doing anything (and truth be told, I haven't really done a thing outside of work and school), I've been feeling super tired everyday. So maybe The Dude is right in that sense. Maybe feeling indifferent all the time really does end up leaving a person feeling exhausted.

But the problem is it's more than just feeling indifferent at times. Lately, I've been having a near impossible time when it even comes to making decisions. I don't know if it's because I simply do not have a preference in most cases, or if it's that I've become too lazy to actually make a case for something, but in any account I am definitely finding it difficult to make even the most tiniest of choices.

Awhile back I can remember looking at the Guinness Book of Records and laughing at some of the various records that people held. At the time I thought some of those records seemed so dumb and pointless. I mean who really cares if you created the world's largest pocket knife,if you  are the owner of more "do not disturb" signs than anyone else, or if you participated in the world's largest gathering of people dressed like Smurfs. But now when I think about it, all of this makes a bit more sense to me. It's likely that the people that hold these records will never really enjoy national fame other than having their name printed in some book that on average has over a thousand pages in it, but to the record holders it's something much more than that: to them,  (in my opinion, anyway) the reason that they seemingly practiced day and night at whatever weird skill, trick, or task they were trying to achieve likely wasn't so they could have a 6 point font of their name written in some book somewhere, but rather it was a reason all the more nobler; it was because they had a passion for something.


Now maybe I am "romaticizing" this idea a bit too much here, but think about it for a second. If you spent an upwards of at least 15 to 20 minutes of your day, each and everyday just perfecting said skill or trick, and continued to do so until you were deemed the best in the world, at what point does that stop becoming a simple hobby/task and actually become that person's passion? Here, I'll give you a hint: when that person makes a conscious decision to say, "I am going to be the best at this, regardless of what people say, think, or do. I'm going to give it my all, and I am not going to quit, nor am I going to give in." I think it's at this point that the said person has gone from simply living out the rest of their existence in an ordinary, mundane way, and instead they have ascended to a higher plateau of humanity: the part of humanity that isn't just settling.

Okay, so for those of you sitting their and still not following what I am saying at all, let me try to simplify all of this for you: As human beings, we are given several choices throughout our lives, and in most cases we are also given different opportunities, some good, some bad. Ultimately however, it is up to us to decide what we do with these choices, as well as the opportunities that have been presented to us. So with that in mind, should we just simply continue going to our boring, mundane 9-5 jobs, so we can buy stupid pointless crap that we don't need, and so we can afford expensive unhealthy food that is really just going to end up killing us in the end? Do we return to our homes every night only to be zombified by our televisions, thus putting us in a vegetative state so that we are more willing to get up the next morning and repeat the whole process again until we are 65? Or for once, do we actually do something with our lives? Even if by some dumb chance that something happens to be trying to break the world record  by seeing how many t-shirts we can put on before passing out from heat exhaustion.

So I guess I am saying all of this to say the following: if we are going to do something, why shouldn't we try our best at it? If we want to achieve something, why not go all out for it? And finally, if we really want to get the most out of our existence, why not show a little passion in the things that we do everyday? The more I think about it, the more I'm realizing this is probably what my problem has been all along. Somewhere along the line I lost some of my passion in the things that I used to take so seriously, and because of this it's affected my outlook on life. So in that sense, I think it's time I tried to find some of the things I've lost, and take back that pride I once had.