Monday–Trying to find purpose

After an Ambien-induced sleep (it took three of them this time–not sure why), I finally rolled out of bed at 1:30 this afternoon because of a phone call from the bank that has the loan on my daughter’s car.  *sigh*  I didn’t answer it, but I had a discussion with her that the phone calls need to stop and she needs to make her payments on time.

I did get some things done today though.  Followed up on job applications, found a few new positions for which to apply, ran a few errands.  I have an appointment later this afternoon with my therapist.  This will probably be my last one.  I’m not sure how much more good it will do me.

The question that faced me when I got into the shower today was–how am I going to find purpose during this time of unemployment.  Nearly everything I am was tied up in what I do for a living.  Now that living is gone and I have to find a new one.  Temporarily I will be babysitting the grandkids since their mom starts a new job tomorrow, but beyond that, what am I to do?

I don’t respond very well to well-meaning inspirational quotes and sayings.  To me, that’s all they are–words.  I also don’t respond well to being cheered up.  Someone else could benefit more from that than I will.  I also find myself isolating myself more and more from others.  Social anxiety, I suppose.  Anti-social thoughts. I start thinking about someone (usually some woman in my present or past) and I immediately stop myself.

I am a chronic ruminator.  Even today, stepping out of the shower, I went back to a job interview I had in May that I failed and thought about what I should’ve done differently.  It still haunts me.  I even go back to times before my first marriage and wonder what would’ve happened if I had not married or if I had married someone else.

My guess is that nothing would’ve changed.  Seems like I will always fail any woman I try to connect with, any person I try to befriend, any person for which I do not have a business/work relationship with will simply burn in the end.

Solomon certainly speaks truth in Ecclesiastes:

12 So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. (emphasis mine)

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ec 2:12–17.