Caffeine, motivation, and creativity.

I don’t hate my work. I am very good at it. The problem is that I am bored. I have been doing it for 20 years. There is very little excitement left. Very few challenges. I have reached the level of unconscious competence. I do not even need to think about what to do most of the time, I just know what to do. I am bored.

That is where the caffeine came in. When I was bored and not very interested in working, I would just drink another mug of hot black tea. Enough of it and I could get myself going.

I had my reasons. I have a wife and kids and a 130 year old house to support. I am the primary provider. I have my responsibilities.

Despite being an expert at what I do, I was not an expert in financial management, and the economic environment has provided a good number of pitfalls. I do not have a great financial buffer.

I boxed myself in. I did not allow myself enough time to be creative and find new and interesting things to do. I did not allow myself to explore new directions. I needed to be responsible and support my family. That was the right thing to do. That is what was needed. My own needs were not as important as my responsibilities. I just keep working harder.

It was not going well. The more I pushed myself with caffeine, the more tired and bored I became, and the more I needed the tea.

That worked until it broke. I do not understand what happened chemically but the caffeine stopped working. No matter how much I drank it would not give me any energy. My batteries were empty. There was nothing to draw on. Drinking anything caffeinated made me feel sick.

I was not depressed. I know what that is, I know what it feels like. In oriental medicine I was told that my kidney energy was depleted. My creative well had run dry. Empty. I could make dinner and cut the lawn and do the daily things that were needed. But I did not even have enough imagination to read books or watch movies.

I did what I had to do. Over the course of two weeks I quit caffeine. I have been working hard to get more sleep. I went to an Ayurvedic doctor and got some herbal compounds to support rebuilding my kidney energy. I worked on my yard and in my garden. I waited and started to rebuild. It took a few months do get going.

Over the past few weeks I have found sparks of energy. I have started new creative endeavors. This web site is one of those. The writing of this blog spurs me to do more, to explore, and find new ways to be creative and expressive.

What are the lessons to be learned from this? One: do not let my responsibilities over-ride time to take care of myself, to be creative and enthusiastic. Two: caffeine is a drug. It is not my friend. I used it, abused it, and paid the price. I need to continue to avoid this, even if I get to a place where it works again. Three: I need to listen to myself. The first two lessons are really included in this. If I had listened to myself all along, and let myself express my natural energy and creativity, I would not have hit the bottom of the emotional well. But then, maybe that is what I needed to learn the lessons.