The Pit And The Pendulum

22 10 2007

For those that do not know, The Pit and the Pendulum is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. The basic synopsis can be found here, though you really should read the story which can be found here. Anyway, the pendulum in this case is the semester for me; as the end draws nearer, I fear I may not survive intact. If I manage to survive this semester as I have the past ones, the pit awaits. The future is the pit for me, as it feels there is my old nemesis, a number of life-changing decisions with currently unknown directions, just now barely palpable on the horizon but is creeping closer as the walls around me close in.

I felt that I tottered upon the brink — I averted my eyes
–Sooner Dead





Willpower

8 10 2007

I’m broke. Not the ‘I quit, I cannot do this anymore’ broke, the ‘I have no money’ broke. It is kind of the reason for me being so quiet; I have been locked down in tests from school and had no money to get anything done on the car. I paid off Katrina, and bought a new computer, so that quickly drained any funds I could have had. The good thing with paying off Katrina was that I am not losing a 1/3 of my monthly car payments to interest! I have saved myself about $800 by paying the car off early. Sure it was a risk running myself that low on cash, but I am very careful with finances and figured it would be alright, and it was.

Onto the actual title of the post. I am actually quite frustrated with myself, as for some reason I cannot find the willpower to do things I think I want to do. Somehow I get caught up in something else, lose track of time, and end up getting nothing I wanted to do done. An example would be watching TV or playing a computer game instead of working on the car, working out, working on code, or doing homework. I know some of these things aren’t fun, but some of them are things I really really want to get done, but I can’t get started and keep working on them consistently and I don’t know why. The problem is is if I am not consistently checking myself to make sure I am doing what I should or doing one of the harder things I enjoy, I slide right back into basically doing nothing productive and it is getting frustrating. I wish I had more to say but I don’t, I just need to just keep at the more difficult things I want to do and force myself to do the things I have to do.

Will you defeat them, your demons?
–Sooner Dead