Old Decathlon Olympics Journal

May 21 entered May 22 - I almost chucked it all

May 21st entry written and entered on May 22nd, 2004

I came very close to chucking out this journal and all my entries yesterday. I am in a very bad mood. My mood is considerably more than probable depression. My life resembles a rat race. I am in a maze running around in circles. I truly accomplish nothing that will make a difference one way or the other. My thoughts and opinions really don’t matter to anyone. Nothing I say counts for anything. I am tired and disgusted with too many of the people that I share occupancy with on this piece of dirt hurling through space.

I wish that I could delude myself into believing that anything I say or do would make a difference. I get paid, and paid very well to create classes to teach the less fortunate how to survive in these hard times. I provide real practical advice that could possibly help people with low and fixed incomes find ways to spend less of their money on needs so that they can have more of their hard earned money to spend on their wants. Does anybody listen? No. Well maybe, just maybe one or two will. God knows I hope so. I do know that you can lead a horse to water but that you cannot make it take a drink to save your life. I also know that the poor will always be with us – and I am not talking about the financially poor either. Poor souls, poor attitudes, and poor spirits – so many people looking for the easy path. There are no easy paths. We must all work it out for ourselves.

I am so sick and tired of hearing it said, “That is just the way it is.” I totally disagree. People have the ability and the right to change whatever it is that is not right, fair, or just. For the most part I find that most people are too busy helping themselves to be willing to help anyone else. It is a sad state of affairs when all most of what we do is just about ourselves.

Judge not least ye be judged.

Who am I to think that I know what is good for other people? Who am I to think that my beliefs about what the people who make up our government are doing is going to make one iota of a difference now or ever?

Who am I to think that I can be a published writer when I let so much of what is currently going on affect the way I feel?

Who am I?

I just don’t know anymore, and that is why I really believe that I need to chuck this journal.

I want to devote my time and efforts to learning to write well, and learn to write well enough that someone will actually pay me to do it. I am beginning to feel foolish, very foolish for even trying. I think that I like writing for the Writer’s Cramp because it gives me an assignment. Give me a subject and I will take it and run with it. As for this journal the instructions were simply to write 500 words a day. I can do that with no problem, but nobody gave me a topic so therefore I am all over the place. I have no sense of purpose or direction.

I told someone on here the other day that I have no control over what I write. They, of course, disagreed with me. When I am given a specific topic I can sometimes manage to stay on topic, sometimes I misinterpret the topic. I never really know from one day to the next which current event is going to end up getting my attention. For example, I woke up the other day and read about Writer’s Digest not including Writing.Com on its list of The Best 101 Websites for Writers. Well that certainly got me going. I created a forum, fired off letters to Writers Digest, and tried to inspire others to do the same. I truly imagined that some 10’s of thousands of Writing.Com users would do the same. Y’all can all stop laughing now! I even did the math. Seems like not even one fifth of the users of Writing.Com are interested in correcting this injustice. I am tired and disgusted.