[hoers]

Me and a few people around me made the experience of almost completely losing interest in what used to be our passion *through studying it. Especially in the creative areas. I'm a musician half of the time, I struggled a lot with accepting that my 'creative waves' come and go when they want - forcing output in moments where there was internal fire led me to big internal conflicts, up to something you could call 'depression' (I find that word to be somewhat elusive) - even without any external pressure. Now being in a educational context that requires you to be creatively expressive on a daily basis doesn't even give you the option to have those breathing spaces. So we had to chose: Power through and hope for the best, or (in my case) stop relying on institutional safety and just go for it. It takes courage, exponentially more with every day you already put in, but after years of doubt I'm very glad I did it this way. What I find to be universal: the job paranoia that drove us crazy faded very quickly once in the job market, in retrospect I can't even reconstruct why I was so terrified: Keeping steady at doing something you love, listening a bit to the heart while quieting the mind and finding your flow .. and I'd be highly surprised if you end up not having any success at all.

[hoers]

Sorry, I misread and thought you were still studying. Applies just the same to the job though. I'm self employed, so I have the up- and downsides of having to find and chose and plan projects to keep a somewhat steady income - but without the luxury of taking a few weeks off those goddamn computers and do something completely different I'd just go insane. Machines ftw.