Paralysis of the Soul; why do I end up hating myself?

Why is it so hard to be consistent with anything?

I sit here after a weekend of wining and dining some of my closest friends – a weekend full of nothing but love. Yet I despair as I haven’t consistently written once a day as I promised myself.

I am wracked with this hatred of myself for not being consistent with writing, as with many things in life; this battle of obsession versus laziness constantly fighting, making my skin itch.

This mental block exists whenever I sit down at a computer: ‘Oh, I will get to that later’ – yet I know that I won’t. The irony, of course, is that it is something I enjoy.

The self-destructive habit of not doing it is entirely my own fault, yet I am incapable of stopping it.

This extends to so many things in my life – whether that is exercise, reaching out to friends, or the variety of hobbies I enjoy.

For the last few years I have been obsessed with coffee; this has gotten to the point where, in my office, I have a manual lever espresso machine setup with a manual grinder – highly excessive, I know – I have been subjected to a variety of ridicule by my boss – but it creates great coffee and looks amazing (see below).

Yet for the last year I have wanted to purchase a coffee roaster to replace my popcorn machine roaster. I had a second-hand seller, it’s not expensive – it’s a text and a tube ride away. Yet for some reason there is this extreme mental block; I have led the person selling it on like a confused lover who doesn’t know what they want. Yet the frustrating thing is I know I want it, but in my period of idiocy it was sold.

Before I meet anyone for a drink, lunch, or a coffee, I am wracked with dread and the gut renching desire to cancel. I know I will enjoy myself when I see them and be so glad to have them in my life, yet I want to cancel badly.

Just this prior Thursday, when I had planned a lovely Burns supper, I had this overwhelming desire in my gut to cancel – just this complete stomach churning attitude towards cooking and hosting.

Yet those are two of my most favourite things in the world. As I leaned back in my chair sipping a glass of Riesling, telling a story surrounded by friends, the overwhelming desire to cancel felt so foreign as to be another person – yet I know it was me.

As with so many people, my pile of books climbs so high as to be a mountain; my room looks like an unorganised library spanning from Aristotle, to Carl Jung, to Jane Austen. All books I was keen to devour and immerse myself into at the moment of purchase, yet I don’t have that desire. I am simply sucked into algorithms and, in the few moments I can breathe, I feel so tired as to simply want to sleep.

I don’t quite understand it; I feel the desire to go to extreme lengths for others, going as far as making dairy-free chocolate ganache macarons for a date who mentioned it offhand, or learning to make sourdough for a gluten-intolerant mother – yet I am incapable of going to the gym consistently for myself.

I know the pile of books will climb higher, the list of movies to watch ever longer, the backlog of articles to write ever greater – yet I will persist.