When you’re too focused on something, and when you’re done with it
Apparently, these weird ‘empty’ feelings you feel when you’re done with something you’re focused on for quite some time, is real.
There were this little competition going to happened in my Korean class. It was a fun words game and an essay writing competition. My friend from this class keep saying that I should sign myself up and let’s see how much my Korean skill has improved from the last time I try to guess; is my Korean is actually good or bad?
After a little bit of thinking and reckless decision making, I decided to join the competition even though I knew I’m not qualified enough to make even a simplest essay in Korean. But because I thought this was a good challenge for me and something to make me keep studying Korean, I ended up in the situation where I write 1 Korean essay at least everyday as a form of practice. People seemed like taking this competition as something fun and not serious, while there I was, really want to tested my Korean skill and practiced really hard several weeks before the actual competition.
Nobody asked for my “full concentration” on this competition. I did it to myself, I made it hard for myself. But to be honest, I quite enjoy the feeling of studying and preparing for a competition, which is something I haven’t feel after college earlier this year. I make this competition really important for me, that’s why I pour more than 90% percent of my effort in it. On the competition day, I almost didn’t make it because I was running out of time. But a teacher there were willing to give me some extra time just because I already done with the essay in pencil, and all I need to at last was copy all of the essay into the answer sheet with pen. It was stressful, my hands were trembling, but at least I finished it and pretty proud with the finish product.
Just several days after that essay competition ended, I joined a video competition from the same Korean class. I also put a lot of effort in it, but I feel like the end result was not the best and I don’t really hoping to win on that one. Nevertheless, I’m quite proud of myself who’s able to joined 2 competitions in a month, which is something I’d never did in high school or college.
Now, those 2 competitions are already ended and I’m currently waiting for the results. To be honest, I’m a pretty competitive person so when I join a competition, I compete with winning as my goal. Not that I’m all crazy about winning, but I want to make sure that I have a good chance of winning by putting my best effort on it. So, being a competitive person myself, I put almost all of my energy on studying, preparing, and practicing for those 2 “probably not so serious” competition and I enjoy the process.
But now that I’m done with it and there’s nothing I can do anymore, I feel helpless and empty. If you read some of my previous journals, you’d probably know that I’m currently dealing with some mental problem (probably depression and sadness? I haven’t got myself medically checked yet but I’m guessing it’s one of them or both). So by keep my mind busy with those competitions for several weeks, I manage to keep my mental problems aside and it was pretty nice. Whenever I feel like I was going to cry or get too deep in my own though, I could just practice my Korean or edit some videos. Now that the “goal” is no longer there, I have no “real” reason to be productive anymore. The sadness and depressions are coming back slowly and I don’t like it.
I now it might sound silly for some people, about how by keeping myself busy I got less stress and feel less sad. But I think the competitive side of me make it possible. I’m so focused on the competition that I forgot I was sad. Isn’t it amazing? As the “competition” no longer there, those bad feelings are coming back to me now. Just several hours ago I was crying in a public bathroom in a famous shopping mall. I was so embarrassed because there’s a cleaning lady there but I just can’t stop the tears. I never expected that by finally finishing something, rather than feeling “accomplishment” of “fulfilled”, I feeling sad instead because I have nothing to look forward to anymore.
I think I need some time to make this feelings gone. While waiting for the competition result announcement, I’d probably watching some funny TV show or YouTube videos. I hope I can find a new goal for me to look forward to, so I could feel a little bit better and forget about the sadness.
But who knows? Maybe when the result come out and turns out I don’t win the competition, I would feel a lot worst instead.