I’m someone who’s very interested in creating stories and worlds, and even hope to be an author one day. I’ve never really been that interested in the real world, be it the people or the things people expect of you, like studying or finding a full-time job. I work part time so that I can still pay all of my bills and stuff and not have to worry about money.

The reason I’m here is because I have very little motivation to do anything. Don’t get me wrong, I do really like the stories and worlds I come up with, but most of the time struggle to get started doing anything. I feel like I’m missing something, like I can a hole or requirement, that I need to be filled before being able to work on my stories more effiently. The thing that worries me, is that it’s probably something irl that I’m missing.

In the real world you could say that I’m a loner, but one intentionally because I am generally not interested in anyone enough to be close to anyone, and don’t like shallow relationships. The same applies for getting a girlfriend, which I don’t know many people to begin with, but if I got one I would want them to be someone I deeply cared about, rather than just shallow dating just because you find the other decently attractive.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m getting lonely, and if I have very little energy and motivation because of my lack of meaningful interaction with other people. It might just seem like I’m just jumping to conclusions, but this has been happening for a long time, and I’m pretty sure is much more severe and different to simple laziness.

Any thoughts on what I can do? It feels like over time I’ve just ended up putting myself in an abnormal position that will just make things harder for me, especially since I’m not one to be satisfied by simple things or shallow interactions.

Hi there! Sometimes finding motivation may be really hard and I'm also having this problem right now and don't really know how to deal with it. But the few times I really felt motivated were when I had someone I admired. Now, admiring someone meant that I also had a love interest in that person and this can be a double edged sword since some guys I admired didn't even know I exist. However, finding motivation in other people is the only thing that worked for me. Because every time I admired someone I felt like I should do something to get better, to make that person notice me.

Also, I suggest you to try to make some online friends if you say that irl you are kind of lonely. Sometimes talking to a complete stranger may seem more satisfying than talking to a close friend. And maybe try to find some people who have common interests with you. If you are aspiring to become an author I suggest you find some websites were you can post you work and get feedback from other people. Getting positive feedback may help you become motivated!

I really hope you find something, feeling this emptiness really drains you out of energy and it makes your everyday life way worse. And if you need to talk, just know that I am here to listen :).

My advice is to set goals. I know it sounds ridicoulous, it did for me as well. I always thought that goals were pointless, but they make a world of difference.

I never had much motivation to do anything and my life was becoming more stressful working at a dead end job. It finally came to me one day that I could help design computer chips so I made that my goal. In order to achieve that goal I needed to get a degree in electrical engineering. Over the couple years of college I added more goals, like quantum computing and going to grad school for physics and engineering.

Point is try setting a little goal that you know you will be willing to follow through on. Maybe not write a book, but blog some short stories. Then after blogging, or whatever else there is for writing short stories, other goals will form. Maybe it will get to a goal that involves being published. My girlfriend likes the movie Julie and Julia, which is sort of like that.

Maybe not even write, but review work. You could be a critic, publisher, editor, etc. That line of work requires you to read other peoples stories and do something with/about it.