I’m retired and I don’t like it. I’m looking for jobs but have lost all confidence in myself and my abilities. I get as far as reading the job description and think, “I can’t do that.” Twenty years ago, I could – I had team leadership skills, accounting skills, general management skills. Now, I feel those have all deserted me, despite having run my own business for those twenty years. When you run your own business, you are your own accountant, your own marking director, your own administrator. You constantly make decisions about time management, customer service and product delivery. There are many skills you must have. After a year and a half of not using them though, they all seem to have evaporated.

It would be easy to slump into despair, but I am determined not to do that. Instead, I am looking for little things in which I can take pride and pleasure. If I focus on the little things then the big thing – the job – will become less depressing and scary – or at least, that’s the theory.

This morning, I went shopping at a different supermarket. It is the supermarket my younger daughter works at during the university holidays, and she has a staff discount card. It makes sense to shop there when I can. But it is different from the supermarket where I usually shop and it’s out of my comfort zone. I know where everything is in my usual supermarket; I even have a shopping list proforma printed out in that order, to which I only need to write down the things I need in the appropriate section. So shopping elsewhere was a challenge, even though I had my daughter with me and she knows where everything is. It was all set out differently, and I had to check my shopping list with care, meticulously crossing things off – and I still managed to miss something.

But I feel proud of myself for taking even that small step.

Yesterday, I dusted the sitting room – a job that was long overdue. I put all the things from the dresser into the dishwasher and damp dusted everything. I apologise to those who religiously dust every week; I don’t. Perhaps that makes me into a slob, I’m not sure. But dusting felt like a big job even though it might have been only a little thing, and I’m taking joy in a clean room.

There are days when even getting up, showering and getting dressed seems like an effort, and I can be proud of achieving even that. It feels nice being clean.

I suppose this is depression, but not clinical depression; I am just a bit down.

And, right now, I feel I have nothing to say in this blog. I am, however, still going to take pride in wiring it.

Lex asked you on Monday what you had done to make yourself feel proud. Today I will ask your general advice on regaining confidence so I (we) can feel proud of bigger things, not just the little things.

Mary

A Moodscope member