I tell myself to hold on until it is warm outside. It is my goal and the thing that keeps me going. "The Grind" is suddenly not a thing when I have lots of daylight hours, warm temps, green grass and pleasant breezes. Our environment is SO IMPORTANT.
You know, I think there is a lot of truth to this. We're having a snowy April. I looked at the weather forecast for later in the week/weekend, and it all says "Highs in the 70s, except for you poor bastards near the lake where it'll still be in the 40s so no gardening for you, MUAHAHAHAHA." (I may be paraphrasing slightly. ;) ) It just makes me want to cry and hibernate. My main coping mechanism is gardening and I've been struggling to do that indoors, cramming more and more plants under the grow light in hopes that at some point they can go outside. It is good to have the reminder that once temps are reliably 60ish my mood will improve a lot. Though I feel like at the rate we're going that'll happen in July. :P
I've been struggling a lot with The Grind lately. I took a new job and my entire team is in a lull period. The huge project I am supposed to be on is delayed due to some high-level corporate BS - so, it's coming, but we don't know when. So most days I have literally nothing to do. I've been trying to learn new skills, get up to speed on processes, working through some online classes and such, but I just cannot stay focused on that for 8 hours a day. I learn better when I can apply what I'm learning to actual work, and that does not currently exist. Plus the whole rest of my team is spending their entire day on social media. I do not want to do that since I am new, but I sort of wonder why I'm making the effort to look busy when no one else is. A lot of them also are ducking out early without permission ... but again, new kid, don't want to make a bad impression.
My commute's longer, and I'm taking a different train with passengers that seem much ruder than those on my former train. (Manspreading ahoy! Lack of personal space! People who step onto the train and then just STAND THERE IN THE DOORWAY dumbfounded, as though they're not quite certain what to do next, unaware of the crowd of people behind them! Cubs season just started, so trains now full of drunk loud a-holes who rarely ride public transport and aren't sure how! Argh!)
Meanwhile, I'm making more money than I ever have in my life and I feel sort of dirty about that as I am not actually producing anything at the moment. My boss tells me not to worry about it, that this happens sometimes and soon we'll have plenty to do. I really like the people I work with and I have great benefits and, eventually, generous PTO. But I am used to jobs where I am constantly crazy-busy and putting out fires. I worked my ASS off at my last job for a salary in the mid-$20k's. This feels so wrong - and having nothing to do just encourages me to stay in my head and feel crappy about mandatory 9-5 ass in seat time when I could be doing other stuff. I think I'd feel differently if I felt like I had a purpose at work.
cj25, I can relate to a lot of what you said. I have land lust so badly I could just cry some days. I want a homestead. I want to have my hands in the dirt instead of sitting at a desk serving time for no reason other than I need a paycheck. I want to help others (I have signed up for some volunteer opportunities in the coming weeks and am excited about that... but it's all on the weekends and I'm not certain when cooking and errands will get done now.) All this makes me focus harder on FI, but as I'm coming off of a good 5 years of severe underemployment, that seems so far away on days I'm sitting in my cube struggling to fill the time.