Boredom

Do you remember the days when we used to get bored of our extended holidays and want nothing more than to be back in school and having some sort of schedule and structure in our lives again? 

Yeah, that’s the army pretty much right now for me. It might sound so stupid to complain about my schedule right now, which consists of breakfast, exercise on alternating days, lunch and dinner. That’s all I do everyday. Obviously I use the gym and read and do other things to try and keep sane but I can only watch so much Netflix before I feel my brain melting. There’s obviously an abundance of things I could do with all this spare time but it’s so hard to find the motivation to get off my ass and do something. I’ve recently gotten into investing, I want to learn Spanish and I’m starting the process to get my driver’s license, but the feeling of being unproductive is inevitable. 

On top of that seeing people from your past and friends outside the army living their best lives, enjoying their civilian status to the maximum and being able to do genuinely whatever they want whenever they want is an arrow straight through the heart. Worse than that even is seeing some of your best mates who are also in the army enjoying their job perks (going home everyday, working alternate days etc.) 

I love the group of people I’m surrounded everyday by, but nothing in the world can replicate the feeling of being busy and I’m struggling to find that. I know plenty of people probably feel the same way or the complete opposite and enjoy watching Netflix and playing mobile games all day. 

Worst of all, the one thing that’s my supposed saving grace: Football is stressing me out. I’m currently exploring the possibility of playing in the S-League (Professional League in Singapore) whilst serving my National Service, and hopefully one day playing for Singapore. Having not played an 11 aside game in almost a year and having had limited opportunities to play since I moved back from Hong Kong, I’m filled with self doubt and can’t help but question whether I’m good enough to genuinely pursue a career in it. I’ve trained multiple times a week since I was 9 or 10 and to go from that to one session a week is such a change of pace and it’s frustrating. I’ve had this dream for as long as I can remember and it’s given me such a dilemma because I don’t know if I have NS to thank or blame for it. Without NS I probably wouldn’t have moved back to Singapore and realised this dream was a possibility. Alternatively, not moving back would’ve allowed me to go to the UK of US and play for a University team and maybe still allow me to pursue a career elsewhere. Seeing people I think I’m better than or just as good as succeed angers me because I’m so limited in what I can do. I’ve always been a pessimist and never saw football as a legitimate career path, rather something I just really enjoyed because of the competition and the beauty of the sport, but its  now somewhat a reality.

It’s probably shallow to complain about the aforementioned things but I can’t help but feel like I’m being consumed by it all. Knowing what you’ve lost thus far due to this army commitment hurts like a bitch, knowing it was out of your control doesn’t give any closure either. You can’t help but end up questioning everything. Why me? Why did I come back? Why didn’t I run away? You get the gist. But adversity and being put down again and again puts forward the choice to either sink or swim. And before you know it hopefully I’ll be swimming my way towards a normal life again.

Thanks for reading