It’s good news that you’ve found something else to keep the black dog at bay, I had a similar experience when I retired, I thought when I was working I was just occasionally a miserable bugger, but it turns out I have cyclothymia (or bi-polar lite as it’s sometimes called). I have found that keeping my zinc levels up helps with the extremes of the mood swings and that it also helps keep colds at bay is an extra bonus.
Anyway, that backstory aside, I was struck by your comment about being shite at some of your new pastimes because I read this just the other day from the genius that is Kurt Vonnegut:
”When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”
And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”
And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”
I hope that helps a bit.
