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thegatekeeper
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07 Jan 2012, 9:55 pm

From everything to my career as a critical care nurse, to being a past extreme mountain biker and rock climber... I think I'm addicted to challenge... I know I would have been happier being a biochemist in a lab somewhere, but it's just this strange addiction...it's not necessarily to adrenaline either though... I push myself so far as to meltdown sometimes and must retreat, but then I do it all over again

Do any of you have the same issue of wanting to push yourself to your limit, almost destructively so?


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Einfari
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08 Jan 2012, 12:08 am

What you described sounds just like me. I'm extremely competitive and can go overboard on challenges sometimes. I don't think there is a way to stop this because loving challenge is my personality. I don't take failure well and it can almost push me over the edge sometimes.



HighPlateau
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08 Jan 2012, 12:42 am

Yes. I have always tended to choose the path not only less trodden, but also the most challenging [read: 'difficult']. So if I show great promise at art and music, what sort of careers do I consider? Naturally, medicine (couldn't do it; flunked the maths) and law (did it very well, for a short time, but melted down so bad I almost killed myself with self-medication). There have been many other examples in my life of swimming upstream. It's motivated by a kind of bloodymindedness, a 'yes I can take on city hall' attitude, and there has been a certain fierce pleasure and pride in taking a lonely stance and beating the odds when (rarely) it happens.

So, because of the satisfactions, it has taken a hell of a long time to realise this one, fatal flaw. It has functioned as a flaw because it has caused me to overtax myself and deny my 'bliss'. But it has nonetheless been a source of lasting confidence to discover I can take on the impossible and succeed. I no longer have to prove a thing to myself or anyone else, and I'm glad to say I have many years left within which to enjoy this radical, necessary and wholesome perspective shift. My priorities are different now: career is still important but I have chosen a less-consuming tangent, and music no longer takes a back seat; I fear it's too late now for art ... but you never know. As for the challenges, I suspect I'm still quite likely to take on something else impossible before long, because of being built that way; but it will never again be my prime driver. First, peace. Then the world.



Boxman108
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08 Jan 2012, 12:52 am

Eh, it depends. I tend to be lazy a bit too much, but there are some things that just become extremely boring if they aren't much a challenge. I remember feeling that way about the first few years of school and didn't like spending much of my day answering questions I was absolutely certain I knew the answers to. Now that I'm done with that and have yet to find another job, there's not much else. There are more simple challenges like those in video games, from solving puzzles to figuring out effective strategies, to the more complex such as just getting better at drawing...when self taught, at least.


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mglosenger
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08 Jan 2012, 3:35 am

I tend to be the same way. The thing is, easy stuff is just too easy, and pretty much everything is easy. I don't feel like the point of my existence here is to sit back and take it easy. Sometimes I do wish that was all I did, but I know I'd get bored.

I tend to 'overdo' things in general - at least, the outer universe doesn't appear to like it. I used to drink a beer, then I'd feel good, so surely a bunch more beer would make me feel really good, right? etc. etc. etc. Strangely, the universe apparently doesn't actually work this way at all.. for some activities/substances/etc there's some 'magic median' amount.. and for many, there is no good amount - the only solution is to avoid them entirely. I suppose this 'median amount' law is related to not wanting things to be too easy..

I figure ultimately I'm a certain expression of consciousness and I'm seeing how it all works out. This doesn't explain why I'm not always 100% confident in everything, except maybe that would be too easy. Oof. I suspect I figured everything out right after I was born, and I got so bored of it I felt the need to self-handicap myself. I wonder if it was a good choice.. I'll find out sometime



pete1061
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08 Jan 2012, 5:57 am

I don't like challenge at all. If something starts to feel a bit difficult, I give up.
I look for the easiest way through life.


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ECJ
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08 Jan 2012, 1:51 pm

I like challenges and am often challenging myself. I just have to be careful not to give myself too many challenges in one go to avoid meltdowns.



Surfman
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08 Jan 2012, 3:02 pm

dp



Last edited by Surfman on 09 Jan 2012, 1:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

thegatekeeper
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08 Jan 2012, 10:44 pm

ECJ wrote:
I like challenges and am often challenging myself. I just have to be careful not to give myself too many challenges in one go to avoid meltdowns.


I think I've gotten better at this as I've gotten older; I was unable to say no to people when I was younger and it would result in me melting down and completely shutting people out (oh, the mountain of excuses I used to make when this happened...) for a while until I was ready to come out. It's amazing I kept any NT friends at all; I was never very close though to them...not like my fellow aspergirl bestie


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