Why does everything have to be so hard?

I think the title says it all really.  Everything I am involved in at the moment seems to involve the sort of pain you associate with root canal surgery for very little personal return.  I have drawn up plans for a continuation mental health service user involvement project to take over from the current one that is due to finish at the end of August this year but progress is almost non-existent at the present moment and that does not even take into account the time it will take to raise the funds to kick start the project.  The presentation I gave a week or two ago has been leaked to groups outside of the committee who saw it even though it was a confidential meeting so it is now hard to work out who I can trust to work on the new proposals.

Beyond that project, my pet personal project, The Enlightenment Project, seems to have stalled before it has even begun.  The couple of people who have expressed interest in the project have not come back to me so it seems it will be a project of one which does mean I have complete control over it but is hardly what I planned.  My project work for the Politics Group has been put on hold whilst I deal with the service user involvement project and hence the output of the project as a whole is nil.

I am still struggling to find a readership for this blog.  Yes, I am into double figures with regards to readers but, if there is any hope of actually affecting any change - politically, socially and ethically – I need the readers and I just have not got enough.  One man can make a difference but only if he is heard or read; otherwise, that man is just whistling into the hurricane of apathy and faces the oblivion of anonymity.  Hardly a good thing when that person may have a lot to offer if only he was heard.

My blog on Your Thurrock gets published but how many people actually read it?  I have also been personally attacked because if it.  I am fine with people attacking my views if they do not agree with them, I am putting my views out into the public arena,  but to attack me personally is below the belt and not really playing the game ethically.

I am feeling that, perhaps, I am just wasting my time trying to put my ideas ‘out there’ in the hopes that someone will find what I say or do of value and worthwhile to act upon to change our society into something worth being part of.  Should I just forget about trying to change things for the better?  Should I just climb into bed, pull the duvet over my head and forget the rest of the world exists?  It would certainly make for an easier life for me.  A dull life, for sure, but is my life any more exciting for all the pain I am experiencing and the effort I am expending?

I know that this posting may seem a little self-indulgent and coming across as a ‘me, me, me’ piece but have I not got the right to be self-indulgent occasionally when I have done my utmost to affect a change for the better?  I will leave you to decide on that point.

Until next time…