Serious question....

... with everything being bad, or closed, or restricted..... what is there left to look forward to? I mean this seriously. Everywhere we turn what little spark of hope we have is continually snuffed out. What do we have left this year? I know the staff here is trying their hardest to make the challenge happen, but I have zero faith that they are going to be allowed to pull it off. Even if they do, a lot of the people that make it great aren't coming (not mad at ya, your choice and I respect that) so it'll be a shadow of previous challenges. 

Sorry, just my frustration wearing through what little shell I have left. People need hope and dreams. When you crush them, you crush their spirit. When you crush their spirit they lose their will to fight, to push on. 

My solution has been to look further out and build something- in my case, many of the stage rally events have been canceled, so I sold my previous car and am prepping a new one with the time I suddenly find myself with.

I guess the challenge equivalent would be to go big with a 2021 or 2022 build?

I get that.  Everything in my life has been suffering as a result and its hard to find motivation to do anything.  A lot of the maintenance on myself and everything around me that I'm doing is just habits that I've built because I know what happens to my mental state when I don't do that maintenance.

I'm done with new builds for a while. Finance manager says no more. I mean socially. Outside the house. 

bobzilla said:

I'm done with new builds for a while. Finance manager says no more. I mean socially. Outside the house. 

The only thing socially outside the house I look forward to is the Challenge, and to a lesser extent local autox, so I'm afraid I'm no help Bob. Sorry, I know you're not the only one having a rough time though. 

You're welcome to come down here & be a beach bum for a while though. 

Look for new avenues of interaction, like our own model build challenges. My sister just entered a virtual horse trail competition where you take videos of yourself doing a trail solo with the tracking data. 

bobzilla said:

... with everything being bad, or closed, or restricted..... what is there left to look forward to?

Interesting.  There is only one thing that's really restricted for me that I can no longer look forward to (short term) - long distance air travel.

I have lots of things to look forward to.

Have you considered doing something for fun that isn't "restricted/closed/bad"?

Nothing. Even before all this E36 M3 started. Looking forward to things only leads to disappointment.

What are you working on to look forward to? Are you taking your extra time to build a boat so you can look forward to sailing? Or an off-roader so you can look forward to going camping? Or learning to a language so you can look forward to a trip to Italy? 2020 is out, nothing is going to happen this year, its time to set your sights further down the road. 

Take up an outdoors hobby? Canoeing, kayaking, cycling, hiking can get you out of the house, and both being outdoors and doing something physical can make you feel a lot better. Any of those can be done solo, with your significant other, or a group of friends. And changing locations up can keep it fresh.

Set some physical fitness goals and work towards those?

Do any home repairs/remodels that you've been putting on the back burner?

I don't know, I kind of look forward to waking up on this side of the dirt every day.

OK, things are annoying.  I miss going to the movies, I miss going out to dinner whenever I want.  I miss standing around shooting the breeze or taking new people along for rides at autocross - but we're still autocrossing, in a socially distanced way.  I miss a lot if stuff, but life adapts and goes on.

I admit, financially we haven't been crippled by this because we were both able to keep working from home for the worst of it.  There will be long-term impact as projects get postponed or canceled, but we are both still employed.  I'm sure if one or both of us were furloughed it would be harder to deal with.

But we're still alive and still keeping ourselves entertained.  Hell, since this started we've been walking a mile or two every day.  That's more regular exercise than I got for decades before that.

STM317 said:

Take up an outdoors hobby? Canoeing, kayaking, cycling, hiking can get you out of the house, and both being outdoors and doing something physical can make you feel a lot better. Any of those can be done solo, with your significant other, or a group of friends. And changing locations up can keep it fresh.

This. This is most everything I was looking forward to before coronavirus hit so doesn't really change much for me.

Do you know what kind of socialization you're looking for? For some people, just being around other people can be enough (like walking on a busy trail or through a vibrant neighborhood). For others, they need depth and familiarity with a select few to scratch their socialization itch. You strike me as the latter, but it's worth figuring out what exactly you're looking for too.

I've played E36 M3loads of video games. I can't ride, but I can build a super sweet dream bmx. Really that's all I got. 

I think those of us that are old curmudgeon introverts are having an easier time than extroverts are.

I feel for the extroverts.  Not a situation to laugh at.  Serious business.

Gotta take some effort and make your own space in this time. 

• Right now I'm looking forward to a fishing trip. I've got a little bit of an advantage here in that my parents own a vacation home on one of the best fisheries in the country. I'm also trying to figure out free ways to improve the boat - i.e. tackle box holders out of scrap wood or PVC that I have in the garage. 
• Money is tight right now, thanks to the 'Rona. We're down roughly 45% of our income. So we're scouring the house for E36 M3 that we have and never use, and throwing it on Facebook Markets/Craigslist/eBay. Not really something to look forward to, but it is definitely something to obsess over.
• The hardest part of all this, is that I have nothing to be competitive about. I'm no longer the most competitive person in the world, but this has been a difficulty. So, I've been looking for things to be competitive about that I'm not necessarily competing against a person:
  • Golf - if money wasn't tight, I'd be planning a trip to French Lick or other destination
  • Fishing - see above. I have access to boats, so easy for me. But there are always shore fishing opportunities
  • Frisbee Golf
• Build something. I've always thought a flamethrower would be fun. Then you can look forward to the tax collector coming 
• We have been having movie nights with friends. Planned a week in advance, we go to the parking lot of the church (permission obtained), set up a projector, bring our lawn chairs, food... Basically the same as before Covid, except we're outside and can't hug each other and stand farther apart when we're talking

I'm mostly worried about this come October when it gets cold. I'm thinking bonfires will be a regular occurence. 

Do you have a group of friends who are taking the same precautions you are and trust? We have a few friends who we can socialize with and they have a pool that our daughter loves. So we set up a visit a couple of weeks out to give us something to look forward to. 

For me it is trying to find garage time, or planning my garage layout once employment stabilizes. 

Set up virtual group meets or online games with friends.

Socially distant driveway beers with friends.

Little things can make a big difference.  Lil Stampie and I have been going for walks around the neighborhood lately.  I noticed that at first he was whinnying about doing it but that went away by the next couple of times.  We get to interact with people with simple waves and a shout across the yard.  It also lets us talk without the distractions in the house.  Anyway maybe that'll help.

In just the last 6 weeks we've gone to a comedy show held at the Tulsa drive-in, they built a stage for the comics and then projected them up on the big screen, Bert Kreischer had an entire new hour after we just saw him in October. We went camping this past weekend. And if we keep getting this ridiculous nice weather in August in Oklahoma, we will go again maybe next weekend. 

Did a good clean and organize of the garage to make room for the new deep freeze. And bought a rowing machine so I can start working on getting back in shape. 

I get up most days before work and go take the Miata for a short drive before coming back to my home office where I've been working for 5 months now. 

Look to 2021 and beyond.  Find new ways to connect.  We went to the park with dead sled and his niece yesterday and rode bikes and talked, something we never would have done before. 
 

in march I decided that if i treat 2020 as a wash, it would be easier to deal with things as they got worse and announcements of the things closing that i look forward to every year come along.  Thus far it's worked.  

I get where you're at.  Especially because people who are "essential" are being told "you're expendable to keep x, y, z going" without them coming out and saying "we're risking your health or life for the (healthcare system, economy, supply chain, whims of rich people)". We're both "essential" but I don't have a child care option so berkeley em, send me that whole $286 a week, oh generous millionaires who print the money and are as stingy with it as if it were their last dime.  
 

go get your toes done, have a cocktail, and go do a burnout in the truck and look forward to making everyone eat korean car ass next summer

I've been using this year to do three things:

-Improve myself

-Catch up on deferred projects

-Rekindle old hobbies

So far, I've done all of the above. My mental state is much more sound than it was at the beginning of the year. I lost my favorite uncle on 1/2, and things didn't get better from there, as you all know. But I've grown exponentially as a person since then. I fixed a bunch of deferred stuff around the house and continue to do so. So far, I've done a mild refresh of our bathroom, learned how to fix electrical issues in my garage, improved our backyard patio in a bunch of ways, removed an old light fixture that has been dangling off the house for 10+ years, and a ton more. For hobbies, I got back into gardening, model car building, and cycling. I've also delved into my backlog of video games and played a bunch of them. And I've even found time to wrench on my two project vehicles and made significant progress.

Keeping busy is what I look forward to. Completing a project/task and planning out the next one keeps me going.

This too shall pass.

Think of the stories we'll tell in 10-20 years. 

If you focus on the negative, you will only see bad things.

buy a cheap welder.  learn to use that MF.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

buy a cheap welder.  learn to use that MF.

side note. I tried this with a cheap drill press and I am thoroughly convinced it is either not possible or 100% not worth it. 

Anyone have a high quality drill press for sale?