on the lack of motivation

have you ever looked at a task so daunting that you don't know where to begin... and you just want to give up before you've even started?

i've recently been playing pokemon (yes i'm quite lame =P) on my way to work, because it passes the time and is relatively mindless. But as the end of the game approaches and I have to go face the elite four/defeat team galactica/capture the rare pokemon... i just suddenly got really unmotivated to finish the game. I haven't touched it for a week.

i'm not sure what sort of instinct i have in me that i just want to give up once the tasks get too big, or the chance of failure is really high. At work, i'm involved in numerous projects in which there's a lot to do... and i don't know where to start, so sometimes i sit there and twiddle my thumbs - not because i don't know how to do it... or don't have anything to do - the task is simply so large that i feel like i'm drowning before i begin.

It reminds me of this time my sister decided to come in and clean my room. She said 'the best strategy is to dump everything off your shelves onto the floor and start from scratch'. She proceeded to do this, and after she was done, i had a pile of junk up to my knees. We sorted through for awhile, and soon after we just called it a day, because after hours of sorting, we still had barely made a dent. Once we started doing one thing, we realized we needed to do something else in order to finish that first thing we started. It seemed like we started from the wrong place, and therefore leave a trail of unfinished tasks.

i'm not used to feeling overwhelmed. i like to believe i'm the type that rises to a challenge and, no matter what, finds a way to conquer it. but as i look on these little details in my life, i realize that i really am just a coward running away when things get too hard.