my question to myself this morning was, how long do you remain positive and keep saying to yourself, "things will get better" until you are utterly convinced that the power of positive thoughts don�t work? i woke up feeling pretty much as i have been the last little while, not great but not as bad as i have been. it was cold, windy and wet outside, another dreary day, great i thought this will indeed help my mood. i noticed yesterday that bud had finally emerged on the trees outside my window at work, but they were hard to see this morning because it was so dreary and there were too many rain drops lingering on the branches. when i first got to work, i was somewhat optimistic that my overnight experiment had worked, but it hadn�t. that put me in a very very down mood. i talked to my boss, he showed me what i did wrong, it was easily fixable but i felt like a complete dick because this is the second time i�ve been a complete loser with this particular project and he�s had to set me straight. i�ve been feeling like a bit of waste of space at work for a while now, and i imagine that my boss thinks i am not making fast enough progress, hell, hell i know i am not. so i tried to think happy thoughts. i have been reading in many people�s blogs, lists of things that make them feel better, so i thought of happy things, my niece, freshly cut flowers, the smell of roasting garlic, my friend paul�s paintings, my friends, a nap in a park with soft grass and warm sun. still my mood was really low. i know it affects my work, but it�s a vicious circle, when experiments don�t work i feel bad and when i am feeling bad my experiments don�t work. then some experiments started working, of course i don�t know yet if they will produce results, but it was a start and i looked outside and the sun was shining. i felt motivated, and got through a lot of work and did a lot less procrastination. i don�t know what precipitated the change, was it things working, was it the sunshine? i�m not sure how long it will last, will something go wrong tomorrow at work causing me to fall into a slump? will it be dreary and cold and rainy again tomorrow making me feel low? why does work affect my mood so much? why do i care about it so much, i don�t want to be an academic or even have my own lab, so why should it matter if i don�t produce 3 papers a year? but the sun is shining, i�m onto the next step for 2 of my projects and i feel like doing things, making things, creating things rather than just slump down in front of the telly and eating. i made a list of to do things outside of work, some of them are pretty big things, paint my kitchen and bathroom, others are smaller projects, make my mum a mothers day card (and get it to her on time!), clean my fridge. i don�t know how i will progress through the list, but it indicates that i have motivation. the question lingers though, how long will it last, long enough to have a blue kitchen? time will tell.