But I can't concentrate on one thing long enough to pursue it, and if I start to pursue one thing, I start to hyperventilate after about a week, with fear that I'm ruining my life by not pursuing the other things. In the meantime, I am painting houses, which, in need of paint though they may be, is unfulfilling work at best. I'm in a pickle. Dear Drowning, My dear young lady, put down your paintbrush and give yourself a sabbatical. No need to go to Italy.
Home is fine.
But arrange your days to give yourself time to sit and think about the future and write and play music and get yourself calmed down and in focus. I suggest you give yourself an arbitrary assignment to complete, a task of several months' duration. Work on it at least a little bit every day for your sabbatical and try to pass through the hyperventilation stage and keep going. It's easier to start projects than to stick with them, easier to make promises than keep them, but you can outsmart this jitteriness by simply making yourself keep going, as runners do, and writers, and as anybody does. Dear Mr. Blue, I'm 31.