I think I'm burned out

[JCL]

I've found hobbies to be integral to the overall enjoyment of my life, but outside of that context they're trivial. I believe that there's value in powering through plateaus in the development of proficiency, but without a component of actual enjoyment it becomes just another way to punch the clock. Nobody needs that.

[Totem Polar]

This is my thought exactly.

I've hardly shot a round in two years. I've got other stuff on the go. Nobody is paying me to do it anymore, so I'm just waiting until I feel like it. All I really want to do right now is fish, build stuff, and hang out with my kid. When he's a little older, I'll want to hunt with him. It'll come back. I'll go back to shooting. For now I'm good.


I will say that I always hated competitive shooting, for exactly the reasons outlined above: I get so fucking bored standing around waiting to shoot, I'm about to crawl out of my skin. That's why I liked to do 3-day training classes: you're either shooting or getting taught something, or joking around for a few minutes with your earpro off. So if you WANT to be shooting, but you don't want to shoot HOW you were shooting, shoot differently.

If you just look at your gear and think, nah, screw this, I'd rather work on the bike or go to the beach or lift weights or play my guitar or something...why beat yourself up about it? You're not obligated to have a monomania for shooting. Do what makes you happy.

I love you, man.

This is pretty much where I am at. Between the lunacy of trying to get to the range during the pandemic, the ammo pricing (and I have enough ammo to keep going for the next year—I just don’t feel like expending it) the samey, tedious nature of the square range, and the reality that I will never be Gabe White or a CAG guy, but I will probably always have a base line ability with my “sock drawer kit” to be a sticking point in other’s plans to take advantage of a situation I might find myself in: I just don’t give a shit any more. I’m seriously thinking about letting my range membership go. Or, at least, shifting it over to some remote place that has trees and sky around it.

Mostly, I’m all about keeping my obligatory stash of redundant service-sized Glock 9mms—all of which seem to have some P-F provenance at this point—and an ass-ton of J-frames, and selling everything else. I’m burnt on shooting as a hobby. I’d rather fund a new recording project, or take an invasive trauma med class. Both of which I may do in the near future.

But the idea of going to a square range is such a turn off that it damn near makes my dad’s boner go away, from sheer energetics of the idea.

I’ll probably still do, say, John Murphy, because he’s so highly regarded, and all this .38 ball isn’t going to spend itself. But Christ on a bender, am I burnt on being a pistol guy. Not a pistol fan, not a pistol pragmatist, and not a pro 2A pistol philosopher and ineffectual email writer to my state’s one-party legislature, but I just don’t want to do anything that’s purely because I *should* be doing maintenance.

I actually *am* about waterfront walking, getting another motorcycle, playing guitar (especially) and I was, literally, in the U’s gym talking with the facilities director yesterday in an effort to get all 155lbs of me back into the squat cage next week.

I am not about punching paper or another dot torture. It’s become all torture, and redundant cloverleafs in the dots.

Maybe I’m just crabby because the last 18 months have been a real ass-kicker, personally, and I’ve seen too much real life and death change to be concerned about mitigating possible, but un-probable life and death change.

Maybe I just need music, the gym, and a motorcycle more than another J-frame. Although, I did recently buy a 640 pro.

When you look into the J-frame burnout abyss, the J-frame burnout abyss looks back at you with puppy dog eyes.

I dunno what I’m trying to say here. I guess life is too short for anything that isn’t awesome. J-frames, puppies, the squat cage, and motorcycles are awesome. Shooting sans stress and problem solving just isn’t any more. Not for me.

[Trooper224]

Shooting has been a serious discipline for me, for most of my life, both professionally and as a hobby. However, age and family things have started to cause a shift in my outlook. I'm at the point where life stops giving and starts taking away. Arthritis and general high mileage issues have made me far less bouncy than I used to be. You reach a time when progressing is no longer the goal and holding onto what you've got is. I'm pretty sure I'm there. The skill set I have has already proven itself sufficient and while my current monthly round count is a quarter of what it was preapocalypse, the skills don't seem to have suffered. At this point, I don't know if it will ever go back to what it was. We'll shortly have two of our three children living locally, as well as two of the grand kids. So, other things in life are starting to take priority over devoting myself to pistolcraft like some warrior monk. Life should be full of priorities, not obsessions.

[ASH556]

I haven't read the whole thread, but here's my $0.02:

Put it down. Seriously.

I put shooting down in May 2019. Sold everything that wasn't NFA, an heirloom, or a single Glock 19. It's one of the best things I've ever done. It allowed me to focus time, mental energy, and money on things that are much more important in the long run. It's easy to get sucked into anything, but certain hobbies can have that "I have to or I'm not responsible" aspect added to them and shooting, especially from a defensive aspect is one of the worst.

As far as skill degredation goes, my experience has been that top 5-10% of bleeding edge does wear thin, but the fundamentals, certainly enough to get yourself and/or your family through anything you might need to defensive-wise is a lot like riding a bike.

Case in point: I've shot 353 pistol rounds this year, all through my iron-sighted Glock 19. 200 of those were to spin up a bit and verify sights before teaching a class back in April. Prior to that it had been 8 months cold. Another 103 of those rounds were fired demoing stuff at the class. The final 50 I just fired today, so again 2 months cold, maybe 3 or 4 dryfire sessions in there. The first round I fired was coming out of my JM V3 IWB holster strongside under a polo into a Bill Drill for stage one of the Gabe White Standards. I ended up shooting 3 Light Pin runs, 3 Dark Pin runs, one over time by .09 (fumbled the draw) and a fail on the first F2S where I tossed the head just out of the box.

My point here is you're not going to die if you quit shooting for awhile. Don't let it ruin your life. And you'll still probably be able to shoot at a decently high level.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I love you, man.

Much love right back.

People get fixated on these heuristics for happiness, like "I'd sure be happy if I could do a 4 second FAST" or "I'd sure be happy if I was worth a million dollars" and then they step over stuff that actually makes them happy, in pursuit of the goal they were only trying to reach in the belief that it would make them happy.

I don't know, you can always try to find ways to make yourself enjoy something you've gotten bored with, I guess...but personally I'd rather just do something that makes me feel good while I'm doing it.

Plenty of miserable grinding out there to be had, that's difficult to avoid. Why spend your recreational time filing taxes, too?

[JCN]

Next thing you know, the vegan forums will be saying it’s fine to eat a cow burger and the cross fit forums are going to tell you it’s fine to go over 4 percent body fat!!!!!


THE HORROR!!!!! WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO!!!!!!

[Yung]

If you don't want to go to matches or classes any more because you don't enjoy them anymore, then you shouldn't.

If you don't want to stop carrying or staging something at home, then you shouldn't. If that is the case, I would consider Mr. Givens and Mr. Hearne's words:

Remember that recency trumps almost everything in retention of motor skills, so get to the range more than once a year.

If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....

[Borderland]

Next thing you know, the vegan forums will be saying it’s fine to eat a cow burger and the cross fit forums are going to tell you it’s fine to go over 4 percent body fat!!!!!


THE HORROR!!!!! WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO!!!!!!

My MIL is 92. She tells everyone she's a vegitarian. When you ask her where she would like a resturant meal she says someplace with a good burger. I know she eats healty because my wife eats healthy as a result of her mom eating healthy for 40 years and preparing healthy meals. Her brother is a vegitarian. Well so much for that because he had an MI at 71.

I guess I'm next because I like a pork chop a few times a week. As a matter of fact I'm having one tonight. All you N Koreans that can read this should question your exulted leader. How long has been since you had a bone in pork chop?

[45dotACP]

I'm pretty much in the same boat man. If you've seen my training journal lately it's almost entirely devoted to BJJ and boxing/kickboxing, which isn't really much of a pistol related anything, but I figure I ought to keep one somewhere. The way I see it is that I have a limited amount of time to devote to hard training in the martial arts before my cartilage/body gets too torn up. After which point, I can always get back into shooting more seriously.

And sure, pandemic ammo supply is bad, but the other part is that I just don't have as much time to devote to shooting as I used to. After a certain point, you really do need to put in a lot of work for diminishing returns. At this point, I try to get a little practice dry fire/draws in and do some group shooting at 20-25 yards. Maybe once ammo is cheaper? Either way, a bit of a break can be a good thing. You can get back to your previous level of skill relatively quickly with a little practice and guns are pretty durable goods, so yours will probably still be around. Plus, once you decide that you WANT to get back to shooting, you'll be getting back to it with a plan in mind.

Only you can know whether you should take a break. I have not totally stopped shooting, but I've cut back to just funzies shooting, and I don't think anyone here will judge you for taking a step back (least of all me)

[Ed L]

Put it down. Seriously.

As far as skill degredation goes, my experience has been that top 5-10% of bleeding edge does wear thin, but the fundamentals, certainly enough to get yourself and/or your family through anything you might need to defensive-wise is a lot like riding a bike.

My point here is you're not going to die if you quit shooting for awhile. Don't let it ruin your life. And you'll still probably be able to shoot at a decently high level.

I cannot like the above statements enough. They encapsulate everything important in this thread.

These days I just shoot what I feel like shooting when I feel like shooting. My projects are get about as complicated as trying a new gun (or upper) with different ammo or sighting in a new Aimpoint. I don't have the patience for project guns.

On a similar note ago I had a problematic high end handgun that had an issue straight from the factory before I put a round through it. I sent it back to the factory, had it repaired, and then sold it.

A friend was telling me that I should do this with the gun or I should do that with the gun. I got annoyed to the point that I told him that I would get rid of the gun at a police $100 gun buy-back before I would let the gun bring one ounce of grief to my life.