how do you keep at it?
How do you keep at something you haven't done in a while?
All this unemployment means I have too much free time on my hands. And so far, I haven't done a single creative thing. (There are some miniscule efforts to do so, and I won't tell you.) It's easy to say something like, "I want to be/do/accomplish/get xxx-something-something-xxx," and all that want will remain just that. Unfulfilled desire.
So what will I say? Writers write! Artists draw/sculpt/paint! Noun appropriate verb! It doesn't matter if you're "out-of-it," if you don't get into it in the first place, to what unexperienced experience will you be counting on to pick you up?
As for all the negativity-forming-in-the-corners-of-your-mouth-in-the-form-of-a-forthcoming-'you-sure-think-you're-better-than-me'-curse, watch Fight Club. Or listen to Gnarls Barkley's "Just a Thought" or "Who Cares?" (Their performance in the recent MTV Movie Awards is something to be seen.) or some other quick pick-me-up-and-dust-me-off song to get you off that. Let the truly unimportant things slide.
As a side note, your friends will be freaked out when you become "happy." They'll think you're nuts.