I’m afraid I don’t know of any job out there which doesn’t require some degree of planning and follow through. Even finding a job almost always requires that, unless someone spontaneously hands you one, and, while that did happen to my brother once, it’s not something to rely on. A good friend of mine makes a comfortable living writing military and science fiction. He’s never made the best seller list, but he’s out earned me some years. His job allows him to be spontaneous and creative and set his own hours. He’s also battled depression and ADHD. His job still requires planning and follow through, though. Among other things, in addition to plotting the general outline of his book, he also has to meet the deadlines in his various contracts.
Coming up with ideas is easy, and my favorite bosses have all been people who could come up with marvelous ideas. Being an idea person doesn’t rule out success in business. Just ask the CEO of my current company who will call me in to bounce ideas off of me, some of which are immediately practical, others of which will work 5 years down the road or so. I’m afraid being able to execute those ideas is essential, however, even if the way you execute them is by working with other people who can handle the nuts and bolts aspects. The good news is you can learn to handle the nuts and bolts aspects. Right now, however, the OP is reminding me of people who come up to my writer friend at SF cons and say, “I’ve got a great idea for a story! Why don’t I tell you the idea, you write the book, and we’ll split the proceeds 50/50?”
Diamonds02, let me give you a couple of things to consider. You may be better at following through on your plans than you give yourself credit for. You’ve made it through college, by the sound of it. That means you must have given some thought to what courses you were going to take each term and followed through on that. Since you’re getting your degree, you must have taken courses which fulfill certain requirements, unless you realized after a while that you were approaching requirements a degree in something by accident. If you’ve gone on a vacation or even away for a weekend, that required a certain amount of planning, if only when it came to deciding where you were going to go, how you were going to get there, and where you were going to stay once you arrived. Even figuring out what errands you’re going to run and in what order constitutes planning and follow through.
The other thing is, it’s easy to let your illnesses make excuses for you. I suffer from clinical depression myself, and I know how crippling it can be. I’ve also got too much pride to yield to it, and I don’t let that disease define me. When I was in group therapy, I met people who’d been in therapy for years and, in my layman’s opinion, would be for years because they were waiting for someone to come along and hand them all the answers. I knew that wasn’t going to happen, although it would be nice if we did. My parents made a point of teaching me to deal with the world as it is, not as I’d like it to be. I won’t be stupid enough to say that depression can be overcome by force of will alone, but letting it define and confine you is no way to live. You will, in this life, have to do things which are hard and which you don’t want to do. Sometimes they’ll work well; sometimes they’ll blow up in your face, but even then, you can look back and say that’s one thing you at least tried to do. I put up with a boss who couldn’t or wouldn’t plan and who’d blame me when things went wrong for 18 months and it was only after I left that I could admit to myself how awful he was, but the job was what I needed at the time and I managed some growth out of it, most notably realizing his failure to follow through on something, despite my repeated nagging, was not my fault. While I was working with him, I also found myself buying the condo I was renting which forced me to confront some major fears and do something I never dreamed of doing. I had a lousy realtor, and the process was highly unpleasant and traumatic, triggering anxiety and depression all over the place, but I made it through, I love the place, and I’m less neurotic about money than I was. Being creative, to me, conveys a sense of freedom, independence, and unconventionality. Don’t let your illnesses force you into a cage.
So, onto practical advice, although I realize you may not care for the concept of being practical. Do you knit, crochet, quilt, or sew? If so, have you considered finding out what it would take to design knitware, etc? For inspiration, I recommend America Knits, a book in which top knitting designers talk about how they got where they are and what inspires them. While it is specific to knitting, I think there are principles in the book which have wider applications. If there are stores around you which specialize in this sort of thing, talk to the people there about working there or doing some work for them. You may have to bring samples of what you’ve already done or make some if you don’t have any on hand, but it’s something to consider. Another thing you might want to try doing is going to a local arts festival and talking to the artists there about how they got where they were.
I’m afraid, though, if you’re going to get out of your parents’ house, though, planning is going to be inescapable. On the other hand, planning isn’t necessarily a boring grind, like writing an outline for a book report. I’m a programmer who knits and writes. For me, any piece of writing longer than a haiku takes a certain amount of planning, even if it’s working out what direction a poem is going to take as I’m taking it. When I’m knitting, taking an idea in a book and planning what colors or what patterns will go where and then going to a store and seeing the way things will work is part of the fun. When I’m programming, after the initial rush of bouncing ideas of ceilings and anything else with the boss, figuring out how I’m actually going to make the code do what I said it could do, seeing raw, airy ideas take concrete form and shape and the way logic fits into something elegant is also fun. I assure you, it’s much more fun than writing class definitions. A good friend of mine is an excellent photographer. I’ve seen both his landscapes and his macro photography. He’ll be the first to tell you that, while good photographs do sometimes happen spontaneously, good macro photography does take planning and patience, and can still be frustrated by a butterfly which won’t hold still!
burundi gave you some excellent advice earlier. Talk to your college’s career resource center, and try temp jobs. madhatter also mentioned something I’ve run into myself. The jobs which appear the most boring on the surface can free your mind so that you can indulge your creativity.
I will repeat a request others have made. Please do tell us your major and what you can actually do. This isn’t because we’re anal-retentive, Type A personalities, but because we need concrete information to be able to offer concrete help. Working in a vacuum, as we pretty much are, it’s all too easy to offer complete inappropriate advice.
Good luck!
