I¡¯m tired, weary, exhausted. I wake in the morning and all I think about is when I can go back to bed. I long to collapse with a cheap thriller and a cup of tea, or to lose myself in a DVD box set. Every minute I sit at my laptop feels like an eternity. I can¡¯t seem to get in the groove, to get going.

Regular readers might be forgiven for groaning now: has the ¡°whingeing scholar¡± returned after the more positive columns in recent weeks? Well, although I will admit that I do sometimes use this space to vent, the reasons for my exhaustion have a wider relevance. Even if I do have a chronic health condition, this isn¡¯t why I feel bone-weary.

For most people, including myself, exhaustion tends to happen as a result of being overloaded in work or one¡¯s personal life. But this isn¡¯t what is happening to me. No, it¡¯s actually the opposite problem ¨C a lack of commitments ¨C that is dragging me down.

When I turned on my computer on Monday morning after a pretty relaxing family weekend, I didn¡¯t want for things to do. But for the first time in months, I realised that there was very little that I had to do. My research project (for which my contract runs out in the new year) is virtually finished, and the report I¡¯ve written has been sent out for comment so there is nothing I can do on it at the moment. Other than one meeting, writing this column and a few Christmas cards, I had very little planned: there were no urgent deadlines looming.

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At the same time, however, my ¡°to do¡± list has never been longer. For weeks now, I¡¯ve been ¡°doing the hustle¡±, as I termed it in a previous column ¨C pitching research grant ideas, applying for jobs and generally trying to make my presence felt. These are all things I need to continue doing. The Moleskine notebook in which I jot down ideas for articles is groaning with writing possibilities. There are myriad directions in which my life could go, most of them exciting and intriguing.

Yet although I don¡¯t want for ideas, I lack the energy needed to put them into action. The problem is that in almost every part of my so-called career at the moment, everything depends on me. I¡¯m the one on whom all the ideas stand or fall; without my efforts none of them will become a reality. If I stand still, almost every ball I have in the air will fall to the ground. Other than some very small pieces of work, I have nothing that I can take for granted; everything is down to me. Since sitting down at my laptop on Monday, I¡¯ve been near paralysed by the many choices facing me. I don¡¯t know what to do first ¨C and even if I did, I feel as if it will take a superhuman effort just to get going.

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What¡¯s contributing to this situation is that I fired off a whole stack of emails at the end of last week. Some were to potential collaborators, some to potential editors, some to potential participants in projects I want to run. Only a fraction of those to whom I wrote have replied to me, and this is making me resentful. I know full well that no one owes me a living and that this time of year tends to be very busy for most people. Still, every time I check my email I go from hope to anger in a few seconds. This isn¡¯t good for me.

Job insecurity sucks for everyone. Materially speaking, I know that I am in a far better position than someone with few qualifications searching for the next soul-destroying unskilled job. But there¡¯s a particular kind of pain that afflicts someone in my situation: if you have experience, if you have a track record, if you have a decent reputation, if you are in a situation where you could make something happen, then it¡¯s hard to avoid the pressure that comes from feeling that it¡¯s all down to you.

At the moment, that pressure is weighing me down. I have to keep hustling, I have to keep generating ideas. At the same time, though, I can¡¯t stop fantasising about a knight in shining armour, magically bringing paid work to me¡­