It's a deal! Once I get back in shape... you got it!
My mental energy is gone.
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Thanks, crimsonwarrior! Cheers! 
The key is to not look at a loss as merely less rating points, but as a learning experience. Go through recent games... what needs work? Tactics, generally, are the cause. Perhaps it's endgame theory, positional theory... Whatever it is, brush up on that aspect.
Michael Jordan didn't win every game. But he learned from his losses, and how to avoid them in the future.
This is much worse than I thought... 
I started playing Live Chess again a few days ago, and I wasn't doing so bad, I had about same number of victories and losses, though I didn't play much at all. But today I blundered my Queen in two consecutive games already! It's like my nerves were completely destroyed after the first blunder to produce the second one. And currently I'm 147 points below my peek rating. It's not motivating at all, and who knows how many consecutive games I'll need to win to climb at least 150 points higher. It's not a game, or two, or ten, it's at least twenty games. I'll go insane practicing to achieve that, and I can't afford that much time, because chess is not my primary interest in life. Yet it's so painful! No matter what people say, it doesn't make sense if you don't care if you win or lose! A win is harder to achieve, which means its value is greater, and that value motivates us to play! Since I can't accidentally win while trying to lose on purpose, losing is completely effortless, therefore it makes me feel totally worthless in chess. To make everything even worse, in the past few days I learnt nothing from ANY of my losses, and I haven't got the mental strength or enough knowledge to analyze those games. I'll go and do a mind-blowing tactics training, if I've got enough time, and if it doesn't help me achieve my goal by the end of the next week, it may as well be goodbye to Chess.com. Also, if anyone knows any good trainings meant for nerves that can be done under fatigue and hunger, I'd like to know.
If you don't take the time to analyze and learn from your mistakes, you're going to repeat them. You can't fix what you don't know is broken. A big part of chess is setting realistic goals. Yours is likely unrealistic. Rating should not be your primary motivator, learning should. If you play to win but don't recognize why you lose, you will lose again. It's like poker... If you have a 1 in 8 shot at winning a hand, you had best be sure you're being covered for seven losses in the one time you win -- because you WILL lose the hand 7 times. You just need to make sure the 1 win is worth it.
It's easy to overheat on chess. My mental energy isn't wonderful all the time and I can go a few days without even going near a chess board. So just take a little while away and do something else. I just pick up a book sometimes and just zone out.
Mayhaps if you set a timer for a short amount of time and tell yourself that you will stop playing chess and go sit outside, work on studies, read a book, etc. as soon as the timer goes off. Also, try playing real-life chess. It hurts your head a lot less and the people you play with are much more likely to let you take a break than those on the computer. Sorry if someone already posted this, I only read the first page ^_^
It's OK, the bit about playing real-life chess is yours alright, here at least. Thanks!
Playing chess IRL is definitely less stressful than it is on here, pretty much for me because of timing issues
I've got a question of a different nature (although I'm not sure if I'd run into a brick wall of formality or not, so I won't post it elsewhere): how can one with the access to the Chess.com TV on-demand broadcasts download them? I really don't want to make a stir out of this, so if anyone can help me with getting to the video, I think yesterday's show was really entertaining! If it's not legal to ask about this, I apologize.
Dimitrije_Mandic wrote:
I feel I'm starting to lack mental energy that I have been using to play chess. It's like I've used it all up. Actually, I think chess has just threatened to overconsume my mind once again. It all started a few days ago, when I decided to take a shot at participating in a quick team match I had stumbled upon after a long pause from correspondence chess. I have been playing live chess in the meantime, although not really too much, because I was busy going to school, and when the exams came about a month ago I paused from that too until they ended about two weeks ago. Then I found plenty of free time for what has without a doubt become my most serious hobby in the last few years. Since the summer vacation meant I had a greater freedom of investing my energy into chess, I decided to get back to playing and improving as I go along. I even read a bit from some chess books, and only three days ago I reached my personal peak rating in Live Chess! Things really were coming up roses, so I felt I could take the liberty of playing two correspondence games if they were quick, otherwise waiting for more than a day to move would annoy me, plus I thought I had only 10 days of vacation left, and that wouldn't be enough for me not to lose on time. And I took the challenge. I probably should have known better, since the last time I played correspondence chess it invaded my mind like a stampede. I used to struggle to solve chess positions in my sleep! Not that I was able to see any of the pieces or anything about the position any clearly in my dreams, much less think about them, but you get the idea. Anyway, my correspondence score was positive too, so I couldn't see what could go wrong if I just decided to have some fun.
Then everything started falling apart.
Because of the way my profession functions, I had to get back to practicing again after a week or two of rest. In the last three days I successfully reached awful positions in both correspondence games, blundering in each game, and my Live Chess rating went downhill by seventy-four points! And I didn't even practice as much as I needed to! (Or as much as I felt I needed to anyway, and that's what counts better.) My enormous fault! As you can see, instead I spent hours on losing almost every possible game I could. I was getting tired by day, but that's just my fault again, disrespecting my own biorhythm. I feel like I completely lost focus for everything, and I didn't even start regaining it. I think I should definitely take another significant break from playing chess in order to practice well and start to function again, as well as have a good night's sleep, but I don't know how I should start playing chess again, where and what I should start from and how intense on a daily basis should I let myself play, read and even think about chess without focally collapsing again, once I'm mentally rehabilitated. I only know I won't be playing any correspondence chess for a long, long time... Maybe it's not that much about correspondence and sleep, you tell me? All help you can advise me with will be most appreciated.
Dimitrije, I think much of chess is misplaced will power that should be used for relationships, your profession, and other hobbies. I've seen the game of chess swallow up many souls and, frankly, it just isn't worth it. It's an isolating game that requires tremendous focus. Yes, it can be beautiful and satisfying but other hobbies like music actually draw you more into the social sphere. I'm a category 1 player (1840) and an old man (67) and I still play chess but I give my other hobbies and the people in my life much more attention. Paul Morphy gave up chess at age 22 and said this about the game: "Chess never has been and never can be aught but a recreation. It should not be indulged in to the detriment of other and more serious avocations."
So my advice is ... by all means play chess but look at it as an amusement that is indulged in from time to time and nothing else. It sounds like you're already easing yourself out of the game and I think that's a good thing.
Whenever you feel like you have no mental energy, just do one thing...
send me a challenge. I like my opponents like I like my women... easy to mate.