Questioning my life, as a man who’s in early 30’s, who doesn’t know what could be the next main quest in life (if there’s any)

*Just for info I posted a similar post on Health Gamer’s community but didn’t get any feedbacks so I wanted to give a try here.*

I discovered Healthy Gamer a few months ago and first and foremost, I wanted to thank Dr. K and his entire team for all the work that goes into creating this community, all the content, and the support generated here.Here, I just want to express some of my thoughts regarding my current situation, to have your opinions, to know if you are or have been in a situation similar to mine, and also to find out if there’s any potential help that can be useful for my situation ( the coaching program, Dr K’s guide, or some form of therapy), as I am starting to face questions to which I no longer know how to answer, and I wondered if I could get help in some way.I am a 30-year-old man, soon to be 31 in December.

For a few years now, I have had the feeling of having completed the main quest of my life, the famous quest that parents and education give us when we are younger: to study, build a career, and make a living.

I have accomplished this quest by studying business, focusing on digital marketing. After boring internships and struggles with unemployment, I found a job, my first real job, a little less than 6 years ago, in an event agency, as a web and CRM project manager. It’s not a great job, but for now, the salary is decent and it allows me to have financial stability.

These 6 years of work have allowed me to pay off my student loan, save some money, and buy my first property, my first real home, which I obtained just over a year ago.If I count my current job, along with the internships I did before, it has been about 10 years since I set foot in the professional world, and I am only at the beginning of my career… And it brings me a lot of frustration and dissatisfaction.

Indeed, I realize that I don’t like the typical “salary/office man” job and the rat race with all that it represents, especially the lack of freedom, the feeling of having no control over my life.Furthermore, I have come to understand that my frustration is linked to the fact that a large part of my time is taken up by my current unsatisfactory work and by this rat race, which ultimately was the destination of my main quest sold to me by my parents and more generally by society.

And my job itself no longer satisfies me: I don’t know how to describe it clearly, let’s just say that I simply feel that my work has no meaning, that it always leaves me with a feeling of emptiness. I don’t have the sensation of creating something useful that has value.To remedy this, about a year ago, I set myself the goal of becoming a developer.

I have been practicing coding for several years, but more as a hobby; I didn’t feel capable of making a career out of it, but now, I have decided to take it seriously.Coding seems more interesting to me than what I am currently doing because I find more of a sense of creation in it (even if it remains virtual), which I do not feel much in my current job.This could indeed open doors to a new career and especially to entrepreneurship, and thus perhaps a way to get out of the rat race.

In addition to this, I have been working on myself for many years:I try to take care of myself as much as possible: exercising, doing yoga, eating healthily, not smoking, avoiding drinking, etc.I have my hobbies: especially karate, drawing/digital painting. I also recently started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and loved the first lesson. I don’t know if I will be able to continue practicing this discipline currently due to lack of time, but it’s probably something I will explore later.I also have some good friends whom I keep in touch with and go out with from time to time.

So overall, I have nothing to complain about because I have a fulfilling life, but I still feel a deep sense of dissatisfaction, of emptiness.Indeed, I feel that I have completed my main quest, and that my hobbies and my entrepreneurial project are only secondary quests that no longer suffice to make me feel complete and happy.

I appreciate them, but they no longer seem to fulfill me as much.And today I feel a great emptiness inside me, I have this impression that I no longer have a main quest, that it is over, and that I must continue to move forward without a compass, without a clear direction, without knowing where to go.

And I also feel that among some of my close ones, this leads to a lack of understanding, they feel that I am moving forward aimlessly.

For example, a few days ago, I had a dispute with my father about these topics, basically, he was asking me what’s the point of all these projects, what direction I want to go in. For example, he criticized me, especially for starting Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (saying that it’s useless, you already do karate, there’s more to life than just sports, etc.), that starting a new activity of this kind was not supposed to be my priority.

And sometimes I do have the feeling that I am on too many projects at the same time, which I think reinforces this feeling of being lost, this feeling of not finding any meaning in anything I do.

Moreover, he was sort of reproaching me for not having any long-term personal goals, especially concerning romantic life goals. Even if he did not tell me explicitly, I understood a little later, while talking to my mother, about this dispute I had with my father.

Because now that I am in my thirties, I feel that he wants me to be committed to a serious relationship with a partner, with an associated project (marriage, family, or whatever).And I am not comfortable with that.Because my love life has been completely empty and has been so for as long as I can remember. I have absolutely no experience, mainly because I have never dared to take the plunge in the past, convinced that I simply wasn’t cut out for those things.And in general, my loved ones are putting more and more pressure on me to get into a relationship, get married, and have children.

Or at least, they are increasingly asking me questions about it, trying to understand why my love life is like this, and honestly, I don’t know what to answer them and I don’t really want to answer them anything either.And today, now that I am in my thirties, I am starting to have doubts about my lack of a love life.

I have no idea how to handle this.

And above all, I have no idea what I want or what I am supposed to be looking for in my life, be it in romantic, professional, or personal terms. I feel completely lost.

In short, all this to say that in general, I feel at a crossroads and I have no idea what direction my life is supposed to take from now on, and in the meantime, time continues to pass quickly.

I imagine I am not the only one in this situation, are there any of you who recognize themselves in my story? If so, what are you doing to try to see more clearly through all this fog that surrounds you?

Many thanks in advance for you feedbacks! And thanks for the time you’ve taken to read my long post <3