There’s a well-known psychiatrist who mentioned that many men he sees in his practice don’t necessarily fit the clinical criteria for depression, yet they view their lives as lacking value and contemplate suicide as an option. Some argue that simply entertaining thoughts of suicide is indicative of depression. However, exploring this further, imagine being a 40-year-old man without a partner, children, or promising career prospects. While financial stability might not be an issue, lacking familial support and facing loneliness can indeed make life seem bleak. Without close relationships, finding joy or purpose becomes challenging. How could someone in such circumstances objectively assess their life and find the will to keep going? It’s a difficult question that highlights the importance of social connections and meaningful relationships in shaping one’s perception of life.
There’s this stark reality I witnessed while working at Amazon or other warehouse jobs, where I couldn’t shake the feeling that I never wanted to end up like some of the older folks I saw there. It was like a constant loop of repetitive tasks that drained the life out of you. I kept asking myself, how do these people keep going without going insane? There’s no exciting vacation to save up for, no family to provide for—it’s just the same mundane grind day in, day out. It’s exhausting, mentally and physically. I mean, sure, having a family to support or a dream vacation to strive for can provide some motivation, but what about those who don’t have that? How do they find the strength to keep pushing through the monotony? It’s a question that weighs heavily on me.
And not to be an asshole over here, I consider people living in this kind of condition, they have the right to say that currently the life that I’m living is not worth the pain that I’m going through, with the financial situation of everyone being as bad as it can be, the the climate crisis, the social crisis around, I think people saying that their life is actually bad at the moment, it’s not some depressive talk, and for some people their life is bad. And I wanted to know if the person, the person that live in the situation that I talked about earlier, have this objective eyes on reality like that, or maybe they found some sort of things to keep them happy and keep them going. What is, what is the reason of hope when living like that?