I, don’t know what to do with myself? Truly.

What is my purpose?

To experience life? How do I do that? What if I don’t enjoy it?

My biggest question in life has constantly been, what do I do? How do I achieve some state of being content with existing? And I’ve read some many posts about this here but nothing works.

I feel my life is one big distraction from one moment to the other. I’m constantly trying to kill time or distract myself.

I have hobbies, but I weave in and out of interest with them, and in the end they often feel pointless and hallow. I rarely do any of them now.

I work a great job but I hate it. I don’t see a point in switching because the hours are great and I’m sure what I switch to might be worse. I don’t get paid much but i know i’s get fired if I switched to someone else because i’m an inconsistent employee.

I’m not interested in the entire / field industry I’m in. So you think, simple, switch to something else, but, I don’t know what to switch to. And on top of that with each passing year I find my attention span, focus, and mental capacity degrading.

I don’t have any motivation to do anything, but at the same time I hate my situation. I know in the end, I won’t; or if I do, I’ll give up midway. But it’s not my job that’s the problem, it’s that I have nothing…in life?

I don’t have a drive towards a single direction, no true ambition, just day dreams. I have a superficial light interest in many things.

I traveled a little, and while it’s enjoyable it often feels empty at times. Doesn’t erase the routine mundane life I have comes back.

My dream was to have a life and kids with my partner but when she left I had nothing.

I have friends, but I don’t enjoy hanging out with them much as we have nothing in common. I’m just there because I need socialization in my life.

I am extremely lonely and have been mostly lacking in a very active social life. Never had a crazy fun 20s and my 30s aren’t shaping up to be better.

I get motivated to improve my life, and i’ll do something like go to the gym for a few months then i’ll think, what’s the point? I don’t even care to lift weights or how my body looks. The only time I ever want to look muscular is to impress a girl, but to me, I don’t care.

I constantly think about women, and having a partner in life. I’ve had girlfriends. It didn’t work out. My last break up destroyed me. I still dream about that woman. Wanted to marry her. Wanted to have the kids and the white picket fence.

Those past relationships haunt me. Tried the online dating aggressively for a few months and despite getting tons of matches, none of them went anywhere and it destroyed my self esteem. I shut down all apps and all social media and now I feel very secluded. Even with that, at this point, I’m starting to think, “what’s the point? They will leave me eventually?“ I turned down sex and haven’t been with anyone in over a year. I feel like a loser a lot the times, and I’m too scared to follow through or move on opportunities because I feel they’ll realize I’m a loser the more they get to know me and leave. And why wouldn’t they? I have zero ambition.

I am very lonely; physically and philosophically and emotionally.

I don’t have a motivation to make money or be successful, not because I have no interest, but because I often have no follow through. I just can’t keep up with anything before the ennui sets in. But I’ll be miserable about my situation.

All this time, and I haven’t found anything that makes me WANT to do the thing. I get interested in something for a few months then I lose it

I sleep at 2-4am every night. I fixed it for a few weeks, and it made no difference on how I feel.

Most of my 20s were spent the same way confused, lost, bouncing through life, not enjoying any moments.

To answer your questions, yes I’m depressed, yes I went through a break up a year ago, yes I went to therapy+ssris; didn’t help.

I just have no sense of who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing here. No idea how to be satisfied in where I am in life. I haven’t met a single person who’s this lost, all the time, his entire life.

tl;dr: what is my purpose? none of the daily parts of life are particularly enjoyable. grappling with my desire to do things and my inability to ever do them. feeling bored with experiencing how mundane life is. at the same time, nothing feels exciting. motivation issues, romantic hopelessness, lacking a purpose in doing anything. not drawn to any particular path, direction, no true discipline or motivation to go in any particular direction. feel lost. have always felt lost.

5 comments

  1. There’s a Buddhist saying: “Your purpose is to find your purpose.”

    Perhaps you’re too passive. Start by setting a target up and then work your way to hit it. Set the conditions for failure. From what you’ve written, it sounds like you’re stuck in too much comfort and too familiar territory. Get out there and test yourself by overcoming something difficult. No one gets impressed when one accomplishes easy things – that includes yourself.

  2. 4 years ago I almost committed suicide. Today I’m regularly happy. Here’s a quick synopsis:

    I grew up poor and lonely and wanted to be somebody, make a lot of money, and find a wonderful woman to make a life with. Many things were stacked against me, but somehow I got everything I ever wanted.

    The problem is, the depression never went away. And in 2018, I got wasted and prepared to jump off the balcony of my apartment. My wife got home in time to see me out there crying and came out to see what was wrong. And I decided that if I was ready to kill myself, I should be ready to kill the person I was, the way that I operated in the world, and the way that I thought about life. The body could go on living but everything else about me needed to go.

    No immediate answer presented itself and I wondered if anything would change or if I would wind up on the balcony again. But then someone lent me a book called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. She was so adamant that I read it, but didn’t have a physical copy so she gave me her Kindle. I felt some social pressure after this to read it.

    I’m the sort of guy to skip the intros and forewords and just get to the opening chapter. In this case, the chapter is titled “The voice inside your head.”

    I’ll save you all the bits between then and now, but what I started learning that day was, in a broader sense, non-dual philosophy and living in the present. I’ve learned that any happiness that is derived from getting this or having that is conditional. Whether that’s having a partner, having a million bucks, having a name and reputation, having a clear set of goals and purpose, having time off to travel, what have you— the problem with conditional happiness is two-fold: you actually have very little control over those conditions, and even if you’ve attained them, you’re already wishing for some new set of circumstances that are greater than what you have. It’s a recipe for dissatisfaction.

    Your life is generated from within you, not outside of you. Your senses interact with the world, your brain processes the inputs through the filter of everything you’ve been conditioned to believe, and compares your current experience to your memory and to your image of the future. These are both faulty faculties and trap you in things that don’t exist here and now. Your entire experience happens inside the brain!You have to rewire the brain. You have to change your life narrative. Change the self-talk. When you see the depression, you have to challenge it.

    Use every opportunity to question your beliefs and practice self-inquiry. “Why am I not feeling satisfied?” “Because I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life.” “Why does that make me feel uneasy?” “Because I want to do something meaningful and I don’t have a sense of purpose.” “Why is it important to do something meaningful? Is it necessary to do something meaningful as a career? Or are there other meaningful things you can be doing?” “I guess I could volunteer, but I don’t really want to do that. I like my free time.” “Why do you value your free time over doing something meaningful? I thought you wanted meaning!” I’m just making stuff up here, but when you follow this process, you WILL arrive at the answer you’re seeking. The answer is buried inside you. It’s not even a difficult process to find it. You just have to be willing to turn over every stone.

    I’m nearly 4 years out from that night on the balcony and I feel satisfied almost all of the time. When I’m not content, I use that as an opportunity for self-inquiry. And nothing else about my life has really changed all that much— just the way I think! It’s possible for you too.

    I’ll finish with this: you don’t have to believe anything I say. Don’t take it on my word. Just try it. But if you think that satisfaction and happiness exist outside of you and you have to go find it in something or somewhere else, you’ll never get it. Go inside.

  3. I feel where you’re coming at. The problem as I see it is once you hit a level of stability nothing comes to grab your attention until your body starts shutting down. You can live in this limbo forever. You have to pick some goal, something, *anything*, ***literally anything*** that isn’t harmful and start moving towards it. Any free time you have should be working towards that thing with the most concrete actions (so no spending a year *reading* about hiking for example). As you get closer to that goal, you’ll learn what you like or don’t like about it, and you adjust, but you don’t stop moving forward.

    Which is hard when there’s nothing to compel you forward. But I find it’s like rolling downhill. Once you get momentum it gets easier. Stopping resets it, though.

  5. Its obviously a time for change an you have cold feet. Now that I older or “awakened” my immediate response would be to never stop evolving your way of thinking. Go back to school or travel or work for happiness. Embrace the change, and learn not too only to perpetuate positive outcomes, but also change as all life throws at us constantly. We are stubborn and love your habits. Adapt and overcome is what I know to do. But easiest said than done, I know. You got this, just gotta be selfish for yourself right now, and your doing good. Not knowing is exactly what you needed to think, in order to know you know. Figure it out and that’s your Answer. Everything is Everything[
    hop this will help!](https://youtu.be/iC3kEJnDjHY)

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