Idk why. But I can really relate to you about waking up everyday without any hopes and dreams.

That sounds pretty rough and i’m sorry for your struggles…

I hope things get better with time for you. Even if not monetarily or physically, at least mentally. You are a self-aware individual which makes you smarter than many and you seem to work hard, even if to just survive. All you can do is wake up, find something you enjoy in the day, be nice to others, and, most importantly (also v hard for me), be kind to YOURSELF.

Sadly we can’t control what others are doing or saying, but you can control the narrative you give yourself. Shut them out if they oppose you for who you are. Keep being yourself. Take the world one day at a time and find inner peace. The rest is fruitless in the end.

You open to some unsolicited advice? Nbd if not, it’s okay.

Kids have always dreamed of vocations. Kids feel that calling sense in a much purer way than adults can. They want to sing so they want to be a star. They want to make new things, invent stuff, so they want to be scientists. They want to be cool as shit so they want to become astronauts.

Capitalism fucks that up in so many ways. I’m not even talking about the fact that western kids today want to be streamers. Nowadays (as in as has been for decades) there’s no calling, even kids realise that being the lowest grunt in whatever organisation isn’t much of a goal so they also dream of “advancement”, except that means doing less of the thing you want to do to manage. And if you advance enough, you get to not do that thing you went in to do.

Worst of it all, this is just what we face as kids. To say nothing on the alienation we suffer from, to feel like an animal doing human actions and human fulfilling animal needs. Folks got so used to the term wage slavery that they don’t even comprehend how inhuman labour under capitalism is.

While this is partially true, there’s been a lot of study on what makes us feel like we have purpose, and how our sense of purpose drives our well-being. They’ve even done studies on the elderly and found that those who retire and just “relax” tend to die earlier than those who continue to “work” in some way (note that “work” is broad in this usage. Volunteering, or having a structure and activities where you feel like you’re filling a need is included).

A carreer that you are able to partake in with severely reduced hours can easily be just that.

Only unhappy vibes up in here, being happy is Beta /s

Want to be… The one who knocks?

Tight tight tight tight tight.

“You better!” – every CEO

To a certain extent, yeah. You can control the things you individually do on a micro level.

The killer is that as you get older you realize how little those micro level actions matter on the macro scale. And I think you feel somehow even more powerless to enact change as an adult than as a kid because you can finally perceive the larger picture.

You can control what makes you miserable???

I’ve said this to other people before when trying to counsel them regarding difficult decisions.

Does what you are doing ultimately make you happy? Strip away everything else, every other factor. Especially those that involve others. Narrow it down to this one thing: the pursuit of your own happiness. At the end of the day, your own happiness is very literally the only point to anything. We get one life to live. If you’re doing something that isn’t pushing you to be happier, what are you doing? Why do it? What purpose is served by being unhappy?

Certainly not every individual action will make us happy, but I think it makes sense to really assess whether our choices and paths are building towards something that will increase our happiness, and strongly consider dropping things that do not.

Of course the catch is that this simple advice is quite difficult to enact. Assessing whether something contributes to your happiness requires a level of self understanding and introspection that people may not be comfortable with. But that journey is part of the process, IMO.

I feel you. Been realizing I’ve been too boundaryless, been too open, and I let people in who did nothing but take advantage of my kindness and love and gave nothing back. They turned me into someone I’m not, told me who I am, told me what to think.

I was told I alienated these people, that I was the problem. What am I thinking anymore? Good. Glad I alienated the people who could only love me if I acted, looked and thought a certain type a way. I am figuring out who I am now and I like the guy I’m getting to know. Hope you’re getting the chance to get to know yourself better now that you’re single and you’re liking who you’re meeting, too.

Can’t let others control us, our thoughts, our beings. I speak only from my experiences, but sometimes it can be easy to find ourselves carrying the burdens of others’ expectations and demands while barely even realizing we’re being crushed.