The meaning to YOUR life - do you have one?

[Buffalobiian]

First of all guys, thanks for your input into this, as well as anybody who's giving me advice be it past, present or future. Of course, not every bit of advice is going to work out(1), but knowing that people out there live their life with some sort of purpose/passion gives a glimmer of hope that one day I may find my own.

(1) I read everything, even though I'm not going to quote everybody.

Oh, and I don't know how it all sounds, but so you all know, I'm not suicidal. I can't see a reason for it, so it's not worth the effort.

I'm just.....lost. That's probably the best description.

Another thing I say is if you really want something, so not talking about your urges to splurge some money, you should just reach out and touch it. As in, if you want something, go for it.
Even if end result is less then ideal or even worse then where you started of, cause if you don't you will hate yourself, or at least regret, in the future for not at least trying.

True. Only problem I have is that there really is nothing I feel like doing, or something that I want to try. I would most likely try it out as you said if it was within my power, and if it was a desire of mine. But alas, the last part stumps me up.

I know who I am and I know that I am meaningful and significant.

If I define myself by what I do, to me, I'm not doing anything meaningful or significant.

"What did I do today? What made me happy today? What did I do that was meaningful today? What did I do that I like today? What difference have I made today? What would I try to do tomorrow?"

It's not like I think about these questions every day, but if I do, I don't believe I could come up with much of an answer. Sure, I laugh, and there are little bits of pieces that I enjoy in my day. I'm actually rather easy to please. Just a nice, full lunch would make my day. I'd most likely look forward to it all morning, and remember how good it was in the afternoon, until I see something else I could chew on. Jokes get me going etc etc.

But thinking about all that, it's sort of a short-lived, superficial. Using the pyramid, they're things on the lower rungs, if not the lowest. While it's a legit reason, it's somewhat sad when I end up answering "I got out of bed today to each that lasagne in the fridge, or to download that anime. And that only."

Sometimes you just need to see your life from a new perspective. Bill, maybe you should consider spending some time volunteering. You might find that through helping other people, you actually do care more than you realized

I should try that. I should also try many other things too, I think. Just go out there, do it, and see how I feel about it. Sucks that I can't find the motivation to begin, however. Like, I don't even feel like trying...even though I'm the one asking these questions.

You know, when I watched Yes Man, lots of things hit home. It almost felt like I was the target audience for that film. Too bad, it was only good for like the first half hour.

1) Ensure that you have everything set up for a financially secure future. Because of the things you've already done, the path of least resistance to that is to finish up your education and basically do the things you've already mentioned.

That part I can do. I'm not proud of it, but my main reason for studying pharmacy is for employment into a stable and steadily growing job sector with good job prospects. Even after 2.5 years of it, I don't harbour any strong interest in it. I could easily do something like civil engineering and not feel any different. I might actually do better since maths is my strongest point. At least now I am force-fed material so I don't have to think. I can't imagine what working would be like...(well, I can since I do placement work, and I'm not looking forward to it....hence all this searching.)

2) This one is extremely important. Create the opportunity for you to have a chance to explore things. This means first and foremost, don't take on any more obligations than is absolutely necessary. Not at this point your life. I don't mean your age either, I mean the point you're at emotionally and spiritually. Free up as much of your time as you can, so you can use it to actively pursue things you haven't pursued before.

That sounds nice. It really does. As above, it would be a very good thing to do if and when I can summon the effort to do it. My friend's been asking me to come to Taekwondo with him a few months back. I always found reasons to decline it, because I simply couldn't see a reason to do it, nor put out the effort, no matter how cool I imagined the experience to be in my head.

If I could free up some time, which should happen in a month's time after my exams, I would have to get right back into piano though. I've dropped that for a good 6 months. I don't miss it one bit, and have no attachment to it. I honestly can't remember why I even started playing. Personally, I think of it as like a chore. Right now, I see it as an investment. Not that I'd teach or do anything with it, but after all these years, I feel that I need to go that final stretch and get that performance letter/diploma to justify all the time and money spent on this. At least after that, even if I never play again, I know that it amounted to something. Once.

3) If you manage to do 1 and 2, for each activity you pick, I recommend both looking into the details of the activities, and stepping back, and looking at how these activities fit into the the rest of what you do with your life. The point of this is, you may find joy in the details, or you may find joy in the puzzle, or both.
I'll use music as an example since you play piano. You can likely recognized musical compositions that require a good deal of technical ability to play. You can also probably recognize melodies and harmonies that are particularly beautiful and/or interesting. You can probably recognize compositions that are interestingly complex or cleverly simple. For each of the things I've mentioned, you may even be able to pinpoint just what makes them as I described. This would be looking at the detail.

I wish I could do that. I really do. But, I can't. I'm almost like a tape recorder. I hear, then see a song, and try to replicate it to the best of my ability for my yearly exams. I play it over and over and over again till I got it right. Then in a few week's time I'd forget, and the set of songs I learned with it, as I prepare new songs for the next exam.

It's like school exams pretty much. Just an extracurricular subject. Theory lessons were the same. Come to think of it, I think I have to upgrade to the next theory level as a prerequisite for my Amus letter.

I had a friend in highschool. (I remember him well because he gave me a concussion that I don't remember back in grade 8. I didn't know him back then, but I did after that...). In everyone's eyes, I was a better pianist than him. In terms of technical ability, that is true. But in my eyes, he was far superior. Not only was he a pianist, but he was a guitarist, and trombonist. The main thing is, he plays by ear, and improvises like he's born for it. And to top it all off, he loves music. To me, that beats all the technical skills that I've acquired through mechanical practice. Outwardly I admired him. Inwardly, I think I was jealous without the bitterness, and felt sort of empty.

Might try picking up a sport.

That's possibly the most practical thing I could do right now, save for time constraints. According to some random facebook quiz, I attract the sporty type .

Maybe traveling, or learning about our world be it it's people and cultures, it's foods, it's natural beauty or the underlying mechanics of why and how it even exists.

When the money comes, I would, having read Eat, Love, Pray.. I didn't find it a particularly good read. For some reason her writing style kept putting me off, but I wasn't about to put down a book that talked about exploring one's inner self. Not when it addresses my own issues so much. Still, the end result was watching someone else's life change without doing anything to my own.


But of course, not everybody has a personal mission statement in their lives, and they are perfectly fine with themselves. After all, the meaning to life is only relevant to one's self. I've also included that question as one of my initial ones. Is that fine too? How do you stop that from leading yourself to a depressed state?


After reading and reflecting off everyone, both in this thread and out, I think my loss of direction was a result of my loosing my sense of achievement. Being a goal orientated person, graduating high school meant reaching that goal. After that, it's up to me to work towards another one, and I haven't been able to find one since then, or one I really care about. Taking Kitkat's advice and going on a journey instead, I haven't found the days I've spent these past years amount to anything meaningful.