Ask HN: When you feel stuck in life
I'd just like to give my two cents where I know no one gives a shit ever. I'm 29 years old. I finished with my Business Administration degree(major) and now I just feel completely LOST! Has anyone ever felt that way? You have the drive and motivation to get to your destination but once you are there -- you're left wondering -- "what else could I have done? What else is there to life? Because if this is all there is then I'm not happy." And, truth be told, I am not happy. I'd like to be something -- more than just an office person. More than just someone who works that 8-5 shift. I feel like a complete wreck. Has anyone ever felt this way?
I feel like I should go back to school but do I really want to rack up all that loan? I am already struggling right now. I just wish I knew where to start as a push and motivation.
What would you guys do if ya were in my shoes?
359 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 353 ms ] threadOnce you have all that covered I would take a step back and get some vacation. You seem to already have an idea what you want to do, so that is good. Maybe try to specify it a bit more and lay out the steps to get there.
One of these steps could be going back to school. If you are not sure whether you want to take a step, I would go like this:
1. List alternatives
2. Order by likelihood of success
3. Take first you think you can do and still stay sane. You have to know yourself whether or not you are a person that can take on debt and likes to go to school.
Oddly enough treating myself like a machine allowed me to actually take control of my life and improve many aspects of it. If anyone is curious, I just took all my bad habits and turned them into sleep & physical activity and made them my new habits.
This made me take a look at the job market and now I feel like I have a lot of doors open to me where I would otherwise be too scared/comfortable to leave.
The dread and anger, the feeling of being stuck, they all turned into excitement.
I recommend:
1. Don't work hard. Try to reduce your productivity.
2. Don't work long hours. Reduce your working week to the minimum necessary. Most university graduates earn enough to live comfortably on 10 or 20 hours work per week.
3. Have less stuff. Go outside more, even if it's to play Pokemon Go.
4. Do things for other people.
5. Try to lead an innovative life. Don't wear a tie.
6. Seek to abolish the existing world order.
This belongs to point 4: "do things for other people". Doing things for others often works best when joining existing efforts. Many projects with a social agenda don't have enough funds or supporters, because they operate outside of the simple profit model.
I live in Europe where self employement is not common but the most happiest friends of mine are all somehow self employed.
Of course it is optional, because no one is holding a gun to your head, right?
But "everybody knows" that 1. if you don't work, you'll sooner or later (perhaps sooner!) be homeless and 2. homelessness can lead to sudden, violent death.
Just because the trigger and the barrel are far apart doesn't mean it isn't a gun.
The majority of people need to work if they want to survive, that's true. So "jobs" aren't voluntary. But "a job" is. You don't have to pick plants out in a field if you don't want to. If you don't like your position, or boss, or pay, you can quit and look for work elsewhere. Or even have multiple jobs!
A slave doesn't get to say "This other company is nicer and pays better, so I'm leaving here and going there instead." But you can.
Thing is, neither do most people.
it's common to add some qualifications like... ...etc.But that doesn't change the fact that LOTS of people believe in their hearts that they have absolutely no choice but to continue doing exactly what they are doing.
I'd hazard the guess that almost all of us have actually removed WHERE predicates because during the initial searches (back in late childhood), zero rows were returned. Predicates like
or If you are thinking that it's just not possible for everyone to have their ideal job, fine. It's not. But stop for just a second and review that survival part...Why exactly is it so hard to survive without a job, in 2016? I mean, physically. You need air and water and food and shelter. Those are listed in decreasing order of necessary frequency.
Seems to me that the problem is rent and the social framework that enforces eviction via violence--even if the space isn't otherwise being used.
I, for one, would not die without a job--not from starvation. But I would eventually be arrested, beat up, stripped of my possessions, etc, and that would eventually lead to death. The jobless don't die--they are killed.
Slavery.
> Why exactly is it so hard to survive without a job, in 2016?
Why should it not be, for a sufficiently broad definition of "job"?
This topic is a hobby of mine.
>> for men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves [...] they are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience they have gone from bad to worse
Not being a slave means not having a ruler.
Having a job is the cost of living in society. It sucks and needs improvement, but it is not as bad as slavery where you have no choice and not much gain.
There is no living outside of society, outside of private property and the rule of law. There is no real choice here.
This is sort of a proxy conversation about money. I'd like to point out that manufacturing your own money from scratch is a good way to get shot.
In other words, we are born into debt and must work all our lives to pay off that debt. This is true in so many ways, and makes what we're talking about amount to at best a kind of bonded child labor.
You don't have to think of it as slavery, but it's very very far from COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. There is no deserted island to live on!! There are no guarantees of universal housing, or healthcare, or much else that is needed to survive. Until there are, working vs. not working can never be a real choice. The working class by definition must work in order to live.
It might take some work, but it seems possible to me.
A person either needs to use his parent's cash or to work for a number of years and save before leaving. The "choice" isn't available to him until that happens, so either his parents must work to purchase their child's freedom, or he must work to purchase it himself. In either case this is one of the very definitions of slavery.
I ate a banana once. I will die some day. Bananas are guns.
>> A free man sells the results of his work. A free man cleans someone's house and bills him when the work is done. A free man drives passengers from the airport to their home and bills them when they get there. A free man creates a software module and bills the client when it's ready. A free man translates a document and bills per page. A free man cooks a cake and bills for it.
A free man sells results, not time.
Also, a free man takes care of the food and security on his or her own.
Is it more risky? Yes. Is it more stressful? Yes. But that's what freedom is about.
Source: http://www.yegor256.com/2015/07/21/hourly-pay-modern-slavery...
If people own essentially all the livable land on the planet, then there isn't really a way to retreat from society to live on your own terms. The owner of the land will eventually stop you from using it. So in a sense, you're being forced to participate in a human society to some degree, and forced to provide benefit back to that society. Consequences for not doing so usually end up to be having some form of violence or another done to you.
But when it comes to an actual contract, willingly signed, then "oh but you have to sign to survive". Well yes, except I don't. I can go live in the middle of nowhere and live off the land. You try doing that with the anything state-related, and then tell me how voluntary it is.
</rant>
You will find a lot of meaning and joy in giving, in focusing on the well-being of others. Your own well-being will follow.
Yes to 3, 4 and 6! 5 Never hurts.
With great power comes great responsibility.
There are many people even in developed countries[1] who need help of those who made it through.
[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/24/how-bad-are-things/
I like it! Life's too serious and people need some chaotic ambiguity to spice it up.
> Don't work hard. Try to reduce your productivity.
Sounds good. Most people aren't as productive as they think they are, imho. I'd rather not buy into their facade and just be as productive as I need to be when I need to be!
> Don't work long hours. Reduce your working week to the minimum necessary. Most university graduates earn enough to live comfortably on 10 or 20 hours work per week.
Eh, I don't know where you live, but 10-20 hours of work would be a straight path to homelessness. Unless you mean actual hours of productive work (in a nominal 40 hour work week). Then it's a good target.
> Have less stuff. Go outside more, even if it's to play Pokemon Go.
Completely agree. Going outside in the summer and staying inside (a suburban home) has changed my life for the better more than any other single thing.
> Do things for other people.
Any suggestions? What do you think most people would like done for them?
> Seek to abolish the existing world order.
I think the world order is doing a pretty good job in that on its own.
Seems like abolishing world orders takes a lot of work. At least more than ten hours per week.
If you want to abolish something, at least make a suggestion with what you want to replace it.
Odd in a good way. Yes, let's smash capitalism, but let's not replace it with a more oppressive system, as often happens in revolutions.
1 & 2 are different for everyone. I get an energy boost from working a certain amount of really productive hours during the week. Be self-aware, meditate, and identify the symptoms leading up to burnout. Err on the side of caution when it comes to preventing exhaustion, but let yourself binge on productivity if you're excited about the work you're doing. After you're done with that project, if you have a chance, take some time off and do something completely different. Surround yourself with people, opportunities and environments that make you excited to take a break.
Since lots of tech-oriented companies have a very relaxed or non-existent clothing policy.
Anything to stand out.
I've never been happier and more clear-headed than I've been since I stopped using pretty much all social media (except Snapchat with close family).
By the way, we need more people working on #6.
That market economy is running only on voluntary trade is one of the biggest and weirdest misconception that's being spread. Most of the transactions we make are ones we cannot reasonably choose not to make. We can at best choose the vendor we're dealing with.
But let's suppose that force is involved in a market economy. I would agree that it should be there. And its because I'm not from a wealthy background. I've worked with the people that would benefit from this kind of change, and a large majority of them would waste it.
Most of the comments in this thread are based on romantic ideals of first-world societies (Work less, stay in the present, be altruistic, travel, etc.). These principles only work in the right context.
If you have zero motivation and no life goal, then traveling won't do you shit. You won't magically find some inspiration on a tropical island. At the end of the 3-month (or god forbid, year-long) vagabonding journey, you will find yourself still empty, still goalless, and even more penniless.
If you don't know where to go in your career, having less stuff and doing things for other people won't do you any good. That is dancing around the problem. That is the equivalent of starting to meditate when there is a fire next door. That won't cut it.
Of course, meditation for emotional stability and investment is worthwhile (and advisable). For the third time I repeat, the context is important. If you don't know where to go and have no motivation, start working on exactly that: find your way forward.
I am not you, I don't know your life, so you should probably get advice from someone you want to be like, knows you well, and has no ulterior motives. But those people are hard to come by, so I will try to lay down the system that worked for me.
1. Befriend death.
Imagine a sniper shooting a bullet aimed right between your eyes, and time stops just when the bullet is a single foot away from your skull: What will your expression and thought process be like? Will you regret anything? What will you think about?
I will assume you have done that sufficiently terrifying imagination. Then think about that very moment, but when you will actually die. What will you want to have accomplished?
The most dangerous question of all: Why do you live?
My personal answer is, to enjoy life and go through peak experiences[1]. Life is a festival. I want to check out every attraction it offers. Your answer might vary, but the important thing is to fit the following steps based on your answer to this question.
The answers may not be generally applicable, but questions are.
2. Work your way downward from death.
Once you have defined your life's meta-objective, start making it more specific. To give an example (and definitely do not follow my examples word for word, that is the point!), I want to "Become a Polyglot (8)" and "Run an Ultra-marathon." Those would be my go-to peak experiences to work towards.
Of course, this is not a bucket list, so career things like "Positive Technological Shift" or personal things like "Become a Great Dad" matter as well.
It's okay if these change. They should change. But remember, the more specific a goal is, the more it's bound to change. But usually, the general, meta-objectives tend to be stable for longer.
3. Prioritize your goals. Then prioritize your prioritization.
So now set a number to them to be able to say which is most important for you. Numbered lists are infinitely better than bulleted lists.
4. Decompose a goal into multiple projects.
Decomposition, decomposition, decomposition. Take the abstract and complex goals and make them specific and digestible.
5. Decompose a project into multiple tasks. These tasks should take less than 5 pomodoros (25 minute blocks) to complete. If not, decompose further.
Check out the Pomodoro technique. This alone might help with lack of motivation.
6. Start working on those tasks.
Like goals, the projects and tasks should be numbered as well. Prioritize prioritization. Do number 1 first, number 2 second, etc. Cannot overstate how important this is.
--------------------------------------------------------
I must be honest, I got slightly angry. Pu...
I see your craving for helping people directly and not through the intermediary of a company. In my case I want to start a company or join a company that actually helps people because I feel the leverage that a company has to help people is a lot bigger. Nevertheless , the work of doctors is of course essential.
But that's something you can hear and not believe, so motivational get-livin-or-get-dyin sentiments will only get you so far. Setting a few long-term goals and then a bunch of short-term goals is what you'll want to do so that this down time isn't completely wasted. But thinking about these takes concerted effort, just like any other endeavor.
You say you've just finished your degree. Have you found a job yet? Don't think of getting a job as the end-all fulfillment of your life. At the very least, it can be a stepping stone to other unforseen opportunities, i.e. Woody Allen's aphorism about 60 to 90 percent of life being about just showing up.
Where do you live? Depending on the city, it's relatively easy to get involved in your local government by trying to fix "unsexy", but persistent problems. It'll get you out into things you normally wouldn't do, it'll get you involved with your city, you'll feel good about what you're doing, and it's something you can even put on your resume if you're into that.
"Why has that light been out for two months?" sounds boring at first, but if you pursue it to a certain depth, you'll start to notice some very interesting depth. FOIA/FOIL is a great tool for this.
Good luck!
Other times I have reached a big goal and not been making new goals to complete next.
In either case, for me the solution involves getting quiet and writing out how I feel. YMMV, i am fairly introverted and work things out internally.
Sounds like you need to set some goals. In school you had them - they were to get to here. Now its time to take stock and set some new ones. Then you'll know where you're going and you won't be lost.
For what its worth, here is my mission statement:
At home, my wife, kids, friends and family will know they are loved and will see it through my actions. At work, I will dazzle and always provide something useful. For myself, I will invest the time and energy to keep myself present, content, and healthy.
Going to school could help to get credentials if youre switching fields. But you can also get credentials by doing something.
I apologiee for sounding self-helpy and generic. Just my 2c.
It could lead to suicidal ideation. Then it's possibly a literal death spiral. You're depressed that you don't get anything done (hobbies, side project, etc). This makes you more depressed. You don't get anything done. This compounds the feelings of trapped/existential worthlessness. Eventually you might come really close to suicide. No booze.
Having a major-ish depression once or twice a year is customary for me now. This happens no matter how good or bad things in life are going on: whether I'm working on something I really like near an infinity pool in Kuala Lumpur, or whether I'm out of client work and desperate.
Alcohol helps me get through that ("you should go to a shrink", anyone?), and then when this periodic depression is done, I'm back to enjoying the things I do.
With some occasional alcohol when I feel like it, or when dealing with legacy PHP code (no kidding).
One thing I also noticed is having a great, caring, friendly partner reduced my alcohol consumption—significantly.
But I've really changed my mind about using alcohol or any other mood-altering, addictive substance (which includes food for some!) to cope, especially when it is to cope with depression.
See, many people share exactly your experience until suddenly they don't.
After years of using alcohol within whatever boundaries they set for themselves, they lose their job and as a result of that they lose their partner. Or they lose their partner in a terrible way (death, cheating, etc.) and get stuck in the 'getting through it' drinking phase because there are no friends to drag them out. Or a close friend/relative dies + losing a job. Basically, too much 'crumbles' at once. This can happen to anyone.
As a result, both slowly and somehow suddenly, the boundaries move, things get worse, and it becomes all the harder to get unstuck. The coping mechanism is too effective and the way out too difficult.
If they're lucky, something happens to snap them out of it. But even if this does happen, it could take years and cost them a lot.
This is a very common story. Shockingly common, in my experience.
I've worked with homeless people, had a fair share of 'junkie friends' and a few close family members who were alcoholics. In the vast majority of cases I'd summarize their story as "I became comfortable with alcohol/pills/weed/etc. in my teens and twenties, then too many things went wrong at the same time, and now here I am years later either addicted or avoiding whatever I was hooked on entirely."
Of course there are probably plenty of people where this doesn't happen. I hope you're one of them. I don't think things are black and white, and perhaps for some people drugs are a good coping mechanism. But I've seen too much go wrong after years of things going right to not feel a desire to warn (not judge) people at least! Addiction's a bitch.
With my newfound perspective, I took some professional risks that were extremely advantageous in the long run. I likely would not have seen the options, or have the fortitude to try them without a my sabbatical.
Never try this if you are depressed and looking for a quick-fix to your issues though. If you are bored, scared of change, or unsure how to make life choices, then I would suggest a good ole' high-dose acid trip in the woods.
Also, buy a cheap road bike and ride it 100 miles straight. Seriously, it will change your life.
I have not encountered a single case where someone appeared to be dependent on or addicted to acid. Sure, some people used it a little more than I'd consider healthy, but calling that an addiction or even a dependency would be stretching it.
I feel that it could certainly be done too frequently, but it's very resistant to being addictive. I suspect it would be easier to get addicted to tylonal. I can't comment on other research chemicals, which are often sold under the label of LSD.
Alcohol is well-known to be addictive and has organizations such as alcoholics anonymous to get help.
Don't leap back to school without carefully vetting whatever program has caught your attention. A lot of hoop jumping, and a lot of curriculum that's a decade out of date (or more) out there these days. I've tried to go back a few times, and it's been a complete waste of time/money.
Read Pressfield's "The War of Art." It's cheap, it's short, and it's helpful. There are a few passages that don't quit hit home, but it does one thing really well. It gives you the kind of internal vocabulary you need to get out of the "I'll do it tomorrow" sort of procrastination. "Tomorrow" is really dangerous thinking when there's not an actual deadline. You'll be saying tomorrow for years at a time, without actually moving the needle.
Move the needle every day. Do -something- that counts as forward progress. Momentum goes a long way. Track what you're doing. "What gets measured gets improved" sort of thing.
Be honest with yourself. What have you done that makes you think you should be more than just another office peon? Put in the work. Stop wishing. Earn it.
+1 to all of this. The War of Art is excellent, as is the advice about "tomorrow".
If you are posting from a country with cost-restrictive higher education though, I can empathize with your perspective.
How do you define happiness and meaning? Pick a path and realize the path may change, that's OK.
On this subject, Marshall Goldsmith is masterful > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7EJfWRv0VA
Then I decided "what the fuck, screw medicine", and decided to do something radically different. So now I own an escape room business, and every day I hit the ground running and eager. It's struggling a bit, and might not survive. But at the moment I'm living my life for myself, so I'm willing to take the bad with the good.
Good luck!
Unfortunately in America, working on your own is problematic due to disastrous health insurance system, and low wages for labor, and small business being unable to compete with multinational giants. This pushes people to seek comfort of corporations unless they're able to raise funds to start a business.
Trust your ancestry. People were either farmers or artisans until very recently. I think working in a corporate setting is swimming upstream for all but a certain type of personality.
As a 29-year old, I'll offer instead my own personal regret about my 20's without any panacea, I hope that it is relevant to your stated idea even though it may not seem so at first:
Last night I came home after going out with a bunch of friends from a startup at a "reunion outing" that we all used to work at several years ago,
We are all 28, 29, 30 now and we were 26, 25, 24 when we were hanging out everyday at work and after work; and past the superficial remembrances of the "all fun times we had," inside jokes of what-he-said, what-she-said, casual bantering at the pool table and the double high-fives for the ladies and low ass slaps for the bro's after the final game, on the back of the Lyft ride home, I thought about how we never ever really fought.
Not talking about general boorishness caused by alcohol and clashing sensitive male ego's, nor the passive-aggression between friends or acquaintances where perceived slights/differences built up but never confronted, beef never squashed instead squished down underneath the social surface that years pass by, your group's "happy hours" turns from a "thing" into a remembrance - that you heard only about XXX's wedding from your other friends who had been invited but you feel only slightly annoyed because XXX has already become someone who you used to know.
But really fight in a moment, air out your differences, coming into a fight, knowing that you or the other person may not come out at end as friends anymore, but you have a hope to salvage things, out of a conviction to be authentic to yourself and the other person, out of an intent to love the other person even if there is a such deep well of negative emotions, frustration, hatred, feeling of injustice and inspired self-insecurity, that you can't help but to still respect/admire the uniqueness/individuality of the person and even a wisp of self-reconsideration of your own part in the sordid affair; and hope you guys might come be able to come out the other side.
This is the my biggest regret about my 20's. That I have always ducked all my opportunities to fight.
Instead of accepting the up's and down's in any natural relationships, I took every setback, every feeling of feeling stagnant as an outlet to push people away. Underneath the thin sheath of rationalizations is a dread of knowing myself as who I truly who I am if I were to fight, I'll be exposed. So it is with this never-said but oft-acted upon notion I've come away with a decade of superficial trinkets instead of battle scars, and without the satisfaction that I've truly ever loved.
Just saying :)
I'm going through something similar and you never want to go on a full on fight because, like you said, it's hard "knowing that you or the other person may not come out as friends anymore".
It's a hard lesson but I'm slowly realizing that it's better to know the limits of how real and true your friendships are rather than realizing it was all based off unstable foundations.
Man, I wish there was HN gold for stuff like this.
I have learned to picked my fights but this is the key to determining who's most important in my life. If we can go through something like this and still talk to each other afterwards then we are friends for life.
I had this same problem. Took everything at face value in my 20's and didn't have the courage to fight. Once I did my life got much more happier. I hate that it took a long time to figure that out.
Fast forward: these days I try to resolve any conflict immediately and I value harmony indefinitely higher than being right. There is so much more to life than fighting!
Of course, knowing that you are able to fight hard might be necessary in order to avoid conflict. So I'm not saying, don't fight -- just keep an eye on the greater picture while you do!
http://amzn.to/2a2Dz71
I've found 3 things that have helped me deal with my depression/boredom:
1. Have things to look forward to:
Always, always find things to anticipate and look forward to in the short and long term. Whether it is something small, like a treat at the end of the day or something big like a vacation or short trip away.
2. Side projects & working towards self-employment.
Ultimately, the aim is to be the master of my own time. I no longer have to wake up at 8am because I HAVE to but because I (may) WANT to. This for me is so important. To be the master of my time. I'm 32 now, if I'm lucky to live to 70 you can say that I have about 14-20 years of productive time in me. I want to use it for myself.
3. Spirituality.
I know that this isn't for everyone. Personally, I find religion and spirituality helps me to cope with every day issues. It gives me strength where I might otherwise just find a gaping void of pointless-ness into which to fall.
I hope this helps you. As mentioned by another comment try to avoid alcohol. You won't find the answers you need a the bottom of a bottle.
Also, the term "significant other" can mean more than spouse (which implies marriage): [boy|girl]friend, life partner, close-friend-kind-of-person, etc.
Have kids because you want them. Not because you think they'll give your life purpose.
Starting or growing a family is a terrible way to solve problems.
If interaction with kids seems like a good use of time, start by volunteering with mentoring organizations like Big Brother/Big Sister or Boys and Girls Clubs. Or help out with the kids programs at church/temple/synagogue if you're into organized religion.
If that pans out well, consider babysitting for foster families. Foster parents do incredible amounts of good for society and get run into the ground in the process. It seems simple, but giving them a night off here and there is a huge help.
If that goes well, then maybe consider adopting or starting a family. At any rate, there are a lot of young people out there that could use positive (especially male!) role models.
I rediscovered being a member of a dojo. Combines some elements of spirituality / higher purpose together with some pretty awesome exercise endorphins. It's like church, but without the god thing.
That's like saying it's like an omelette without eggs or soup without water.
Those sound like interesting recipes to me. Water is fine though, as long as it isn't fluoridated.