I found this site tonight after searching ‘what to do when you want to die.’ Â It’s an absurd thing to search…what to do. Â I am miserable because I failed to live up to my potential in pretty much every aspect of life, although what I once thought of as my potential may have been sort of make believe in the first place. Â I’m very smart, so I get how the world works to a certain degree. Â I made some choices early in life based on things I thought I understood. Â I thought it was important to exist outside the main stream of American society. Â Examples of how I did this are that I did not participate in the traditional wage labor economy, I avoided relationships and situations that propagated gender stereotypes and historically unfair power relationships, I read and read and learned about the thinkers that really seemed to have stepped outside the norm as far as thinking about what life is about. Â I don’t know exactly how these choices led me to where I am at, perhaps they didn’t but here I am. Â I have no discipline, I have no focus, I have no energy, I have no ambition. Â I lost these things because I neglected them and I have no idea how to get them back. Â The world is what it is and if you try and go your own way with no clear Idea of where and how you will fail because you have no support. Â Hiedigger says something about making your life about your individual project, I took this as my highest ideal and searched out what my unique contribution could be. Â I have always been creative and found some success in writing and painting. Â Yet I never finish, never follow through. Â After years of half assed starts and hiccups I’ve become so upset with myself and the predictability of my actions I’ve taken to drinking almost every day and doing whatever drugs fall into my lap. Â It further reduces my energy and so here I am. Â Tired, lonely, still starting shit I’ll never follow through on, alchoholic and lazy, unhealthy since I’ve stopped biking, and now recently broke. Â The people around me are alright but I do not truly care about them. Â I’ve been in three or four long term relationships that all failed because of me. Â I will never find real love because I do not have the energy or desire to do so. Â Why not, why can’t I find that energy. Â So I’m not going to kill myself but there isnt a day that goes by that I am not aware of the fact that I want to. Â I want to die. Â I turn 30 in August, I do not care about what that means. Â Maybe I should get a dog.
6 comments
While running from the norm, you run the risk of completely isolating yourself. The world is ruled by tradition and other repetitive actions(and ways of life), so to escape it completely means leaving others almost completely. Humans without true human contact usually become sad(the emotion, I don’t mean pathetic) and lonely.
I did this to a degree too. We are creatures of habit. I get stuck in the same routines a lot.
pets can help though.. they are like having a baby, friend, etc.. because of one reason: they will rely on you.
so it gives your life a bit more meaning, even if it’s small.. they need your care..
if you do get a dog, I hope it helps you 🙂
🙂 A dog it still a good idea. You’re in bad shape. I know what it is. You want to die, and you think a lot about it. But what you really want is a different life. You’re not really suffering, you’re just disappointed of yourself. You want is “don’t want want to die”. You need a goal. Your misery is to live in era of opportunity. I mean, people 70years ago didn’t had that kind of problem: they had a job without real perspective of having the choise of something else. Now, we have the choise about everything. This can be terribly complex if you don’t feel where you want to go. You need to start something. Something that will pull you. If you start a new painting, still you will have to convince yourself to finish it each day. You will need a lot of motivation on a daily base. You need a project that when you will subscribe to it, the project itself will force you to continue, like new studies, or a new job.
And run!!! Make exercise. I know, before we start, it looks impossible. But doing exercise give energies. Start now. In two weeks, I promise, what seemed impossible to start, will became impossible to stop.
You’re 30 years: that’s young! Many restart their life there! It’s a good age to remake our whole life!
@NoEasyWay Thanks for the analysis, it rings true to me. I have put myself in a place where it is difficult to get back to a healthy mindset about exercising again or really committing to a project but of course, if I was to try for the umpteenth time to get there what you describe is the way to go. To sort of re-manifest that desire is a choice, what is the meaning of that choice? What sort of world is this to make a contribution for? I think it’s shit; but admire great minds present and past that have taught me about that shit. It is more complex for me than just a ‘go for it’ attitude. I don’t really feel like outlining why I think this too much. The 9 to 5 go home and watch some t.v. eat a nice meal life is bullshit to me. Even success in art, and I’ve seen it live is facile and just another cog in the giant corporate assfucking our species is receiving. Some say do it for yourself but who am I? I have tried to believe in change, I was one of the 500 arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge during occupy wall street last year. But this too means nothing really because it is doomed to fail.
@Shadowclone The dog was meant to be a joke. Like what sort of feel good pathetic solution is left to the doomed, prozac? dog? The tone of my post should have included more of the total sense of futility I feel for the whole idea of creating meaning in ones life on this planet. Happiness is not anything important for it’s own sake. If I would have gotten that across then the dog would have been funny. Although I do like dogs.
oh, well I did laugh at first.. but I guess I thought it was just me and my bad sense of humor haha because I really laugh at things most people don’t find funny..
but I’m in about the same spot you are really.. life is mostly pointless for me..
need something more substantial, but can’t find it or maybe it just doesn’t exist..
I always hope for others success in life because I care, and, in the end, their success seems to send hope to other people that are going through similar circumstances..
I’ve been trying to re-invent my life.. but find myself saying some of the same things you did in this post.. exercise is a nice thing though.. just for a break
@NoEasyWay: great analyst. sum me up pretty good too
You’re asking how to regain the energy to live your life.
Excellent question. I’ve been struggling with that myself.
My best quess would be that you need to create a positively reinforcing loop in your life.
Since you don’t have the energy yourself right now, you’ll have to rely on your environment to supply it. But at the same time, you have to make sure not to deplete that source of energy.
I guess that’s the balance: If you rely on other people to pull you up, you have to somehow make sure that you don’t run them into the ground, and that they benefit as well.
This applies equally to the way you use material resources.