I think some of us suffer with it our whole lives. I’ve decided to stick around until my kids are 18 but have still acted poorly in moments of dispair. I don’t know that there is a cookie cutter answer for you. You need to find what gives you moments of happiness and fight like Hell to have them.
I think that I am on my way out, but I did hold on for very long and think I can offer some advice. When I was still fighting, I tried to find things to commit to. Here’s a quote from Nietzsche (later appropriated by Victor Frankel in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”):
“If we have our ‘why’ of life we can get along with almost any ‘how.'”
(N’s quote goes on to say a word about “happiness” as opposed to “meaning”, but I don’t think that the two are so unrelated)
Here is another quote from John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography. JSM entered a period of severe depression and hopelessness in his late teens/early twenties and pulled himself out through deep thinking and new appreciate for arts. Here was the conclusion that he came to that allowed him to defeat his depression:
“I never, indeed, wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct, and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning. This theory now became the basis of my philosophy of life. “
I try to give myself different goals… maybe I’ll do something work-related… or school-related… or church-related… things like that to keep me going. If I have no goals and no purpose, then I hit a rut. Hitting a rut has the weight of a thousand bricks.
Ultimately, be your own best friend… There is value in your life.
Usually people force me to stay. These days I don’t really care if I live or die. If I live, great, I’ll do some stuff. If I die, great, no more struggles. Meh. I used to be suicidal because of my depression, now I’m suicidal because of my reasoning- life ends anyway, might just as well end it when – I – want to.
Just pick the next thing that needs to be done, and the next, and the next. I think about death and dying every single day, but I just keep working at my shit job and taking care of my ass of a husband and just put one foot in front of the other. No joy, no pleasure, nothing but just keeping my mind on the next thing that has to be done. Fix breakfast, lunch and dinner, pay bills, make the bed, clean the house, do laundry, feed and walk the dog, all the daily chores, then go to work and spend 12 hours doing something that really means nothing to anyone. Come home and do it all over again day after day after day. No vacations, no fun, no friends, no hobbies, nothing but work and work and work. Soon you will find that years have gone by. It is like pealing an onion, just one paper thin layer at a time while your eyes fill with tears, your back bows, your skin wrinkles and the world and all the people in it become something you hate more and more every day.
6 comments
I think some of us suffer with it our whole lives. I’ve decided to stick around until my kids are 18 but have still acted poorly in moments of dispair. I don’t know that there is a cookie cutter answer for you. You need to find what gives you moments of happiness and fight like Hell to have them.
I think that I am on my way out, but I did hold on for very long and think I can offer some advice. When I was still fighting, I tried to find things to commit to. Here’s a quote from Nietzsche (later appropriated by Victor Frankel in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”):
“If we have our ‘why’ of life we can get along with almost any ‘how.'”
(N’s quote goes on to say a word about “happiness” as opposed to “meaning”, but I don’t think that the two are so unrelated)
Here is another quote from John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography. JSM entered a period of severe depression and hopelessness in his late teens/early twenties and pulled himself out through deep thinking and new appreciate for arts. Here was the conclusion that he came to that allowed him to defeat his depression:
“I never, indeed, wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct, and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning. This theory now became the basis of my philosophy of life. “
But spread your commitments out a little. I focused intensely on one aspect of my life and when it crashed and burned I found that I had nothing else.
I try to give myself different goals… maybe I’ll do something work-related… or school-related… or church-related… things like that to keep me going. If I have no goals and no purpose, then I hit a rut. Hitting a rut has the weight of a thousand bricks.
Ultimately, be your own best friend… There is value in your life.
Usually people force me to stay. These days I don’t really care if I live or die. If I live, great, I’ll do some stuff. If I die, great, no more struggles. Meh. I used to be suicidal because of my depression, now I’m suicidal because of my reasoning- life ends anyway, might just as well end it when – I – want to.
Just pick the next thing that needs to be done, and the next, and the next. I think about death and dying every single day, but I just keep working at my shit job and taking care of my ass of a husband and just put one foot in front of the other. No joy, no pleasure, nothing but just keeping my mind on the next thing that has to be done. Fix breakfast, lunch and dinner, pay bills, make the bed, clean the house, do laundry, feed and walk the dog, all the daily chores, then go to work and spend 12 hours doing something that really means nothing to anyone. Come home and do it all over again day after day after day. No vacations, no fun, no friends, no hobbies, nothing but work and work and work. Soon you will find that years have gone by. It is like pealing an onion, just one paper thin layer at a time while your eyes fill with tears, your back bows, your skin wrinkles and the world and all the people in it become something you hate more and more every day.