I have these ideas of how life should be. How reality should work. Too much time spent watching tv. It doesn’t work like that. There is no ‘suddenly’ moment where everything falls into place. There is no happy ever after. My experience has shown me that time and time again. And yet still, I keep trying to see the world that way. Looking for that thing that will make it all seem meaningful again. It’s pathetic.
There is nothing that can make life meaningful. Either you feel it, or you don’t. I’m so tired of trying (and failing) to keep it together, when I don’t feel the significance anymore. Suicide would not be wise. Who knows where we go. An eternity with only me. The damage done to loved ones.
But everything is effort. Everything is forced. Lie to yourself. This matters.
4 comments
I have been like that my whole life. Unfortunately, research shows that optimism actually make you less likely to get what you want, because it fools your brain into thinking you already have what you want, so you don’t try as hard.
I’m not sure I’d call it optimism in my case. I don’t think the things I want really exist. They’re based on ideas that don’t fit with how people actually interact.
I would have thought that optimism would be helpful as long as it’s based on something tangible you can actually make progress towards, and it doesn’t blind you to the work you need to do to get there. Aren’t optimists supposed to be more happy and successful in general? I think I heard pessimists tend to suffer from poor mental health.
I normally identify as a pessimist. Most of the time, I don’t think I can get the things I want from life. But I keep getting these flashes of false hope, that pull me towards things that are never going to work out.
The psychology of it IS complicated. Here are some articles (and an app) if interested:
aeon.co/essays/thinking-positive-is-a-surprisingly-risky-manoeuvre
woopmylife.org
bakadesuyo.com/2014/07/how-to-be-optimistic/
You sound so much like me. I only recently realised how insane my dreams were. And I’m doing nothing to make them come true.
Hmm, yeah, maybe what works is just a general optimistic attitude about life (‘if I just keep doing the right things, eventually it’ll work out’), rather than building up elaborate fantasies and forcing yourself to think positively about them.
Not that I can manage even a general vague optimism. My mindset is very much ‘even if I start doing all the ‘right’ things, I’ll still probably end up screwed.’
The app looks interesting. Have you found it helpful?
I never really found trying to reason myself out of it very helpful, though I’m sure it works for some people.
I think I’m just going to stop investing so much emotional energy in things that aren’t real. There are very few real things in my life that I care about, and that hurts, but it’s bearable. Maybe at some point I’ll come across something real that’s truly significant. Until then, I’m just going to be kind of apathetic. I think I’m done trying to invest myself in things, because of some story I tell myself about how my life should be.