I have always dreamed of changing the world. I am an idealist. But now, as I get older, I’ve realized that it’s just pipe dream. In reality, I am just a nobody. I’m nothing. Just another ordinary human being among 7.8 billion humans on this tiny pale blue dot planet Earth, in this vast universe. I feel like everything I do is insignificant, so small, my life is meaningless, in the grandest scheme of everything. So why should I live? Why should I keep living, if it’s all meaningless, futile, and pointless? Why should I just “accept reality” ? And what if I hate reality? Isn’t it ironic and tragic, that life is all about reality .vs. imagination? And the reality/truth is often times so boring, limiting, unfair, stupid, pointless/meaningless, and depressing. Is this what our existence is all about? If that’s so, then why don’t we just die?
9 comments
everyone is important and everyone is meaningless. it all depends on what they do with their life. if you get up and do something then your life will be meaningful. but if you just sit there and wish for your life to change it wont. it will only change if you change it.
einstein wouldnt be known if he just sat there. instead he got up and did something. thats the same for everyone in the world. the scientist, the doctors, the artists, they all followed their dreams and made something of their life. they understand that you can wish and pray all you want but if you actually want it you have to reach for it.
Changing the world is difficult. You generally need a high level of competency in some area that people value. You may need to change yourself first to get to that level. If you do so, you may find you no longer feel the need to change the world to have meaning in your own life. And you may make the world better, simply by being a part of it.
This isn’t relevant advice, but if you haven’t already and are inclined towards things cosmic, look up the Hubble Deep Field photographs. Talk about feeling small…we’re a grain of sand in a seemingly infinite desert. Sometimes I need to feel small, and the meaning of the photos helps. Just my one and a half cents worth, factoring in inflation.
So far, we have found no traces of life anywhere outside our planet. The probability of us finding life intelligent as us if we set spaceships in all directions to fly for lightyears in that search, are incredibly slim.
Now, what you’re doing here, is shaping this life — the only known to us in the Universe. If everyone on Earth went like “why should I live, it’s meaningless, the Universe will end anyway”, then everyone would be making a huuge assumption, totally throwing out of the window the importance of what one does while one’s still alive, and that this journey determines the destination too.
Talk about wanting to change the world. I was going to write an article on George Floyd and the protests recently, but I slacked off, and now it appears police reforms are going through anyway. At a time when I finally felt like my voice could be heard, I’m not really needed, not necessary. It’s just life. I’m extraneous.
Life isn’t about you changing the world. This desire for what you perceive as significance is based on a false assumption.
So, take a load off.
Please, tell me, what is it about then, and why is it a false assumption? Please, be honest; (you’re not dishonest, I just know that we often need to withhold what people are not ready to hear yet; please, don’t withhold truths).
I just want to let you know that your story made me cry because for so long I felt exactly what you’re feeling. To feel so small and insignificant on a geological and cosmic scale, to feel that nothing you do matters or that you are completely insignificant and that no one, nor the universe would care if you were gone. But let me tell you something, I don’t even know you and I would miss you dearly if were take your own life because I know your story and that there others out there who feel the same as I do. Yes, we are small, but sometimes you have to look at the world and the universe through the microscope instead of just the slab that contains them so that you can focus on what really matters on the scale that we live on.
If the game is not worth the candle then don’t play. Simple.