Finding meaning, goal-setting and what makes you happy?

Toby2030

Cro-Magnon Man
Cro-Magnon Man
Joined
Sep 1, 2019
Messages
312
Life is weird. Last week I sat down and tried to evaluate my life in which direction my life should go. But a feeling of meaninglessness hit me. In sports, I became a world champion 4 years ago. I liked the sport, but it didn't make me happy. 1 week and I was over that sensation - dropped the sport. I'm studying for my bachelor and probably in the top 10% with my grades. It doesn't make me happy. I had a girlfriend for around 5 months but I ended up breaking up because it didn't make me happy. I went from a virgin to fucking shit tons of girls, but I quickly figured out that it's the same thing. I have a huge social circle and great contact - VIP access on most clubs. I can't remember when I lastly paid for a drink, but that doesn't make me that happy either. After going into pickup, I have started to question our reality a lot more. Everything we do as humans is about reproduction and survival. Learning that career path, your salary etc. doesn't really matter that much makes me question If I shoud finish my bachelor for a Msc(Econ). Don't get me wrong I value the time I use with my friends but it's a temperorary boost, and the effect declines after a short period of time. I'm at a point right now where the social pressure doesn't affect me anymore. I don't fucking care about people's opinions. I couldn't care less what people think about me, and I will do whatever I want to do.
My whole life I feel I have been guided by social conditioning. I have good succes in most areas of my life. Work hard, get results, and be happy. But fuck no, that's not how it is.

It seem like this forum consists of people from whole different social classes, and with completely different backgrounds, which is awesome. But what do you value in life, what is your goals, and what REALLY makes you happy?
 

Pitcher

Tool-Bearing Hominid
Tool-Bearing Hominid
Joined
Aug 25, 2019
Messages
123
Location
North Carolina, USA
Hey dude, I can relate a bit to where you’re at. When I was 20 I was halfway through my university studies at a good liberal arts school (Econ major too). I was heading down a track to work on Wall Street. I was not happy. Then, in the months before I turned 21, I studied abroad for a semester and had some epiphanies about my life and what direction I was meant to go. A big part of feeling like I gained greater self-awareness/knowing myself was due to beginning a daily meditation practice. In the ~6 years since I have faced lots of challenges, but I am happy.

Sounds to me that you’re at a point where you’re ready to receive a new purpose/hero‘s journey.

Don’t know if you enjoy reading, but here are some books that have made a huge difference in my life that I would recommend: The Power of Now, The Alchemist, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Atlas Shrugged, Man‘s Search for Meaning, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Mastery by Robert Greene, and Silence: In the age of noise by Erling Kagge.

This last piece of potential advice completely depends on your beliefs. I believe that if we create space in our lives, create silence, begin to listen, and open ourselves up to receiving, then the universe (God, whatever, etc.) will show us the right path to go down. If you’re an atheist/non-spiritual, you could think of it as when you give yourself that space a part of you speaks that you previously couldn‘t hear and that part of you will know what is best for your happiness/finding meaning.

It’s particularly hard in this day and age with all the technology/stimulation surrounding us: social media, notifications, music, TV, news, processed food, porn, etc. It can be quite challenging to find extended periods of silence (or peaceful noise like in nature).
 

Lover

Cro-Magnon Man
Cro-Magnon Man
Joined
Jan 7, 2015
Messages
750
I find happiness in

1) helping others. Doesn't matter if it is work related, sport related, girls, friends, family etc. I prefer helping in ways the average person doesn't - like adding unique value to people's lives.

2) living life on my terms. I realized from a young age that I was different and had a hard time fitting in. I embraced being different and learnt to think for myself being relatively young

3) developing myself when something is contributing to bad mood overall or making me have a tough time.

Emotionally speaking, it's not like I'm happy all the time. I'm not sad/angry/[other negative emotion] all the time either. I'm neutral most of the time, and lately I'm slightly towards the happier end. Doing the aforementioned things is my fuel to live the kind of life I want

I don't know the reason you feel meaningless. Maybe it really is because you were guided by your surroundings and never "lived" for yourself. But I have felt the meaninglessness before. And not to change the mood of this topic, but it happened at a time when I was trying to comprehend death. My conclusion from that time was that, in a sense nothing really matters because you will be gone eventually and never to be seen again. If you're average and haven't left behind a legacy of some sort, you will be forgotten rather quickly (we all will). Your story dies with you. But in a sense everything does matter because your story is unique to you, and you have this one life to make something of it. If you let that go to waste, that's when life has truly been meaningless..

Most mainstream advice is centered around making you feel good right here and now, but they never mention what it takes to feel good long term. These days, I believe that you must find out, through trial and error, what your core values are. When you know your core values, it's easier to set goals in life and also understand the meaning behind those goals
 

Colt Williams

Tribal Elder
Tribal Elder
Joined
Nov 11, 2019
Messages
33
Life is weird. Last week I sat down and tried to evaluate my life in which direction my life should go. But a feeling of meaninglessness hit me. In sports, I became a world champion 4 years ago. I liked the sport, but it didn't make me happy. 1 week and I was over that sensation - dropped the sport. I'm studying for my bachelor and probably in the top 10% with my grades. It doesn't make me happy.
My whole life I feel I have been guided by social conditioning. I have good succes in most areas of my life. Work hard, get results, and be happy. But fuck no, that's not how it is.

It seem like this forum consists of people from whole different social classes, and with completely different backgrounds, which is awesome. But what do you value in life, what is your goals, and what REALLY makes you happy?

DML, this may sound crazy (bear with me), but I wonder if you're in some kind of trauma loop (I'm about to write a longer post about this). I don't want to make assumptions about your life, nor am I suggesting that you were abused or other such things; what I am saying is that oftentimes when people say things like "I do x, or used to do x, but it never really made me happy" I wonder about their intrinsic motivations as it may be a clue about their past. When we're born we have a need to be loved, delighted in and accepted. But if our parents or guardians don't give us that (even if they care about us) that creates an unfulfilled need which creates deep pain that we don't even consciously recognize -- then our deep subconscious mind internalizes that "I am only valuable if I am doing x..." So people end up in careers/sports/activities that they don't actually care about but bring them a sense of love and fulfillment that they didn't get when they really needed it (and that sense may be fulfilled by strangers even).

And when ends up happening is that we experience a sense of disconnection from our deeper self to the point where we feel listless or a lack of meaning. It takes a lot of work to unearth all of this. But when people get down into their deepest selves, they can rediscover that sense of joy and fulfillment (which we learn comes from us and not from external sources). What they also often discover is that what brings them joy and fulfillment is often vastly different from what they've *conditioned* themselves to believe brings them joy and fulfillment. It comes from *authentic* expression. And getting there is hard. I'm going to write a longer post on this, but some food for thought.
 

Carousel

Tribal Elder
Tribal Elder
Joined
Nov 11, 2019
Messages
576
You seem to be of the mistaken belief that 1) working hard for 2) achieving goals should make you 3) permanently happy. This is a common, but totally misguided perception in Western society. It is totally autistic on closer inspection. Why should all goals be made equal? Does excelling in sports have much in common with becoming economically successful? Does buying a lot of stuff have much in common with having a good sexual life? Does having great relations to your friends and family have much in common with being respected by some abstract "society" of people you have no actual relation to? I could go on. And why should you even be permanently happy? Is all dissatisfaction bad?

I think 70-80% of the truth can be found in these two posts.


The rest you will have to calibrate yourself. I can relate to most of what Chase is saying here in qualitative sense, but my weighting of the factors are somewhat different and also I would likely elaborate a bit on WHO exactly the "emotional needs" relate to, if I were to write a similar post. Different people are simply wired differently and have different imprints. Spiritual organizations such as OTO talks about "Finding your true will". I don't think anybody else can teach you what it is. However the process is teachable. You have to be exposed to a lot of different mental perspectives and activities, and see what sticks. Also note that what makes you happy will change over time. Subscribing to some established major world view is fine for maybe 90% of people, but you sound a bit like an outlier in terms of achievement and you may simply be a bad fit for what makes Average Joe happy
 

Toby2030

Cro-Magnon Man
Cro-Magnon Man
Joined
Sep 1, 2019
Messages
312
It took me some time to answer this. I have thought about it for the last week and you might be onto something @Colt Williams. Can you PM me the article when you have finished it? I would love to read it when you are done.

@Carousel thanks for your answer as well. It gave me some good insight I will use in the future.
 

Carousel

Tribal Elder
Tribal Elder
Joined
Nov 11, 2019
Messages
576
It took me some time to answer this. I have thought about it for the last week and you might be onto something @Colt Williams. Can you PM me the article when you have finished it? I would love to read it when you are done.

@Carousel thanks for your answer as well. It gave me some good insight I will use in the future.

Have a look at this also
 
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