261–270 of 360 posts
I'd move. felt the same in my home country with 19 and left to Asia for 10 years then back to Europe, then moved around here "locally".
After reading this¹ I'd love to go back to Asia. I miss the food and vibrant tech community and regional short trips to local crazy/weird/exciting/fun places. The people I remember the most. If you can you should go! (anywhere, just go!)
You aren't wrong. Most of us are stuck in conformist, drab and conservative societies, where we're forced to participate in the market economy. This is soul-crushing, and bad for nearly everyone, but especially those in poor countries. I recommend: 1. Don't work hard. Try to reduce your productivity. 2. Don't work long hours. Reduce your working week to the minimum necessary. Most university graduates earn enough to…
Most of my life I felt like I was doing all the right things, but really I was following a script that society had laid out. Do well in school, get a good job, be successful, etc. Follow your dream! Achieve your goals! The problem was that these things I've achieved wouldn't have been my goals outside of societal influence. Rather, they're appealing because of the money, respect, and security that's afforded by my having achieved them. Left to my own devices, I'd probably be a surfing or snowboarding bum with an interest in math and music.
Now, society gives us a recipe for money, stability and respect. But that's not a recipe for happiness, nor was it ever intended to be. And that's not necessarily a bad thing...money, stability and respect are certainly not at odds with being happy. However, many of us spend much of our young lives trying to achieve financial and business goals without spending a minute of time thinking about achieving happiness. You're brand new to this!
I didn't abandon my existing career or anything like that, but I did start to question the societal script from square one; I accepted parts of it and abandoned others. And I got involved in some meetup groups and made more friends. Plenty of people feel exactly like you do. What if you all got together and talked about that, or did something about it? It works.
Last weekend I was in a short film made by a friend I met recently. Making a movie was never a goal of mine, but was my friend's dream. Helping make that happen was incredible and fun.
But don't go looking for movie-making friends, unless that really interests you. Look for friends. You'll probably get out as much or more than you put in.
What makes the pursuit worthwhile is in whether it can pull you into doing something more, externally speaking. You could aim for wisdom, leadership, sense of community, or any number of other things, and end up building up to something bigger than you imagined. But you have to make an active effort to get the ball rolling or the gears turning, to learn the technical details, to connect with others, to make commitments, arrangements, obligations happen even when you know they'll stress you out. That's the fundamental difference between "watching life slide by" (much of my teens and 20's) and feeling like you are living in the moment.
I find the best thing for me is to consume. Consume everything- books, movies, scientific articles, news articles, things you haven't heard of before, obscure channels. When I find myself lost it's really that I am searching, and I need something to stand on- an idea, a book, a character, or an individual that is truly invested in what they are doing. I fully subscribe to the idea that you have to consume things that…
decided to go to a code school.
It changed my life.
Would do again.
I've been feeling this way since middle school. I didn't really have any bad subjects in school, so I figured I could do whatever interested me professionally, but nothing really strongly appealed to me other than a paycheck large enough to eat out whenever I wanted. I discovered programming was pretty fun, now I'm a software engineer, and I'm just saving money for..... something . I don't know what. I've been trying…
That spoke to me directly, because it's exactly how I feel right now. Seems like my only option is to take control myself and make the necessary changes. Getting to that point is the hard part.
Get a girlfriend.