Ask HN: How do you overcome feeling completely lost in life?

They did say that.

No, the commenter said s/he was not too timid to try, it was the lack of desire to try new things that was the obstacle.

At the time I had mixed feelings about it, liked some of the other kids in the youth group, but I often just wanted to be lazy on Sundays instead. Now that I'm older, I kind of miss having a place you could just go to each week if you want to talk to the same groups of people and do activities that doesn't just involve drinking (I rarely drink now, and never drink more than two beers now).

I used to sign up for meetups a lot, and still do from time to time (signed up for a hike this weekend), but there's a lot of inconsistency there (no guarantee a group you're wanting to meet up with will be hosting anything that week, or even that month). I did meet some good friends though that originally, although most have kind of drifted apart after getting married and having children (did have a mini-reunion at one of their baby showers recently, though).

Seeing the same people consistently with a low stress activity you can focus on (board games, movies, scavenger hunt, escape room, karaoke, volunteer work, painting/writing/crafting, etc) to keep the pressure off having to be super 'on' and talkative with people who start as strangers, and you just get to know these people slowly over time, seems to work the best for me.

I have actually considered checking out the activities at a local church. I don't want to sit in a service or worship (sermons I don't mind anymore, there can be some interesting philosopy or life lessons in there, it's actually all the time spent singing or reciting things that I don't want to do), but I wouldn't mind a place I can stop by and say hi to people, maybe play some card games or help with some light volunteer work or something. Haven't pulled the trigger on it yet, though.

Also discovered recently that the local forest preserve district hosts a lot of activities, and a decent amount of adult only activities, so I might start doing that more. A lot of campfire activities, kayaking, hikes, cleaning up the forests, etc. Seems like some good people that attend those, too.

Long term is simply 'in this period when I'm alive". We don't know this duration. Ease up on yourself, breathe and enjoy what interests you.

Obviously 5hing changes when you/it you have children, but tia but another path to be pursued if it arises!

For me, accepting this reality has been therapeutic but it doesn't help you work out what to do with your time. The search for meaning seems to be baked in to human nature so my advice would be to just choose some projects and embrace those localised meaning structures. I use the term "project" here very loosely - it could be building a game, being a better partner, travelling, improving your health, raising a child, watching all the films of Agnes Varda. Whatever!

You might ask, well what criteria should I use to choose which projects to focus on? Unfortunately there is no good answer here. If there are things you like doing or feel you want to achieve, start there. Don't take it too seriously and avoid over-analysis because humans aren't actually very good at working out what they desire anyway.

Life really is just choosing projects that resonate and focusing on them for a while. That might not feel like enough but in my experience, anyone offering more than this is probably trying to sell you something. Freedom and emptiness are just two sides of the same coin unfortunately.