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

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

#103
every word you typed sounds true to me, I'm also in same age group and job , social situation etc, i have not figured out everything, but on the social interaction part i can say something, that i observed and trying to do, in school and college i did this unconsciously, so when I was with my friends, i have not necessarily thought i have to engage in conversation or etc, but i would be with my friends silently and talk when some topic i like comes, but as i get older and got into job, i came to a mind set that i have to constantly engage with people verbally, which is the trap for avoiding social interaction and getting lonely, sometimes you don't have to talk when in group, you can just sit there and watch people talk or engage in some imagination , but the being physically present gives some kind of fulfillment, that i did my social interaction for the day,second thing not to do is trying to judge or correct all the time if someone is wrong about something, we can just cross over it and find something common to talk about

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

#104
What helps me is telling the truth about how I feel, to myself and to others.

It may seem too simple, yet it has helped me so much.

> Making friends/maintaining close relationships doesn't come naturally to me, and the more effort I put into it, the more detached and dishonest I feel.

For me, that detachment and dishonesty drives me deeper into meaninglessness.

I really try to just answer the questions "How do I feel right now" and maybe "How do I want to feel" or "What do I want to do". Very simple yet really really hard to answer sometimes.

You say you feel empty and when I've felt that way, it's often because my body is feeling something and I feel so disconnected from it. Maybe it's not the same for you.

Regardless, it has helped me so much. It's hard for me to answer "What do I want to do with my life" if I can't even answer "What do I want to eat for dinner" and I've found one of the easiest ways to answer that is "How do I feel when I think about eating pizza...how do I feel when I think about eating a salad...how do I feel when I think about eating dessert...etc." Connecting to the feeling, to the body, and putting it into words has really helped me a lot.

Anyways, I'd love to chat with you more about this if you find it helpful, I sure hope it helps a bit.

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

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I think this is bad advice. It sounds wise and clever on the Internet, but in reality it's just an extension of the "consumer experience" mentality that leads to the society-wide feeling of malaise OP is experiencing. Because the fact is, doing a bunch of random things doesn't lead to any real insight about the human experience or what one's place in it ought to be. Instead, I suggest that OP (and anyone e…

I disagree because it seems to me OP is to comfortable with his life. When you are to comfortable you can't appreciate life and the things you have. The reason some of you don't enjoy the things he listed or basically anything that puts your self out into the world is because you need to retrain your brain to enjoy things again. The hardest part is starting but once you get going it's easy. You need to create difficu…

You’re not wrong, but I don’t think “continually make yourself uncomfortable” is really a desirable or doable strategy for most people in the developed world. Especially if you have dependents that don’t want to be taken along for the ride.

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

#106
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great (sometimes) solution if you believe in Jesus, or whatever beliefs are tied to the religion you choose - but to many of us, whether happy or not with life, becoming religious just isn't a realistic option. And given how often we find out that even religious leaders such as priests, yet alone general believers, are terrible people - whether white nationalists or sex offenders or terrorists or... well, pretty mu…

> becoming religious just isn't a realistic option I was thinking exactly like that 10 years ago. Until I finally realized that 1) people, be it enlightened priests or corrupted believers, have nothing to do with god nor with faith 2) faith is the most basic and fundamental feature of our human mind and the idea pf god is an ultimate pinpoint of this feature. So being a reasonable man, i prefer to believe in somethin…

>other limited ideas invented by specific people (sometimes with bad intentions)

So, like, religion?

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

#110

My advice is this: Become a different person. Take your life and incinerate it. Not literally of course. I mean completely change what and who you are. You’re an accomplished software engineer at 30? Great. You’re done doing that. Go buy a $15k trailer, get a truck, and hit the road. Stop looking at screens, only read books. Stop working a job behind a desk, find something else, or if you can afford it don’t work at…

You cannot better yourself. You cannot alter yourself in any meaningful way.
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