Ask HN: why do you get up in the morning Mine was reason was to try to make the world a better place so that I could feel fulfilled when I died. Now I'm looking for better alternatives. |
Ask HN: why do you get up in the morning Mine was reason was to try to make the world a better place so that I could feel fulfilled when I died. Now I'm looking for better alternatives. |
Which obviously doesn't really feel good, and is cause for worry.
If a friend were to give me such an answer, I'd think he was depressed and suggest he see a psychologist. I will likely do just that sometime soon.
That said, the problem is that this feels different from what I know as 'depression'. I've had many periods of unhappiness ranging from general ennui, to multi-week depressions where I could barely do anything.
In all of those cases, there was some awareness that my depressed state of mind warped my view of the world. As I grew older, I learned to deal with that. Sometimes I'd just 'sweat it out' and basically get sick of being depressed. Sometimes I'd actively try to remove the source of unhappiness, or force myself to just keep moving. And once I regained a more 'healthy' perspective, I got better.
In this case, however, I feel that my perspective is not off, or at least not much, but rather that I truly have no legitimate reason, or at least not one that motivates me, to get up. Here's why:
I'm in my late twenties and many of the problems or challenges I faced in my teens or twenties have either been resolved, or have became unimportant.
On a personal level, I do not have any internal problems, anxieties, or conflicts going on that I feel need to be addressed (other than the getting up part!). In part, this has been the result of many years of diligent self-improvement and pushing myself out of my comfort zone, of which I'm proud. But I've also been lucky: I have wonderful parents and siblings, a decent social life, and an above-average amount of close friends. And perhaps because of my personality, I am very happy alone and rarely, if every, feel lonely. I wouldn't mind having a partner, but it is a 'light desire' more than a need.
Professionally, I no longer have acute deadlines to fulfil, a degree to aspire to, or a job to find. I make more money than most of my social circles as a web developer, and I actually like my job (much as it's not a passion necessarily). And I can probably just do this for at least five years, and probably longer.
And finally, as far as world view goes, there is no 'higher goal' that I aspire to, at least not as a conviction. I do not strongly believe that certain things are intrinsically better or worse, just that I'm inclined, either as a human or as a particular individual, to think certain things are, and that following those inclinations is likely to affect my happiness. But that is not enough of a motivator for me.
The result is that perhaps for the first time in my life, or at least since my teens, there is nothing that feels important enough to get out of bed for. And while I do actually feel sort of okay most of the time, because really, how awesome is it that I don't have many of the worries or problems that keep others up at night, I find it a horrible state of mind.
And the most likely way out of this state, perhaps with some help from a psychologist, would be to find something that gets me going. To fool myself into caring, day-to-day, for something, enough to want to get up (or, alternatively, to actually become a true believer in something, but I tried that already).
I don't like this solution.
I know it's likely to happen, I know it's quite possible I will meet the love of my life and live for my kids and stave off this 'existential depression', or have some humanitarian cause tickle my fancy, but it feels rather... brittle and unsatisfying.
Sorry for being a downer and giving such a long answer, but I guess I'm hoping some of you can help me to find a way out of this that is... satisfying.
(And yes, there is of course the option that all of this is a warped perspective that can be fixed with professional help. That would be ideal. I just don't think that's quite it, in this particular case)