A “normal” life. It seems to be a fantasy.

[Av2521]

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

hello from Germany.

So right now, Im 28, working my first ever job after college (graduated in late 2023) and still live at home with mom and sister.

Ive come across Actualized and Leo in 2016, so Im many years in. It first started with basic self help stuff like boosting creativity or videos about female and male psychology and lead to topics like God-Realization and Absolute Solipsism. Leo greatly benefited me in my journey so far. He changed my ways of thinking and my perspective on many different topics. He introduced me to so many fascinating topics and models no other teacher showed me. I’ve learnt so much about myself through his videos and through this Online-Forum.

And lately Im asking myself the question again and again: Where is this all leading to? Is this what I truly want? Will this lead to my personal happiness? And especially what kind of life am I wishing to live?

And slowly Im coming to the conclusion that I don’t want that much out of life. My ambitions aren’t that high, more the opposite is the case. I want a “normal” life. Having a religion, marrying a woman, having children, working a stable enjoyable job, enjoying entertainment, meeting with friends, travelling, buying a house. I especially realized that I want that in summer 2023, when we went to Canada to visit my relatives. They are basically living this kind of life. Deep down I know that I also want that.

But: The more I try to aim for that life, the more I realize that it is just a fantasy, maybe not for other people, I don’t know that for sure.

Life seems to be really chaotic and order and structures will fall apart sooner or later: Jobs aren’t that stable as they seem, you can get fired out of the blue. Passions and interests for all sorts of things come and then they also go. Friends you had for years disappear in a second. Religion has so many interpretations as there are number of people on this earth. Getting laid is an almost impossible challenge. Getting in shape (I mean building muscles here) is really limited by genetics. Family comes and go. Mental disorders will come and they sometimes won’t disappear, same for physical illnesses. Interests for topics are there and will turn to disinterest next month. And Im pretty sure that this feelings of chaos and dis-order led me to Actualized (also feelings of depression).

There are so many things you cant control and this leads to chaos and dis-order in ones personal life and also all around the world. That’s my personal experience.

I feel like this kind of life that I wish for is not possible for me. For most people however it is. They seem happy and they have order and structure in their life, which cant be shaken. They can let themselves fall back and enjoy life.

What are your takes on this issue and on my experience?

I really appreciate your comments and Im happy for the possible advice that you can give me. Thank you.

 

[Sugarcoat]

A life without challenges is the fantasy and is impossible, everyone has them but what you’re aiming for in general is not unrealistic that’s a limiting belief you have. The best you can do is to try. We could break it down bit by bit.

You can keep a job by being good at it. And you could always get a new job

Passion and interests change but one could always switch up hobbies 

One can put in work to maintain friendships but otherwise one can get new friends.

You can be open to several religions and interpretations of them at once, nothing forces you to stick to one.

Getting laid is far from impossible. You don’t have to be a perfectly actualized human for that. 

Anyone can build muscle and get in shape.

Family comes and goes you must accept they will eventually die.

Mental illness and physical illness can be partly prevented through a good lifestyle. You’re underestimating your own role in it. It’s like learned helplessness

You can only control yourself and to a certain extent some external circumstances but the rest you need to accept you can’t control for your inner peace’s sake. 

[Michael569]

Hi, welcome to the forum! ( if that's , hopefully, your first account :)) 

1 hour ago, Av2521 said:

: Where is this all leading to?

I don't think there is a right answer to this question. It leads to whatever you want it to. There isn't A destination.

There is a journey and your job as the protagonist of your own story is to make that journey ...(fill in the blanks) ..nice? suffering free? enjoyable? purposeful? it can be any of those things or none of them. 

Nobody has a manual for happy life although there are socially acceptable ways to life life and socially less acceptable ways. And we know (statistically) that fulfilling certain major steps is less likely to lead to mental disorders. Mostly what you wrote below. 

1 hour ago, Av2521 said:

My ambitions aren’t that high, more the opposite is the case. I want a “normal” life. Having a religion, marrying a woman, having children, working a stable enjoyable job, enjoying entertainment, meeting with friends, travelling, buying a house.

Those are things that usually constitute a "happy" life in the sort of traditional perspective and I'd agree with you that having all these things will make you feel more fulfilled, grounded and less likely to engage in antisocial behaviour. I'm somewhere halfway through that, having married recently and looking to purchase my first home and it gives me incredible amount of personal fulfillment to be able to do those things. If I am one day blessed with a child to come into the mix, I don't think there is anything else I'll want from that traditional model anymore. 

But you could say it goes beyond that.

Once you fulfill all those things above, your soul will crave more. You need something to create a sense of passion and purpose. I really do believe that not having that severely weakens your core, especially if you are a man. And this one, I find, is much harder to achieve than finding a girl, buying a house and getting married. And the less of your soul you are willing to sacrifice in some sort of pursuit of shady quick scheme but you stick to something of high integrity, the greater the struggle will be. The more you stand your ground and follow what you are truly passionate about, the fewer people will understand you, fewer will be able to help you and fewer will be there to celebrate success. They'll tell you how to do it quicker, better and how to make more money off it but you'll reject all that because deep down you knows its not your way. Its their way and when you look at their life, you see that their way never worked. 

And you could say "wow but that sounds like so much suffering". But then imaging somebody came to you and said, "Dude, I heard you want to be a wildlife photographer since you were little? Sounds like you're really passionate about it. Well, here is a business in a box. All you have to do is open the box and you'll have it all done for you. All accounting, marketing, research, taken care for you. All you have to do now is sit and enjoy the fruits" - do you think you'd say "hell yeah where do I sign up?" 

Having your passion taken away like that would be a hell, a dream taken away from you because you didn't walk the thorny road. You didn't experience the struggle of needing to figure out how it work, the failure over and over and over again. Generating loss year after year...until one day you didn't. You didn't spend all those nights sitting on the side of your bed thinking "am I insane for thinking this could ever work?" while looking at your wife there sleeping and around at the house you bought but which you are barely paying off each month. But deep down, in some masochistic way, you welcome the struggle and the hardship. You love having something to fight for. Each day you get a tiny bit better at whatever it is you are doing. It is what Jordan Peterson might call "wrestling with god". 

And then one day you'll achieve that success, whatever it means. Finally your business generates a solid revenue for 12 consecutive months. Or you sell or you write that book and publish it. 

And at some point you come to the end of that road again and realise there is still something missing and you're still feeling hollow. You'll look beyond the horizon and you may start seeing that the next step is actually that there is no next step. You have to transcend it all and realise none of it has meaning and that meaning is completely arbitrary and that there isn't any meaning to anything. But you couldn't have come to this place without first realizing the full path. You had to finish school, get married, raise kids, drive them to school, build the business that aligns with your deepest desire and then one day letting it all go. 

And all those things you described are the struggles and hardships of life that help you on the path. Each sickness teaches you a lesson. A death of a friend helps you appreciate the finite nature of life, the birth of a child (they say) strips away all the nonsense you were pursuing prior to that, finding the right girl and marrying her finally turns off that girl radar and helps you relax your mind and focusing on what's more important than chasing pussy. And following your passion through the never-ending series of failure and struggles protects you from depression and spiritual death. 

And at the end of your life when you look back to the faces of those few people who stood with you till the end you won't have a single regret, Because although your life was filled with struggle and hardship, you knew all those battles were what gave your life meaning. 

And you could say "I had a happy life". 

 

Edited January 28 by Michael569