I am not good enough for this world

[saffron]

I've been battling my depression for 5 years, with ups and downs.

To make the long story short:

In 2011, I had 2 amazing consecutive school years. I wondered what better things had to come. They didn't. 2012, my life seemed to go down hill. My high school got worse. My 10th grade year was full of drama, and I would stop having xbox live for good.  My 11th grade year I was duped into taking AP courses that bombarded me with work that would make me stay up until 3am. The next day, I would sleep in class, embarrassingly. Because I was duped into taking 3 AP classes, it destroyed my GPA. I barely made it from being held back. My beloved Crysis would release it's 3rd and final chapter, to be a colossal failure, and the xbox one would make an embarrassing debut. 12th grade year rolls around and I don't make it into any universities. I had to go to community college. Fall 2014 rolls around, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare rolls around and I couldn't get enough money to buy it. I really wanted it because it reminded me of Crysis. I start looking at my life and how I am not a chad, how I am not in Ivy league, and how I don't even have a measly fast food/retail job. I decided to kill my self December 2014, but at new years, I decided not to. Nothing really got better. At 22 did I finally get a part time job at amazon. I never got closure with a cherished childhood buddy of mine. I'm still stuck at community college.

My beloved Crysis and Metal Gear Rising are gone. The xbox only gets worse with a stupid business team. I let my self believe things could get better, but they don't. I look at my social media and all I see is the people I know with their BFs/GFs or going somewhere.

On top of all this, I have a crippling fear and trauma with women I am so ashamed and embarrassed about.

https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/28139-i-am-afraid-of-women/

There is no point to living if you can't be rich and attractive. 

I try to be good at things like singing and drawing but no matter how much I try I'm never good enough. I am not even good at the video games that used to bring me happiness anymore.

My parents never tell me they love me and tell me to go to hell and that I have the face of Satan.

There is nothing more I want than to disappear. 

Edited August 26, 2019 by saffron

[Raptorsin7]

@saffron Hey man I've felt a lot of the anxieties and dread that you are feeling right now and I know what it's like to look around and be envious of others while reflecting on how much your life sucks In comparison. I also understand a lot of advice people will give will sound stupid and not resonate with where you at in life. Keep trying to be better and don't get down too much I believe life will get better for you and I think you also believe eventually life will get better. I think you need to understand that even the rich and beautiful people you idolize aren't as happy as you think they are, everyone has problems and those characteristics you value aren't actually that important in determining the quality of one's life. It will take time for you to realize the current version of yourself is only a blip in your overall journey, but have faith you will eventually look back on your life and smile at the things you once thought were important. As for practical advice, I STRONGLY recommend developing a meditation practice and find a way to stick with it no matter what. You don't have to do it EVERY day, so don't beat yourself if you a miss day or a few weeks etc, but long term this habit will be invaluable to improving the quality of your life. Your end game hopefully will be enlightenment work and meditation is a necessary step in that direction. Good luck man, you are on the path whether you realize it right now or not.

 

[tsuki]

[ Hey @saffron .
I wrote the following post and realized that it may come off as insensitive, but believe me that I feel for you and wish you many blessings. I know that you've been struggling with your problems for a very long time and these words may even seem insulting because of how basic they are. I've been into personal development for many years and from my experience, it is always about the basics, so here it goes: ]

I feel like your expectations about life are set way too high.
You don't have to be a chad superstar, bang girls left and right, and be obnoxiously rich in order to be happy.
What is of immediate relevance to you is to simply be happier than yesterday, or happier than hour ago.

I suspect that it is related to how you engage with mass culture (videogames, internet, etc). You know way too much about what is possible, compared to how you live your everyday life and your mind is giving you a lot of shit because of that. I would suggest media blackout for at least few months and going back to absolute basics such as:

• Regular sleep schedule
• Eating good quality food in regular intervals
• Exercising and taking good care of your hygiene
• Providing your mind with quality food. Since you're on media blackout - that would be physical books, preferably on emotional mastery.
• Developing your skills regarding your mind through meditation and concentration practices.
• Socializing. If you can't meet with friends in person, start with social media.
  Reach out to compassionate people, they will help you if you ask.

And most importantly: never compare your situation against an image that assumes that all people are equal.
Some people are born rich and good looking and some don't. Don't try to compete with people that are light years away from you - that will only break your spirit. Start at your own pace, even if it is snail's pace, and start walking. Who knows, maybe an FTL rocket is parked next to your house? You will never know unless you start moving.

And for the love of god, never, ever, hang around 4chan and redpill/incel forums.

Edited August 27, 2019 by tsuki

[BjarkeT]

I have some tips related to getting good at something or getting better at learning in school if you are interested:

a good tip when learning something is to focus with high intensity concentration free of distractions this is how straight a students finish their school work without staying late at night. 

To really learn something try to teach it. To remember something you can use flash cards or practice it.

to get good at a skill a good way to learn it is to use very direct practice.

it’s also good to practice outside your comfort zone, get feedback from an expert, focus on weakness, do drills with a specific goal in mind. It’s also good to learn with constraints so you only focus on specific thing. 

A good thing to have is also a growth mind set vs fixed mindset. The fixed mindset believes that people are born with their talent growth mindset believes it is made through hard work.

Some books I recommend is.

How to become a straight a student, So good they can’t ignore you, and deep work by Cal Newport. Books on how to get good at school and get a good career.

 

Ultra learning by Scott H Young. Book on self directed learning.

Peak by Anderson Erickson. A book on how to get good at skills.

Feel the fear and do it anyway by Susan Jeffers. Book on how to face your fears.

The road less traveled Scott m Peck. Book on dealing with lifes problems.

Can’t hurt me by David Goggins. This give a good perspective on someone who have gone through a lot of hard things in life but was able to come out strong because of it

Check out tripp advice youtube channel for dating advice.

Hope you can use it.

[ajasatya]

@saffron Are your standards of "good enough for this world" fundamentally TRUE or are you just repeating what miserable people think about what a happy life would be?

Is this guy good enough for this world? Does he rely on what his parents tell him? Watch carefully:

 

[Fishy]

4 hours ago, ajasatya said:

@saffron Are your standards of "good enough for this world" fundamentally TRUE or are you just repeating what miserable people think about what a happy life would be?

Is this guy good enough for this world? Does he rely on what his parents tell him? Watch carefully:

 

That's wonderful. Moved me. 

[saffron]

@Raptorsin7 I already meditate for 1 hour straight a day, and still bumping it up. The effects are barely taking place.

@tsuki expectations are too high? The world we live in is survival of the fittest. If you're not good enough you are deemed unwanted and pretty much left to die. I don't want to be a playboy, and chad isn't necessarily interchangeable with a playboy who bangs left and right. It could mean someone like (I know he is a fiction) like Bruce Wayne, peak personal development. If one is not rich, then what? All the best things this world has to offer need towers high worth of money. What about the alternative? Living in a boring house/apartment with little to no views, eating bland food etc?

@BjarkeT I hope so to

@ajasatya  Is it really a parenting thing to do to tell your kid that he's a worthless piece of shit, hellbound and hideous like the devil? Idk about that guy, if that's what he envisions for himself I guess. It's a survival of the fittest world. If you're not "good enough" you're left to die.

 

[Nahm]

@saffron Been there. Manic depression, call of duty (my drug of choice was der reise), eating stuff I thought was food, battling the parental, etc. Really wished I had someone to talk to, who made it out. If you wanna just talk man, let me know. It can all get better. 

@ajasatya ok, officially developing a crush on you. ?? ?

[tsuki]

1 hour ago, saffron said:

 expectations are too high? The world we live in is survival of the fittest. If you're not good enough you are deemed unwanted and pretty much left to die.

This is a delusion, please stop thinking that.
Survival of the fittest does not imply that only the ones at the top of the food chain are having a life that is not considered 'merely survival'. It means that if you're not dead, then you are fit to live. You are living, which means that you are good enough. That is self-evident.

1 hour ago, saffron said:

If one is not rich, then what? All the best things this world has to offer need towers high worth of money.

That is a very deep delusion and you are hurting yourself by repeating that thought.
Happiness is relative to the suffering you are experiencing. Remove the suffering and you will not have to 'reward' yourself with luxuries. Heal your psyche, take good care of your body, secure your basic needs for wealth and meaningful relationships and you will be happy I promise.

1 hour ago, saffron said:

What about the alternative? Living in a boring house/apartment with little to no views, eating bland food etc?

First get to the point where this 'boring life' is your actuality and then you will see if you really, absolutely have to chase the money.
Excess of money does not bring happiness. It gives power that can bring benefit or destruction depending on the person's wisdom.
Cases where poor lottery winners ruin themselves are very numerous.

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by tsuki

[Raptorsin7]

@saffron  How long have you been meditating? It takes time to realize the effects meditation will have on your life. If you can meditate comfortably for an hour while recognizing when you are lost in thought then I would recommend starting self inquiry work on top of your meditation. The problems you have are coming from YOU and self inquiry will help you wake up to who you really are not what you think you are.

[saffron]

@tsuki

Then why do humans constantly put each other down and always want to feel like they are on top? "Natural Selection?"

What about all the other writers, inventors, artists etc. through out history that have been forgotten throughout history because they weren't like Shakespeare and Da Vinci? 

I'm not trying to argue with you. I am genuinely convinced this is how existence works. Survival is a zero sum game

How would could you know you were any "good" if you never compared yourself to anyone? We know what good is because we make a distinction of bad. How are winners determined then? What makes comparing people any different? 

@Raptorsin7 6 months. I still don't see how I would know I would be "good enough" if I dont compare my self to others

Edited August 27, 2019 by saffron

[Fishy]

Seems to me you are very attached to this idea of success equalise happiness. And as you say yourselves you are convinced that this is the way. Well it's not really true, if you only chase success and believe that once you gained enough you will be happy, you will never be happy. You will always need something more to chase. Contentment in just being itself needs to be there as a baseline.  By all means get some money and live a decent life, but it won't be enough if you are not content with being. You being here at all is an amazing miracle. You seem to hate yourself, try to give yourself some love. ? Try to be nice to yourself and tell yourself you love yourself. Do some loving kindness meditation. Seems your parents have given you a hard time and probably lots of your beliefs come from there. I would suggest reading "the tao of fully feeling" by Pete Walker. It deals with healing from parental stuff. Also read "Letting go" by Richard Dawkins. It's just a great book for everything. Also, what kind of meditation are you practicing?

Edited August 28, 2019 by Fishy

[tsuki]

10 hours ago, saffron said:

Then why do humans constantly put each other down and always want to feel like they are on top? "Natural Selection?"

That is a very nuanced question, and the simplest answer is this:

Because they are not in control of their own faculties and are unskillfully trying to cope with their own suffering.
We were all born with no instruction manual in our hands and rely on our parents' wisdom to become happy human beings.
If your parents are not skilled enough to be happy, and teach you that understanding of the world, you will not be happy as well.
In that case, you have to make effort to find a good instruction manual, or research and write one.
That is not something most people are interested in, but philosophy, psychology, science and religion are.

10 hours ago, saffron said:

What about all the other writers, inventors, artists etc. through out history that have been forgotten throughout history because they weren't like Shakespeare and Da Vinci? 

Consider the fact that no matter who you are, and what accomplishments you have, there will be a point in history of the universe that no human will remember you. The best you can do is to survive in the collective memory until we go extinct as a species or evolve into something beyond recognition.

The point of life is not to build a nice shiny tombstone, because all tombstones turn to ash eventually.
The point of life is to exercise your care about the world and live sincerely.
The fact that you suffer tells you that you do, in fact, care.

10 hours ago, saffron said:

I'm not trying to argue with you. I am genuinely convinced this is how existence works. Survival is a zero sum game

Consider the possibility that everyone else is genuinely convinced that the world works in a certain way and act on it.
How many people you know deeply enough to understand the paradigm they operate from? How do you know that survival is the paradigm that people believe in? Do you perhaps use this paradigm to feel superior by possessing greater understanding of the world?

You are using the term 'zero sum game', but I'm willing to bet you have not read a single book on game theory.
It would be pretty embarrassing if you have not even looked that term up on wikipedia, now would it?
I just looked that term up and stumbled across zero-sum thinking. Please study it. The world is not a zero-sum game.

10 hours ago, saffron said:

How would could you know you were any "good" if you never compared yourself to anyone? We know what good is because we make a distinction of bad. How are winners determined then? What makes comparing people any different? 

Notice that both 'good' and 'bad' are relative to the choice of scale that you made.
A person may be good at scoring with women because he ignores their emotional well-being.
He is, at the same time good at scoring and bad at empathy. You are the one that chooses the scale in which you grade him, and if you reduce that person to a single 'good' or 'bad', then you are culpable of ignorance. You are ignoring what you are doing and confusing intrinsic moral value of existence with the capability (power) of a person. Have you watched the video on meritocracy that I linked? If you want to know more about your dillema you should read existential philosophy and novels (Camus, Sartre, Heidegger, mentioned in order of difficulty, but Heidegger is most essential).

It is certainly true that people are better at something, at making money, scoring with women, etc. but that does not project back on their value as human beings. Humans are intrinsically in-valuable, impossible to value. Even if you spread misery and wreck havoc, you are not a bad person. You are simply unskilled with coping with your own suffering and are trying to deal with it by spreading it. Spreading suffering extinguishes it only momentarily and is a bad strategy in the long run, especially if you have power to leverage. 

Edited August 28, 2019 by tsuki

[Odysseus]

Great comments here!

I just want to tell you that with 22 I was without orientation too, I was desperate. I was nihilistic and I just did what society told me, or what I perceived as what everybody expected from me. 

But after times things changed, old ideas became meaningless and new ideas meaningful. Every second has the potential to heal. Your worthy and you'll find something meaningful inside you that was always there. 

I'll include you into my prayer habit. Much love.

[saffron]

@Fishy Just normal meditation, clearing out thoughts. And a little bit of focusing on chakras.

 

@tsuki but isn't survival a zero sum game? What's good for you isn't good for another? Even if we will disappear even in memory, it still doesn't stop people from discriminating against those they deem "not good enough." I mean, who wants to be with someone who has money problems, looks "ugly" and can't feel safe with? 

13 hours ago, tsuki said:

How do you know that survival is the paradigm that people believe in? Do you perhaps use this paradigm to feel superior by possessing greater understanding of the world?

Isn't that what we're all doing each day? maximizing our survival? Something Leo said it the fiber of our being? 

 

14 hours ago, tsuki said:

It is certainly true that people are better at something, at making money, scoring with women, etc. but that does not project back on their value as human beings. Humans are intrinsically in-valuable, impossible to value

Okay, I kinda got what you were saying there... But who is really willing to be with a person that is skinny, weak, money problems, doesn't seem to have any unique talents, all the things that would make a person undesirable?

[Nahm]

@tsuki Really nice dude. 

[ajasatya]

4 hours ago, saffron said:

But who is really willing to be with a person that is skinny, weak, money problems, doesn't seem to have any unique talents, all the things that would make a person undesirable?

That was me 4 years ago when I decided to become a monk. And to be honest, I was deeply happy.

Then I met the woman who'd become my current wife and then I got even happier. And Life doesn't stop unfolding.

But my solid ground is still being content with very little. Everything I've achieved is just extra to spice things up.

And by the way, you're completely deluded with this survival belief of yours. Humans are not that simple. Maybe it works with some other animals but you can't extend this reasoning to human beings. We don't have tough skins, we're not poisonous, we don't have sharp teeth or nails, we don't have spiky skins, we're quite slow runners, we're awful swimmers, we can't fly, we can't see on darkness etc etc. MY survival increases YOUR chances of survival. The human species is extremely dependent on the organization in societies. Our strength is about learning to cooperate to achieve amazing goals.

There is a famous African saying that goes like this:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

[tsuki]

13 hours ago, saffron said:

but isn't survival a zero sum game? What's good for you isn't good for another?

My fucking god you are a one stubborn miserable man. I love you .

Survival as an individual human being is not just predicated on your ability to gather food.
We do not form groups just because it's easier to hunt, but because we're miserable if we don't.
Some of our needs create loopholes that can be exploited to break out of this zero-sum game.
For example, you actually have a need to feel that you are needed by other people.

Take me for example. I have all of my basic needs met.
I have steady job, a roof over my head, food on my plate and a loving relationship with my wife.
I'm safe. I could go on like this until I die of old age, but I know for a fact that without fulfilling the need to feel needed I will get depressed. So, I come here and genuinely try to help people so that I can feel good.
You get that? Genuinely helping others can make you feel good and help others. 
That is only a zero-sum game if you assume that emotional well-being does not contribute to your happiness.
It is exactly the opposite - you feel miserable because you are hungry. Hunger in itself does not make you suffer - your emotions do. These emotions are connected to paradigms such as 'survival of the fittest', or 'I'm gonna go to hell if I'm not a good person'. You can master your emotions to such an extent that you will starve to death with a genuine smile on your face. Really fucking happy. Just imagine that.

13 hours ago, saffron said:

Even if we will disappear even in memory, it still doesn't stop people from discriminating against those they deem "not good enough."

Like I said - people do not know their own needs and how to fulfill them.
They deal with their suffering by 'giving it away', trying to push it unto others.
That does not work, it sours your emotional environment and is a bad strategy in the long run because it creates resonances. 

It is certainly feasible to use violence (physical, emotional) to change people's behavior if this behavior is too destructive, but that takes uncommon amounts of wisdom to pull off. Most people lack even basic self-awareness and that probably includes your parents, coworkers, teachers, bosses and so forth. If they really discriminate against you, then know that you are not the one that suffers the most - they do - and they are doing it to themselves out of ignorance. The problem is that your paradigms may very well delude you into believing that they discriminate against you and you can't be sure that this is really the case.

It may be the case that you are actually unskilled at some things and people are trying to tell you that. They may sincerely care for you and try to get you to act, but you can't recognize that care because your baseline experience is too miserable. You may push them away by getting stuck in your head and not feeling the emotions "they" create in you.

13 hours ago, saffron said:

Okay, I kinda got what you were saying there... But who is really willing to be with a person that is skinny, weak, money problems, doesn't seem to have any unique talents, all the things that would make a person undesirable?

You haven't yet got to the point where you can take care of your own basic needs.
Get there and you will feel much better and less in need of another person's company.
That is the place from which you may find someone to have a relationship with.

I know it's a lot to take in, but know that we're here for you and we will talk with you.
I highly suggest starting a journal in the journal section and asking someone to be your accountability partner. I can do that if you want. Document each day of your life and the exact measures that you took to make the next one a tiny bit better. Baby steps and you will get out.

Edited August 29, 2019 by tsuki

[tsuki]

6 hours ago, Nahm said:

@tsuki Really nice dude. 

Thank you @Nahm, I really appreciate hearing that from you.

[saffron]

14 hours ago, ajasatya said:

MY survival increases YOUR chances of survival. The human species is extremely dependent on the organization in societies. Our strength is about learning to cooperate to achieve amazing goals.

 

@ajasatya  Didn't Leo say in his videos that survival is a zero sum game, what is good for you isn't good for someone else :-/ ?

 

7 hours ago, tsuki said:

My fucking god you are a one stubborn miserable man. I love you .

sorry

 

@tsuki That is a lot to comprehend.  I will have to get back to you on it. I do journal in a way, I text a trusted friend about my insights.