Poll - Do you feel fulfilled where you live?

[oMarcos]

I've struggled a lot since my teens, to find a purpose and enjoy the place I currently live, it always seems that life is better and more fun in other places. I currently have no one to hang out with, I'm not working either (and that makes everything more difficult because I'm currently studying and taking an online course until late February, so I have a lot of free time to spend on my head).  I am 26yo and I did not collect many close friends, so I struggle with that. 

And even if I worked, I still wouldn't know how I could make valuable relationships, in my mind it seems so harsh to get people involved in my life. I confess that I am picky aswell, I need to feel connection, understood, similiar tastes and so on, and that might get me in trouble. I start feel uncomfortable close to people that have behaviours that reveal low consciousness like smoking, or even drinking alcohol for fun. My mind is so wired for higher purposes that the smallest bad behaviour someone can have seems to bother me and making me feeling desinterested. I have a huge self-bias against mainstream culture, but that's because it makes me feel protected and connected with myself, and that might be my shadow, Egotism.

Now the catch is, I'm always blaming the place, it never seems to be the right place. I am planning to move towards a more busy city (Lisbon), expensive rents, fast way of life, away from nature, just so I can have more action into my life, because nothing happens where I live, no events, no social meet ups, I wouldn't know where to go if I  wanted to engage with people (I exclude bars, clubs, discos etc. for that matter). But also, I have so many memories about where I live, that It feels extagnated and I just feel emotionally exhausted to even try, I have a tired perception about my hometown because it's highly co-related with my past experiences, and I don't know if I ever can change that. Perception is key, but hard to change, memories take advantage of it.

 

Meanwhile, everyone is trying to build connection through social media, because the streets are just for business, it seems.

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by oMarcos

[Skanzi]

I like where I live, and where I've lived all my life for almost 25 years. It doesn't mean I've always liked it. Often when I came home I had thoughts like: "Dammit not the same goddamn old shit again". There have been bouts where I traveled because I just couldn't stand being in or near the environment where I lived anymore, that I needed some adventure, to get away from my home.

But I think that even the most beautiful place in the entire world wouldn't have been able to satisfy me in those moments. I've come to a point in which my home environment doesn't start to bore or bother me anymore. This has much to do with me having evolved. This need to get away or to have adventure can often be caused by the fact that you crave stimulation, or that the mind needs an excuse to start and resist something, as the mind loved to resist stuff. When I felt agitated and restless in the past it often came with the thought: "Oh it must be because I'm home too much. I must go out!". But what would've been more accurate to reality would've been the fact that I just wasn't able to handle just being with myself for a long time without too much distractions or diversions.

But in reality, I do like where I live. It's in a city yet it's a bit on the outskirts so you can easily get to a forest and take a walk there. The city itself is also a nice one to live in. It's decently spacious and the municipality gives lots of emphasis on greenery and culture. In spiral dynamics, the city is pretty 'green'-oriented. The Netherlands in general tends to be pretty green. Again, green in the context of spiral dynamics. The Netherlands is however quite overcrowded, which I find one of the downsides of just living in the Netherlands in general. I would've rather lived in a somewhat more remote area in Germany, I suppose. But it's good.

I also like the fact that I still iive with my parents. I really don't feel very excited at all to move into a small apartment with only two rooms or anything like that. I get to alternate between two bedrooms because sometimes after having been in one bedroom for too long, the energy starts feeling a bit too heavy and I then like to switch. I also get to use the attic here to practice singing. It's very important to me that I have a good place to practice singing, as singing is a great passion of mine.

Yes, I want to move out eventually, but I don't want to move out for moving out's sake. I think moving out for the sake of it is just unnecessary effort and trouble, with very little to no payoff. I need to have a really good complementary reason to move out.

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Skanzi

[oMarcos]

@Skanzi interesting

[Raptorsin7]

@oMarcos It's not the place. It's you. You can move all around the world and live in the "best" places, and you can still be unhappy because happiness is internal not external. Find happiness first then make life decisions. Don't make major life decisions searching for happiness.

[oMarcos]

17 minutes ago, Raptorsin7 said:

@oMarcos It's not the place. It's you. You can move all around the world and live in the "best" places, and you can still be unhappy because happiness is internal not external. Find happiness first then make life decisions. Don't make major life decisions searching for happiness.

That could be true, but not always the case. Changing external factors are great contributors for the inside aswell, generally speaking.

[Preety_India]

No

 

 

[Nickyy]

6 minutes ago, oMarcos said:

That could be true, but not always the case. Changing external factors are great contributors for the inside aswell, generally speaking.

True, and this is also dependent on how much work one has done on themselves. Yeah, the problem with external factors is that they are always changing. That does not mean that you can't make life comfortable for yourself. I think having a roof over your head, the ability to pay the bills and even the ability to run a business in order to secure your well being for retirement are all crucial things to strive for. To have those things in place would mean you have the best possible chance at contentment. Those but those things in and of themselves don't make people happy. They only set the right conditions for happiness.

The real problem lies in some conventional attitudes (the spiritually immature) who think that external approval, social status, wealth hording are the keys to contentment. 

[mandyjw]

I live in a really isolated area, I never thought I would stay but circumstances have kept me here. I've frequently felt very stuck though. I ended up developing a strong spiritual connection to it, and started realizing how very little of it I explored or appreciated, just by exploring and appreciating it. I found some beautiful places I didn't know about and started waving to the guy who drives his lawn mower everywhere because he lost his license for too many DUIs. Noticed how much around the town is changing for the better and started meeting new interesting people.  I decided i wanted to leave about a year ago and couldn't make it happen, and then the connection I had ended up deepening even more, in really strange ways. 

I bought a house here that was in really bad condition and it took years to renovate. By the end of it I got really discouraged and thought it would never be a nice home. Eventually I gave up on being miserable about it and started appreciating my house anyway and shortly after that we found the right people to hire and it ended up being way better than I ever imagined possible. The house taught me an important lesson about appreciation and feeling stuck. 

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by mandyjw

[electroBeam]

No, I live on an Island full of lazy, stubborn, harsh atheists/christians who have outdated, highly conservative views and laws.

[Nak Khid]

22 minutes ago, Sombra said:

 Las Vegas or Tuscon since they are my favorite cities in the United States.

 

For what reasons?

[Nak Khid]

On 11/17/2019 at 8:51 PM, oMarcos said:

Now the catch is, I'm always blaming the place, it never seems to be the right place.

 

Oh many different towns or cities have you lived in?

[88888will88888]

America has many flaws, but it's a wonderful country in many ways too

[oMarcos]

16 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

Oh many different towns or cities have you lived in?

@Nak Khid vilnius, barcelona and porto, just to name a few places.   there is more depth to this situation than it seems at the surface level. what I'm really trying is to have a sense of purpose, to feel that I'm reaching somewhere and not suspended, to build relationships to get involved, not to live as a dry robotic manner. but I'm working on this already, but even that I know that I'm doing something about it, I keep having the fears of not actualizing to the real thing (mind stuff)

 

@Sombra when I was young I had an affair about living close to the desert of area 51, that's where I imagine leo gura lives

 

Edited November 19, 2019 by oMarcos