I'm confused in life

[Someone here]

I'm 25 .I study philosophy in uni. Many people told me that I can't make a good career with a philosophy degree .but I didn't listen to them. And decided to study the thing I wanted to study .

Now I have a lot of confusions about how should I live my life.  I have 60-80 years at my disposal..how am I going to spend them is the question that gives me insomnia. 

First of all I struggle with a bunch of addictions and bad habits like smoking cigarettes..masturbating. watching porn ..eating terrible food . Now I understand that I should stop these activities right away. But every now and then I find myself slipping back to my old habits. I need sense of direction in my life. I'm lost .I don't know where I'm heading towards. I I don't know where will I be in 5 years from now .probably a dark place if didn't get my shit together and did the right thing.

But the main problem is how do I know what is the right thing to do? There is too much confusion and too much conflicting information out there about what's healthy and good for you and what's not .

How do I know which religion should I follow?  How do I know which diet should I eat ? How do I figure out the perfect sexual lifestyle for me ? How do I find a good career that pays me enough money and that I enjoy at the same time? 

So many confusions .I don't even know where should I start. 

Any tips or advice appreciated. 

 

[gettoefl]

to be honest i make no life decisions or future plans or very few

i live day to day

my only concern is how can i have a good day today

mostly it is dead simple since i do what i did yesterday or that day last week

key is that discretionary time is almost zero since i have engineered a pretty decent lifestyle that balances work and play

closest i get to a decision is am i going to walk north or walk south for my daily walk and i even let god choose this when i get out the door

i am happy ... have a bunch of people who try to rain on my parade and bring me down but dealing with them is part of the day's spiritual labor

i do indulge myself tons in whatever i want, reason is because i am a good boy and i never tire of doing all the stuff i need to be doing

[Someone here]

@gettoefl but I can't live day to day .I tried it before a it didn't work .

If I live in the moment then I'm sure I'm going to indulge in bad habits.  Habits that give you instant gratification and quick hit of dopamine but fuck you up in the long term. 

I sense that I need a well-thought plan for my life . Otherwise I will just make stupid decisions everyday and it's not gonna lead to good place in the far future.  I need a sense of plan and direction in my life .

My goals is to finish my philosophy degree and get a decent job and find a girl to marry.  But i don't find within myself the enough discipline and foreseeing to do that. I'm stuck. 

[Reciprocality]

From what I can gather, you are very curious about many things, and a skeptic.

I have no doubt about you succeeding in academia, you should likely take it very seriously and think, given your skepticism, a lot on your own.

Nothing makes philosophy easier to consume than to ask the questions yourself, not doing so would be the equivalent of drawing shapes after you made the shadings, or learning calculus without actually considering its universal implications.

To take university seriously can and should have after affects upon the other domains you question about.

[Ulax]

I'd search around for a mentor/ set of mentors, be that in person or the internet.

You can get multiple for different parts of your life. I.e. for personal psychology mine qre Richard Schwartz, Leo Gura, and newly Jay Earley, plus my psychotherapists

I'm quite heaving on doing internal work, as I think once you work on your psyche enough the barriers to living in alignment kinda tumble down and the road ahead becomes much more clear. You naturally resonate in a creator territory more than a reactor one. But, that's more just something I have faith in, than something I've directly experienced.

Edited May 14, 2022 by Ulax

[ndm678]

50 minutes ago, Someone here said:

First of all I struggle with a bunch of addictions and bad habits like smoking cigarettes..masturbating. watching porn ..eating terrible food .

Start here. Journal, contemplate, dig just below the surface. It could take years to intimately know these.

 

9 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@gettoefl 

I sense that I need a well-thought plan for my life . Otherwise I will just make stupid decisions everyday and it's not gonna lead to good place in the far future.  I need a sense of plan and direction in my life .

Do you though? It feels secure to 'have' that.

Life will clean out your clock. "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." 

But its okay, it's not all that heavy.

1 minute ago, Ulax said:

I'm quite heaving on doing internal work, as I think once you work on your psyche enough the barriers to living in alignment kinda tumble down and the road ahead becomes much more clear. You naturally resonate in a creator territory more than a reactor one. But, that's more just something I have faith in, than something I've directly experienced.

This is gold. Allow this to flow.

[r0ckyreed]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

I have 60-80 years at my disposal..how am I going to spend them is the question that gives me insomnia. 

 

You don’t. You only have today that is guaranteed. What do you want to do today? Focus your heart fully on what you can do today.

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

how should I live my life.

You are living it. You gotta be clear about what you want. Be a leader of yourself and be a disciple to your heart’s desires. Act on your highest inspiration. Only you can know what that is.

 

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Now I understand that I should stop these activities right away. But every now and then I find myself slipping back to my old habits. I need sense of direction in my life. I'm lost .I don't know where I'm heading towards. I I don't know where will I be in 5 years from now

Explore why you backslide. You seem to have the answer in that you need a sense of direction. Get out a journal and write down your goals and dreams. If you don’t know them the write down your past dreams or read biographies of others can help.

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

But the main problem is how do I know what is the right thing to do? There is too much confusion and too much conflicting information out there about what's healthy and good for you and what's not .

That’s the challenge in life. Ambiguity is part of this journey. You gotta be clear about what is right for you. Life is meaningless, which means that the only right path is the path you wish to lead. 

It takes time to sort out confusion. Take it baby step at a time. It sounds like you are focusing on the marathon instead of on the step before you.

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

which religion should I follow? 

None. You want to be a leader and not a follower. Deconstruct religion. 

Live by your own principles or you will never be able to follow your own dreams. Live by your own philosophy and not someone else’s.

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

How do I know which diet should I eat ? How do I figure out the perfect sexual lifestyle for me ? How do I find a good career that pays me enough money and that I enjoy at the same time? 

So many confusions .I don't even know where should I start. 

Any tips or advice appreciated. 

Sounds like myself. It seems like you have fallen into the same trap I did, which is you have “put the cart before the horse.” You have focused on answering existential questions so much that you probably haven’t given your personal survival the same focus. Go on a vision quest and search for these answers. Nobody can tell you want your personal/career holy grail is. Treat your personal life with the same attitude you treat philosophical questions.

Edit: I know your future may be filled with a lot of insecurities, but you are not alone. You can be secure in knowing that everyone is insecure.
 

That’s my thoughts on all this. You can take it or leave it. Best wishes.

Edited May 14, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[Someone here]

@Ulax @Reciprocality should I take enough time alone to contemplate what I'm doing with my life before I actually do it ?

The feeling i call confusion is a big to-do that’s created in my mind when I have all kinds of conflicting thoughts (for example, do it, don’t do it, take a chance, why fix what’s not broken?) and I'm seriously entertaining each of those as if they are helpful or important.

I innocently treat those thoughts as if they are each deserving of consideration just because they happen to be there, forgetting that thoughts are just blips of energ,t hey don’t possess qualities like “deserving.”

 I nearly always know what i want to do but i have too much thinking about it all to just go with what you deep-down know.

For example, I have a ton of thinking about leaving my parents house a few days. I mean a ton.  My separation anxiety is unenlighted to epic proportions.

I can very easily rattle off a dozen or more reasons to not travel without them, even for very short trips. If I were to make a decision based on my emotions or on the availability of solid “reasons,” I would surely never leave .

I was right. As soon as I told them, They told me to stop being ridiculous .Even though it means I'd be alone .

I can’t. I can. I can? Can I really? I couldn’t. I went on and on like that for the better part of an hour.

 

[Ulax]

@Someone here I'd take a mixed approach. Do both, even if your journaling isn't v much at first.

And, I'd say look for a career/ job that is good enough, atm. Take the pressure off yourself. Baby step this part of your life if you want. And if you make mistakes its cool. And you've already been courageous in following your own path into philosophy.

I.e. go and spend a night in a hotel and see how that is. Then maybe work a part time job you are somewhat interested in once per week.

But, I'm in early 20s, so haven't got that much direct experience out in the proverbial real world yet myself.

[Ulax]

Just now, Knowledge Hoarder said:

You will not find any mainstream job for which you need philosophy skill.

There are quite a few jobs that would be suitable for this tbf, i.e. being a lawyer.

[Someone here]

 Should I start thinking about the positive side of confusion?  Like it's potential benefits?

We all get confused at times, but prolonged periods of confusion can cause us to feel that we are stuck in a never-ending, foggy web of uncertainty. 

Yes, while confusion can stir up a seamlessly never-ending cloud of fog that envelops everything around me , it is also a sign of great and powerful change. 

If i were always 100 percent certain about every decision i made or every fork in the road, how would i ever shift or grow ?

When you are confused it can be easy to get stuck in a web of consistent, repetitive thoughts that appear to have no end and no beginning.

Maybe To clear this,I need to  start focusing on what I  don’t feel confused about. Start focusing on what i know and what i feel sure about. When i do this, it will automatically help to weaken the cloud of confusion over my life 

What do you guys think ?

@r0ckyreed @Knowledge Hoarder @Ulax @ndm678 

[r0ckyreed]

3 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Should I start thinking about the positive side of confusion?  Like it's potential benefits?

Yes. You got it.

3 minutes ago, Someone here said:

If i were always 100 percent certain about every decision i made or every fork in the road, how would i ever shift or grow ?

Yes. You got it.

3 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Maybe To clear this,I need to  start focusing on what I  don’t feel confused about. Start focusing on what i know and what i feel sure about. When i do this, it will automatically help to weaken the cloud of confusion over my life 

Yes! Way to go. 

Get out of your head for a little bit and into your heart. Go out and have a little bit of fun by yourself. Go to a zoo. Go to a national park. Go to a nearby nature trail or lake or whatever. Feel what it is like to be a kid and have sex with life itself and see what you reproduce.

Following your passion for career takes time. In the meantime, give yourself some self-care and feel alive. If you can let yourself go towards your highest excitement, you will have the energy, inspiration, and insights to do what you need to do.

[Someone here]

20 minutes ago, Knowledge Hoarder said:

You will not find any mainstream job for which you need philosophy skill and degree,

I can work as a philosophy professor in university. 

[Someone here]

44 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

None. You want to be a leader and not a follower. Deconstruct religion. 

Live by your own principles or you will never be able to follow your own dreams. Live by your own philosophy and not someone else’s

Not necessarily religion. But what philosophy of life should  I live by? (hedonism, stoicism,nihilism etc)

[Rishabh R]

@Someone hereYou are facing a problem but the answers to the above posted questions by you can help you to navigate through life as you can contemplate them.

[Someone here]

49 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

Yes. You got it.

Yes. You got it.

Yes! Way to go. 

Get out of your head for a little bit and into your heart. Go out and have a little bit of fun by yourself. Go to a zoo. Go to a national park. Go to a nearby nature trail or lake or whatever. Feel what it is like to be a kid and have sex with life itself and see what you reproduce.

Following your passion for career takes time. In the meantime, give yourself some self-care and feel alive. If you can let yourself go towards your highest excitement, you will have the energy, inspiration, and insights to do what you need to do.

Yeag I gues that Being confused is a sign of change and i may need to let the journey unfold a little bit more before you make a decision. And Be at peace with that, and be at peace with the fact that i don’t have all the answers. Just accept the way things are and trust that inspiration will reach me when the time comes to make a decision.

[Salvijus]

I can relate to this.

My logic would be to rely on some higher power like grace or god or smth. I wouldn't be able to see an altervative solution even. 

"Mind is eternally confused" i think sadhguru made this quote some day. It's like a hopeless instrument for navigating and making descisions in life. Because it has no clue about anything whatsoever... and it never will...

Edited May 14, 2022 by Salvijus

[Ulax]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

 Should I start thinking about the positive side of confusion?  Like it's potential benefits?

We all get confused at times, but prolonged periods of confusion can cause us to feel that we are stuck in a never-ending, foggy web of uncertainty. 

Yes, while confusion can stir up a seamlessly never-ending cloud of fog that envelops everything around me , it is also a sign of great and powerful change. 

If i were always 100 percent certain about every decision i made or every fork in the road, how would i ever shift or grow ?

When you are confused it can be easy to get stuck in a web of consistent, repetitive thoughts that appear to have no end and no beginning.

Maybe To clear this,I need to  start focusing on what I  don’t feel confused about. Start focusing on what i know and what i feel sure about. When i do this, it will automatically help to weaken the cloud of confusion over my life 

What do you guys think ?

@r0ckyreed @Knowledge Hoarder @Ulax @ndm678 

Sounds good dude.

[r0ckyreed]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Not necessarily religion. But what philosophy of life should  I live by? (hedonism, stoicism,nihilism etc)

Your own philosophy. Don’t limit yourself to one school of thought. Study all the schools of thought that you can and pick the gems you find resonate with you. Don’t be strictly Buddhist or strictly stoic or hedonist or nihilist or skeptic or solipsist or whatever. Study everything and just be you. 

Watch Cobra Kai on Netflix. Mr. Miyagi, a karate master, ultimately tells his student, Daniel to live by his own philosophy and make it his own. You have to see the creativity and ingenuity in just being yourself. It is so amazing that we would want to be somebody else other than ourself. Wonder about that.

It boils down to finding out what you love most about life and doing that as much as you can. 

[Someone here]

I want to take this conversation to a whole new level .

I have a question..why is it Easy to be lazy and settle for mediocrity and indulging in bad habits than it is to build an awesome life for oneself ?

Fundamentally, why is living an amazing life hard and living a lame life easy ?

Have you guys noticed this yet ?