Why does life purpose cause me so much anxiety?

[trenton]

I have been talking with my coworkers at the grocery store. I have been asking them "what are you most passionate about in life?" I have some interesting findings including the fact that life purpose causes me much more anxiety than the average person.

I found a couple of people who value family very deeply. I found a woman who was once a nurse but was injured and lost both her legs. I found a woman who was the victim of predatory loaning. I found a woman who never had a passion for anything even as a child when asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" Even the managers don't know what they want to do with their lives.

I noticed that like myself, some of my co-workers feel like failures for not accomplishing anything with their lives. I'm not alone in that regard. Some people are afraid to think about or discuss this topic at all because it is depressing. I refuse to wallpaper over this issue. This is how I approach all of my problems believing this to be the key to solving them. It leads to rumination and anxiety. It makes me feel like screaming sometimes.

I have talked with two career coaches, both of which pointed out that I have a lot of anxiety around this issue. I don't know why I have so much anxiety around this issue. I have been striving to live my life by a higher purpose or calling since I was in elementary school. I viewed the other kids as idiots for not taking school seriously and misbehaving. I was isolated and didn't talk much to others. I was afraid of pissing my life away by not taking it seriously enough and I feel stuck and trapped anyway.

I can't seriously engage in the pleasures of life without having this issue handled. I don't enjoy chess as much nor do I enjoy videogames. Any guesses as to why life purpose bothers me more than most people? What could cause this? I fear that I will never be happy in life.

[Thought Art]

@trenton Because it’s important to you and you realize how badly you want it. Perhaps it’s something to refine into doing the work everyday to make It meaningful.

[Thought Art]

 

[Schizophonia]

Doesn't matter, you'll die a lot quicker than you think. It's just a random way to avoid the existential void while waiting for the end. 👍

Edited January 10 by Schizophonia

[dudts]

@trenton Personally I am also aware that life has no meaning. Like Leo says, it's up to us individually to construct the meaning in our lives.

I was able to decide on my life purpose only at a point where as I was detached from my life, unafraid of dying, or rather welcoming of death.

That's what helped me let go of anxiety: being ready to let go of everything, of myself, of life itself.

From that place I felt absolutely free, to live or die, and to fail as hard as one could fail: At worse, I would die and that in itself is not so bad for me.

So until then(death), why not have fun with this life, which is no more than a game to me now.

A game that would be more fun when there's something to strive for.

I chose something that makes my heart beat, art. Made my life purpose revolve around it ... and let the game begin  

[trenton]

10 hours ago, Thought Art said:

 

If somebody held a gun to my head and asked me what I wanted to be my answer is as follows. He would probably stop me after professional chess player.

I wanted to be a professional chess player. The problem was that there was no college major for it and it is hard to make enough money as a chess player unless you are world class which I wanted to be. I would study everything intensely, but the need to build another line of work takes the fun out of it. I Wasn't raised to be a champion like most child prodigies.

I felt lost in life because it looked like following my passion wasn't an option. I needed to develop some other line of work. my second choice was to change the school curriculum to reach emotional mastery in schools to prevent suicide. This is also very hard to do. I don't know how I should go about pursuing this project. The best I know is to write a book on the subject. I'm on chapter 3 so far.

I am very interested in psychology, but I see myself more as an advocate rather than as a therapist. Psychology was my initial major but I didn't like the career paths. Sociology is also interesting, but I'm not sure about the career paths.

My next choice would be philosophy and politics. I don't like it, but it has a lot of noble goals to strive for. If the impact on humanity is important enough then I would push through the difficult parts. I see beauty in having well thought out positions and using them to improve people's lives. It requires selflessness and objectivity which Most people lack, hence the polarization of America.

The common problem is that I am not confident about the career paths. It leads to frustration as I feel lost in life.

[trenton]

 

[Thought Art]

@trenton Well, you love chess. Why not build some kind of career around it regardless? Are you competing in tournaments regularly? Are you hanging out with other chess players?

[BlessedLion]

13 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

Doesn't matter, you'll die a lot quicker than you think. It's just a random way to avoid the existential void while waiting for the end. 👍

What a shitty response 

[Thought Art]

@Schizophonia If someone is developing and working on a meaningful life we can act in a way to nourish them, and nourish the community.

 

Edited January 10 by Thought Art

[trenton]

@Thought Art it is not easy to build a career out of chess. I managed to get a position as a chess instructor, but it doesn't make enough money to replace my job at Kroger which requires me to work weekends which is when most tournaments are. I can try to request off two or three days in a row but it is not guaranteed.

Chess is good as a side hustle but it is extremely difficult to turn it into a viable career on its own. It makes me worry that dedicating my focus to learning chess will not pay off in the end.

I don't know how I will make enough money to move out. If I could just focus on chess, then I know I wouldn't need personal development. My focus on learning personal development from Leo's book list is part of my hope that I will find success somewhere outside of chess. I'm not happy with the process, but I force myself through it. I am much more efficient at studying chess.

Not being able to do chess is the entire reason I care about personal development, life purpose, spirituality, and career building. I don't know how I will find something that makes me as happy as playing high quality games against strong opponents. I also like video games, but I don't play them because they don't provide tangible results and value to my life.

I wish life were as simple as following my passion. This all makes me feel depressed, anxious, and hopeless. Maybe I'm struggling because of autism and narrow interests of creates.

[Schizophonia]

 

14 hours ago, Thought Art said:

@Schizophonia If someone is developing and working on a meaningful life we can act in a way to nourish them, and nourish the community.

 

I just wanted to say that there is no need to be anxious, because fundamentally it is, I think, basically just a question of well-being.

He says he's afraid of being a "failure" compared to what? It doesn't make sense, compared to what?
What's behind these feelings is that he's trying to project a certain image of himself for whatever reason, that's all.

 

Edited January 11 by Schizophonia

[Basman]

You are anxious about your life purpose because you are overthinking the "how" question.

Acting your vision is much more important than trying to plan it. If you want to play chess. Just play more chess. It doesn't have to be life changing chess. If your lucky, it might come but that isn't as important as just playing chess, no? You can't perfectly predict how things unfold. Therefor just focus on the act of your purpose and see how things go.

You don't have to be rich and famous for it to be worth it to pursue your passion.

Edited January 11 by Basman

[Danioover9000]

@trenton

On 2024-01-10 at 3:00 AM, trenton said:

I have been talking with my coworkers at the grocery store. I have been asking them "what are you most passionate about in life?" I have some interesting findings including the fact that life purpose causes me much more anxiety than the average person.

I found a couple of people who value family very deeply. I found a woman who was once a nurse but was injured and lost both her legs. I found a woman who was the victim of predatory loaning. I found a woman who never had a passion for anything even as a child when asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" Even the managers don't know what they want to do with their lives.

I noticed that like myself, some of my co-workers feel like failures for not accomplishing anything with their lives. I'm not alone in that regard. Some people are afraid to think about or discuss this topic at all because it is depressing. I refuse to wallpaper over this issue. This is how I approach all of my problems believing this to be the key to solving them. It leads to rumination and anxiety. It makes me feel like screaming sometimes.

I have talked with two career coaches, both of which pointed out that I have a lot of anxiety around this issue. I don't know why I have so much anxiety around this issue. I have been striving to live my life by a higher purpose or calling since I was in elementary school. I viewed the other kids as idiots for not taking school seriously and misbehaving. I was isolated and didn't talk much to others. I was afraid of pissing my life away by not taking it seriously enough and I feel stuck and trapped anyway.

I can't seriously engage in the pleasures of life without having this issue handled. I don't enjoy chess as much nor do I enjoy videogames. Any guesses as to why life purpose bothers me more than most people? What could cause this? I fear that I will never be happy in life.

   Just based off of what you said in this post, seems like a lot of anxiety has to do with first lack of recognition of talents and achievements from family first, and from peers growing up. That anxiety is like another fear based feeling, a fear of being too average or mediocre or irrelevant. Don't fret too much, it's another common limiting belief most people have, among other hundreds of limiting beliefs. Slow and steady self help and personal development, and some NLP, wins the race.

   

   SPOILER ALERT, a much deeper, existential, spiritual and metaphysical answer to this is in the below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   The reason why most people, and some feel more anxiety or depression for their life purpose, or what they want from life, or are clueless to their purpose, or are this depressed, is because they deeply miss their powers as gods or goddesses prior to incarnation into finite human beings. They just miss the huge amounts of knowledge, powers, and other aspects of being deities in the past, that they sacrificed to become human beings or some type of hominid or some other finite creatures like animals or aliens. They deeply miss that, so the root of their anxiety and depression, really, is to cope with this deep spiritual and metaphysical lose of who they were before becoming and being finite beings in planet earth working mediocre jobs and just living as humans with very limited knowledge and power in stark contrast to who they were before finitude.

Edited January 11 by Danioover9000

[trenton]

6 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

He says he's afraid of being a "failure" compared to what? It doesn't make sense, compared to what?

What's behind these feelings is that he's trying to project a certain image of himself for whatever reason, that's all.

@Schizophonia I see myself as a failure compared to everything I believe I should be in life. This is part of the 'failing to live up to my potential" which I mentioned on this forum before. I sometimes lose sleep because of this and not recognizing that I literally am potential rather than that which owns it.

The image I wish I could project is one where I am proud of myself for the life I lived. I feel like I'm wasting my life and getting nowhere. I'm often disgusted with myself.

This is one of those problems that seem unsolvable leaving me frustrated every day.

[trenton]

@Danioover9000 interesting theory.

I would say I got some recognition from my family. I was recognized as a chess champion for being the first in my schools history for winning the scholastic series.

My father saw me as brave for risking everything to evict my mother's abusive boyfriend.

My father and grandfather saw me as the key to changing the fate of the family which had a long history of criminal activity. They wanted me to change my last name to Hamann, but the name is meaningless to me.

My sisters argue that my father and grandfather put too much on me with unrealistically high expectations for who I would become in life. They wanted me to accomplish something major for the world but they never specified what. That seems to be left to me to figure out.

[Schizophonia]

1 minute ago, trenton said:

@Schizophonia I see myself as a failure compared to everything I believe I should be in life.

It's arbitrary

1 minute ago, trenton said:

This is part of the 'failing to live up to my potential" which I mentioned on this forum before. I sometimes lose sleep because of this and not recognizing that I literally am potential rather than that which owns it.

There's nothing to accomplish, you're stressing over duties that don't exist.
You must take care of your survival and make your schedule based on what makes you happy.
There are those who want to become billionaires, there are those who want to live relatively volatile like hippies, there are those who want a girlfriend, others are gay, others are aromantic/asexual, there are those who like to cook, there are some who like to walk etcetcetcetc.
You are free.

If for any reason you are motivated by a biased self-image you will pay for it energetically.

1 minute ago, trenton said:

The image I wish I could project is one where I am proud of myself for the life I lived. I feel like I'm wasting my life and getting nowhere. I'm often disgusted with myself.

This is one of those problems that seem unsolvable leaving me frustrated every day.

It's a story that was forced on you and you feel guilty about being a bad actor.
Choose another story, and if you're stuck go see a psychiatrist or try psychedelics to break the default mode. 👍

[Yimpa]

On 1/9/2024 at 9:00 PM, trenton said:

I have been talking with my coworkers at the grocery store. I have been asking them "what are you most passionate about in life?"

On 1/9/2024 at 9:00 PM, trenton said:

I can't seriously engage in the pleasures of life without having this issue handled. I don't enjoy chess as much nor do I enjoy videogames. Any guesses as to why life purpose bothers me more than most people? What could cause this? I fear that I will never be happy in life.

One time while at the grocery store checkout, the lady scanning my stuff held up a rectangular bag and asked me, “Oh, you like edamame?” We proceeded to have a chill 2 minute conversation about our love for soy and seafood.

It’s the small, genuine interactions that make all the difference and open up a brand new world of possibilities 

Oh, I also happen to be allergic to seafood, but that didn’t matter

Edited January 11 by Yimpa

[Salvijus]

To be of service is to follow your heart. And once you live in surrender to the heart, life will bring you many opportunities to be of service. That's the only purpose you're given. And it's the only true way to live life. To allow love to be expressed, to allow love to create through you. And the more you allow, the greater the wings of joy become. 

A great deal can be learnt from this lady 👇on how to follow your heart and act from the source instead of ego

 

Edited January 11 by Salvijus

[Danioover9000]

@Yimpa

4 hours ago, Yimpa said:

One time while at the grocery store checkout, the lady scanning my stuff held up a rectangular bag and asked me, “Oh, you like edamame?” We proceeded to have a chill 2 minute conversation about our love for soy and seafood.

It’s the small, genuine interactions that make all the difference and open up a brand new world of possibilities 

Oh, I also happen to be allergic to seafood, but that didn’t matter

   Your allergic to seafood? All seafood? That sucks, and I understand. My parent don't like seafood, specifically shrimps but I don't know if it's allergy or just strong dislike, but I do like lots of different seafood varieties, from fish to shrimps to calamari one point, and small squids. Only Mollusks or those seashell types not to agreeable as the texture too chewy to me, but I don't mind calamari despite it being chewy cuz of the flavor! Also, fish and chips!