No Stupid Questions

If i am making stuff and it effects the tiny bit of the community i felt fulfilled.

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

• William Faulkner

The race is long, and in the end its only with yourself

Don’t overthink it. If you have a good place to sleep and are happy, healthy, and not hungry then you are good to go! Success is almost always felt in the moment and doesn’t last. Sure there are some great discoveries that change the course of modern civilization but the rest were just a moment in time. Also some people are just full of themselves and not telling the truth.

They likely have their own insecurities and demons as well. Likely have the same feeling as you about others with a different context. Be a hobbyist. Experiment and find your "calling" or passion. I've never personally really tried to pace with people as they are on their own journey as well. Friendly competition has always helped but it was agreed upon items (running X amount of miles a week, getting A,B,C, qualifications together).

I used to feel the same way sometimes, but then I thought about it for a while, and reflected on my own life as well. I see all these people around me that are busy pursuing fancy degrees and high-paying jobs. But at what coast? I thought to myself that following societal norms/expectations does not seem fulfilling or interesting to me at all. Why would I want to do things I don't enjoy, just because it's what everybody else is doing? No. I decided not to worry about it, and just do whatever I feel like doing, regardless of what other people think about it. If you enjoy laying in bed all day, reading Lemmy content, and nothing else, then fine. Do it. You are not wasting your life because you don't do what everybody else is doing. You are wasting your life if you don't do what you want to do, that's it.

People always flaunt and embellish their accomplishments, especially online. You're comparing yourself to liars and attention-seekers. You gotta find the path that brings you satisfaction, not material reward or approval from your peers.

From what I’m getting, you see the end point of major goals other people had, and you wonder how you could ever do anything like that.

What you need to do is turn that into a main quest line. In a video game (most of the time) you don’t start with “kill the big boss and save the realm” but every little thing progresses you to that point. The first thing you get as a goal is something stupid simple and abstract like Equip your sword and block some arrows. Eventually all the little side tangents culminate in “Kill the Boss, Save the realm”.

So try to use that principle in your life. Ask yourself a question, what do I need to do right now to do “XYZ”, come up with two things that would help you accomplish it. Now ask yourself, of those two things, is there anything I can do within the next 5 minutes to make that happen. If your answer is no (let’s be honest it most likely is), split each of those tasks into two things that will help you accomplish that minigoal.

Eventually you will have broken the tasks in two enough times you can find your “Equip your sword, Dodge some arrows” and start crawling your way up that quest tree.

Well... no and yes.

No - I don't feel like I've wasted my life. I feel like I'm supposed to feel that way, and I know that many (most?) people looking from the outside in would believe that I have, but I just don't feel that way. I'm content, and as far as i can tell, that's the only thing that matters.

Ah, but there's the rub - I'm content. It sounds as if you're not.

Unfortunately, the only thing I can definitely recommend is to try to assess your own feelings and figure out if you really are discontented or if you're just going along with the idea that you should be.

But if you really are discontented... I guess I could say to try to look at what it is that you really value (which is likely not coincidentally what you've mostly done with your time) and try to actually feel the value in it.

But I have no idea how that's done, since its apparently just something that I do naturally.

Sorry if that doesn't heip...

The important thing is that you feel satisfied with what you do or achieve. In my family there is a lot of pressure to be “successful” but after a while I decided that I have to be happy with whatever things I can achieve, and believe me, after that change in my mindset, good things began to happen with apparently no efforts. So as other ones are saying, believe en yourself, don’t be so harsh on your past or decisions, and remember that there is no race or goals you need to get, you create your own life.

What's the point of people inventing all this cool stuff if nobody else sits down to enjoy the improvements though? Think of all the people who are actively RUINING the world right now. As long as you're not one of them, its all good.

My one friend, Rob Antecki, was a scientist and musician on the verge of working towards a treatment to prolong the human life-span, maybe even eventually ending the aging process. He worked his life whole towards that goal! Then one day in his late 40's, he was coming home from the fundraiser for his new biotech startup and whammo, hit another car, died on the spot. He never achieved his goal of ending aging or got his music app company going. His business partners will be lucky if they can even salvage his work because its so high level few people on the planet can understand it.

There's like 10 billion people in the world. If you try to measure yourself against everyone else, well, that's your choice, but there's always a bigger fish. There's also some people who begin the race farther ahead with more money, more connections, family of legacy, etc. Success is not the measure of a soul's worth or a life's pursuit. To better oneself though, it is a noble goal. That is not connected to changing the world, only changing yourself.

I feel you.

I'm in my forties. Lost my job a few months back and it's been a harsh realization that I'm a failure at everything I've ever done.

I don't have any real advice, hell I can't figure my own shit out either. I just want you to know if you need to vent you've got people who understand.

I feel the same way a lot, but I realize that the negative feelings are what I associate with my life, not a true reflection of how my life has been.

Maybe I haven't done all the things I've dreamed or used my days effectively; why does that matter in the end? I've been lucky enough to afford a home, food, a loving pet, create friendships, experience love.

Also I tend to underestimate the accomplishments I have done. Having your eyes set on the horizon can cause you to miss the shells in the sand.

Funny...as I age I tend to have a similar view. But we're told hindsight is 20/20. The one motivating factor for me is the fact that a lot of what I have accomplished has made a difference to those who have shared in it. Which, to me, means we're doing incredible things people envy just at a different scale. Besides..there may not be a tomorrow, but there is always a today to do something better.

Nah. I look back at Tesla. One of the greatest people to have blessed our planet. Certainly among the top if not the top inventor to have existed. But I don't envy any part of his life.

How about Turing? Another great example. The father of computer science and AI. A great person too. One of the most accomplished human beings, even back when he was alive. I don't envy any part of his life.

I sure have picked unfortunate examples. But these should highlight how success alone isn't enough. I don't think life satisfaction lies in obtaining more, but rather wanting less. If you observe well, you'll notice people living very simple lives and being very happy while at it. How about the wealthiest person, Musk. Does he look satisfied with life and happy? I don't think a happy person would behave that way.

If you have so little, then perhaps you can afford greater risks. If you can't afford greater risks, then perhaps you don't have so little.

Being a kind, generous person, being a good, supportive friend, such things matter so much more than having a startup or some patent. There are plenty of people who have "success" in the latter sense (often because they are good at bullshitting, boasting, marketing) but are - overall - a drain on society and their surroundings in terms of the first.

I spend a lot of time searching for evidence that the true percentage isn't actually 100%.

Starting my life from scratch in late twenties again. Learned 99% about life in the past couple of solitary nothing-to-do years, or I'll just say, my thinking/ doing has changed completely. Now, I'm having a hard time relating to things other people relate to. Spending a lot of time alone surely is life changing. When you start to believe in nothing, you have a hard time dealing with people.

A carpenter and his apprentice were walking together through a large forest. And when they came across a tall, huge, gnarled, old, beautiful oak tree, the carpenter asked his apprentice: “Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so gnarled, so old and beautiful?” The apprentice looked at his master and said: “No…why?”

“Well,” the carpenter said, “because it is useless. If it had been useful it would have been cut long ago and made into tables and chairs, but because it is useless it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit in its shade and relax.”

Source: Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude (Ave Maria Press, 1974, 2004), pages 26-27

I was lucky in this regard, to have someone who has the drive to create and do things as my roommate. And also another roommate, who was the exact opposite - your standard "go to work, and then watch netflix all the time". First of all, seeing the contrast between those two was eye opening.

And second, the drive is infectious. I usually don't manage to find the motivation to do things on my own, and tend to procrastrinate. But having someone who has the drive, and just joining his projects, will get you the motivation. The best advice for life I can give to anyone is to surround themselves with people who have hobbies you want to have, to join communities and offer help as a volunteer with running it (this is important - don't just join as a lurker, but as a volunteer). Sure, you may not be good at it - but you're no longer doing it for yourself, which will usually end with me giving it up - but the community depends on you. And that's something that helped me tremendously with learning new things, or just getting out and doing something.

Thanks to that, we have a indie studio that is working on a game in our free time. I'm also helping with organizing and DJing at events for our smaller music subculture, because I just offered my help to volunteer and help with it, which has also prompted me to start learning how to do stage lighting, so I can make the parties better - which was a hobby I wanted to do, but never found the motivation. I was volunteering at gamedev conferences, where I've met amazing people that eventually landed me a job, while also not having to pay the ticket for the conference. I have joined a group that organizes LARPs, and even though I had basically nothing to offer aside from a pair of hands and my time, just being in the group chat was inspiring - and it's only a matter of time before someone asks "Hey, we need someone to do projection mapping, can anyone do that?", and you'll be like "Never done that, but I can try". And now you're not just doing it for yourself, so you will get better motivation to do that.

So, if you don't have the drive or motivation to do stuff on your own - find someone to do it with, who has the drive, and help him. It is infectious. Everything I now do in my free time, be it stage ligthning, DJing or projection, I had no experience with when I offered my help to the group of organizers that were doing it. Sure, at first the only thing I did was carry stuff from place A to place B, but just being around those people, in their groupchat and part of the planning they do for events, eventually led to the "I've never done that, but I can try learning it". And if it doesn't work? Well, in cases like that I was the only one willing to try, so the alternative would be to not have the thing in the first place, and if I said "Hey, I tried, it's not gonna work", then nothing was lost.

Also - watch this video. While it's not exactly about finding motivation, it shows that it's ok to not be the guy coming up with ideas, but the world needs more people who are willing to help the people with drive and motivation and embrace their thing.

100% of my life was wasted.

Between mental health, medical issues, abusive family, abusive girlfriends, etc.

My entire life is a festering black void of nothing.

I’ve felt that way a lot in my life. I dropped out of college and lived essentially in my parents basement until my mid 20s. Turns out I had a bad case of undiagnosed depression and ADHD. I kinda naturally worked my way out of the depression mostly. I’ve fallen back in a few times. And that entire time I could think about anything but how little I’ve done with my life. How boring I must sound talking to anyone because I have zero experiences. But about 8 years ago, I got diagnosed and medicated.

I’m just some average guy, now with 2 kids and a wife, and I work 55 hours a week. It took a lot of work and finding good medications for me, but I’m honestly the happiest I’ve ever been. And I recently noticed I don’t dwell on comparing myself to others anymore and it’s been freeing. I don’t need to be distinguished for anything more than being a good father, husband, and human. And that’s enough for me.

If your not enjoying your life, you're probably wasting it.

In the end everybody's life is wasted. Of 120 billion or so humans who have ever lived only a couple of hundred thousand even have more than the most basic details recorded about them. In 100 years you will be a distant name, in 1000 more no one will know you ever existed. Just live however you are comfortable with and quit worrying about wasting it.

There are an infinite number of things you can do with your finite amount of time on this earth, so keep in mind you can never do everything! Comparing to other people isn’t productive, but measuring your own satisfaction can be. I’d try making a plan for your leisure time to begin with, and get outside a lot more, nature is so satisfying and calming. Remember that it’s amazing to be here and alive at all, no matter what you’re doing, so try to enjoy every moment with that thought in mind.

Edit spelling.

“Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day.” ― Douglas Adams