Hi DH– Wow, can I relate. I think I feel exactly the same way you do. My girlfriend of 2.5 years broke up with me last fall, and I know it had a lot to do with my searching, dissatisfaction and restlessness from never seizing a true calling or life’s work. It made me selfish, irritable, and prone to addiction (mine was smoking too much pot to quell my anxiety).

Anyway I’m 36, so for my sake don’t feel “washed up” or whatnot. I do that a lot and it’s very, very selfish and unproductive. Let’s try to keep in mind all the wisdom that’s out there and what it tells us… start where you are. Remain in the present.

It sounds like you have a very interesting life, and you know that your sense of lack or dissatisfaction is entirely generated from within. It also doesn’t sound like you are purposeless– you are engaged in lots of things. But you still feel purposeless. You don’t see it as a process– you see it as something you are missing and forever fruitlessly searching for. From outside yourself.

So one big issue for me is that I feel like unless I am successful or fulfilling a higher purpose, people aren’t going to love me or find me loveable. Also hating yourself for not “doing the thing” makes you unlovable.

But, seems like the thing is, you have to work every day at loving yourself, or BEING LOVE, or finding that infinite well of love within. I personally struggle with this every day. I feel I’ve failed, that I’ve lost the best thing I could have had, that’s it’s over for me, that I’m a huge waste, and that I’m the worst person in the world. On a daily basis. But it’s not truth; it’s egotism run amuck, it’s narcissism, it’s small mind. It’s delusion, mara. Still, you feel it and the feeling guides you. The struggle is real.