You are the purpose of life so wherever path you chose has purpose. Therefor the question of purpose is unskillful and will not help you decide what you ‘should’ do.

In life there is no should’s only what you do and do not do. Reading your post, you have already decided that you will regret not choosing the choice you don’t make. It is not you’re your choice that will lead to regret but your decision to experience regret in the imagined future. To make your choice based on a imagined future is unskillful.

The imagined future is keeping you from seeing the trees from the forest leaving you overwhelmed by fear. Fear is more often then not False Evidence Appearing Real. The task then is to identify the trees and focus on one issue at a time. You will find that you know what you need to do. Trust your intuition and don’t look or hold back. Your future cannot be controlled so to fear uncertainty and doubt is unskillful. Trust your deeper sense of self and doors will open… “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us… If you follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” ― Joseph Campbell

We must put our confidence in truth. But that doesn’t mean sitting back, and waiting for the truth to shine from above, as one might sit back and wait for the day to break. It means following with devoted obedience the truth we have seen as true, with an entire confidence in G_d, that it will correct, clear and redirect our vision, to the perception of a freer and deeper truth. Go with the truth you have, and let it carry you into collision with the hard rocks of fact, and then you’ll learn something. – Austin Farrer

This may sound strange to you however you are just where you need to be to get to where you want to go. Part of the difficulty in realizing this is the tendency to only see the forest. In your post you have identified all the area you want to work on but when looking at them all together its not wonder your overwhelmed.

The trick to moving forward from where you are (which is the only place you can move from and will move from regardless of the direction you go) is by taking one step and then the next. I don’t mean for that to sound trite but that is a truth most people overlook because we want to leap forward to some imagined future where all is as we desire. Yet even a leap requires taking a step.

A step you could take is taking your post and breaking it down into a list of things you would like to work on. Avoid labelling them with words like impossible, never, difficult. Avoid attaching past memories and stories to the list. You will know your doing that if you tart getting lost in ‘if only’s, or should’s or could of’s. This is only a list of areas in your life you would like to improve. The next step would be to select something simple on the list that you can start to improve on and then start. (don’t start with purpose – you are purpose) Stay focused on the one step and avoid getting paralyzed from looking at too much all at once. If you can a life coach could be a great help to keep you on track. Avoid beating yourself up when you falter, and you will, (if you didn’t you wouldn’t be learning) so insure to celebrate the victories as they will come.

Change happens slowly then all at once. Your post indicates you have it within you to achieve something that you have yet to imagine.

“Follow your bliss.
If you do follow your bliss,
you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.

When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they will open doors to you.

Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”― Joseph Campbell

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Peter.

Thanks for sharing more of the story and I apologize for being harsh – Sometimes when I go through the relationship posts I come away wondering why we make life so difficult for ourselves.

If I read your post correctly your trapped in a relationship that you are unable to get out of and are, in this moment of time anyway, accepting that that is how it must be?

However, its this acceptance that is behind the ‘loss of faith’ in…. yourself, relationship, love, universes ‘love’, others??? Which begs the question is this acceptance or reluctant giving up to the fate’s?

You’re in a difficult position stuck in the present imagining a future that cannot be… “the most painful state of being is remembering a future, particularly the one you’ll never have.” – Kierkegaard – The only way I know of to move forward from where you are is from where you are, dealing with the immediate issues of your current relationship where you are, one step at a time. It’s the projection into the imagined future and desiring everything change all at once, that is behind much of your distress and ‘loss of faith’.  (You haven’t lost your faith or your hope though. )

Change happens slowly then all at once.

but I have been at this point so many times before and everything I do will always lead me back to it sooner or later

I think the words we use matter as well as identifying and becoming conscious of the cognitive distortions laced through out the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. (Cognitive distortions such as all or nothing thinking and projecting into the future, like everything I do will always lead me back…. You don’t know that… but you can create that)

Your post indicates that you know what you want to do and the path you want to travel however become overwhelmed. Perhaps wanting to change everything all at once and having immediate results as well as the cognitive distortions are getting in the way and leaving you overwhelmed?

I believe we create what we fear so should be careful about the story we tell ourselves. I’m not saying just think positive, bla, bla, bla… not that that’s a wrong attitude but that It takes time to get to get there. A step to getting there is to catch yourself telling a story and stop telling it, breath and let them go. You will be tempted to “fill the vacuum” with more stories but with practice you will find you don’t have to.  Focus on changing one thing, one thought, one label, one fear… at a time. Be kind to yourself.

The good news about the reality that we create what we fear is that we can also create what we hope for.

“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer”. Albert Camus

Took a walk around the neighborhood last night. Many of the homes had lights and Christmas trees in the windows. I love the story a Christmas tree tells.

The Ever-green, the bitter sweet promise of the cycle of life… that it is in the depths of winter that new life is made possible, a promise of spring.  At the top of the tree a star or angel lights the way. The ornaments of the tree connected to memories of the past, hopes for the future, connection to others… all reflecting the light draped around the tree.  A reminder to reflect and perhaps notice, how even the slightest change in perspective changes what we see… experience allowed to flow, we let go.

Letting go we fall, genital as snowflakes, and find ourselves underneath the tree protected by the branches and promise of the ever-green… Their boxes wrapped with ribbon, gifts of unknown possibilities, stirrings of some newness we have only dimly dreamed of… and if nurtured given birth to in the spring.

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”  ― Lewis Carroll

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Peter.

Nihilism – nothing has intrinsic meaning or value… including this thing we call nihilism.

If you find yourself on path of nihilism, open the door and walk thorough, don’t fight it. On the other side of the door is Absurdism. Life in all its complex simplicities is absurd especially when we try to measure it (control it). Awakening to the absurd one might laugh or cry or both… and when the laughing and crying subsides, smile. The greatest absurdity is our measuring and labeling. The greatest absurdity is us. When we awaken to absurdity that is I we can choose to be happy.

Say Yes to life as it is and choose to be happy. Free. Happiness no longer linked to this or that desire, this or that understanding of meaning or purpose.  Just happy because you can.

You are in a time of transition and something many people experience in the early twenties

Having goals is great but having so many can be overwhelming especially if your attempting to get through them as an act of pure will. There is an art to goal setting and creating a practice to achieve them. When setting goals try breaking them down into doable steps and celebrate the small victories.

Like will attract like – so if you remain open, honest and supportive with yourself like friends will appear.

“It is when we are most lost that we sometimes find our truest friends.” ― Cynthia Rylant

“Not all those who wander are lost.”  ― J.R.R. Tolkien

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”  “If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” ― Joseph Campbell

“Is it too radical to ask if perhaps we should expect absolutely nothing and if, in doing so, we are inevitably not going to strive as hard, but perhaps that is taking it too far.”

Great question. I have always felt that a problem with Buddhism was that when you learn to accept life as it is, (accepting that nothing is either good or bad and that all labeling is unskillful…) that there was a loss of energy to work toward outer change.  That is of course not the intention but a trap many who practice fall into.

How do you say Yes to Life as it is, even Yes to what you may not like, and still continue to stand and act for what you feel/think is the good? Act out your truth

You continue to act with the expectation of nothing because how things turn out is not a concern for those that act on what they feel/think is the good, open to learning better to do better. It is enough being authentic to the Self without having to measure the outcome.  We do not create meaning, we become meaning.

There is a Hermetic Riddle As above so below as below so above. We are influenced and we influence. Though we may not be in control of change we are co-creators. Who we are does play a role in the world we experience and create, for ourselves and others, its just not in ways easily measurable. (Especially if we demand the outcome of change to be only that which we desire it to be. It is said that ‘Man is the measure of all things’. That may or may not be so however, what is true is that we really suck at measuring our experiences.)

“The Riddle” – Five For Fighting Lyrics
There was a man back in ’95
Whose heart ran out of summers
But before he died, I asked him
Wait, what’s the sense in life
Come over me, Come over me
He said,
Son why you got to sing that tune
Catch a Dylan song or some eclipse of the moon
Let an angel swing and make you swoon
Then you will see… You will see
Then he said,
Here’s a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There’s a reason for the world
You and I…
Picked up my kid from school today
Did you learn anything cause in the world today
You can’t live in a castle far away
Now talk to me, come talk to me
He said,
Dad I’m big but we’re smaller than small
In the scheme of things, well we’re nothing at all
Still every mother’s child sings a lonely song
So play with me, come play with me
And Hey Dad
Here’s a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There’s a reason for the world
You and I…
I said,
Son for all I’ve told you
When you get right down to the
Reason for the world…
Who am I?
There are secrets that we still have left to find
There have been mysteries from the beginning of time
There are answers we’re not wise enough to see
He said… You looking for a clue I Love You free…
The batter swings and the summer flies
As I look into my angel’s eyes
A song plays on while the moon is high over me
Something comes over me
I guess we’re big and I guess we’re small
If you think about it man you know we got it all
Cause we’re all we got on this bouncing ball
And I love you free
I love you freely
Here’s a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There’s a reason for the world
You and I…

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Peter.