Dear Oxymore,

I stumbled across the Tinybuddha site only today and I’ve been really enjoying reading the articles on this site.  While reading, there was one blog post that jumped out at me. It was titled “Purposeless” and it resonated with me because it so perfectly described how I have been feeling for such a long hopeless time… until recently that is. So I signed up to this site especially so I could reply to your post and share with you my experiences and how I have recently started to find meaning and purpose again. I’m in no way professional in these matters.  I just wanted to share with you what has worked on my journey in the hope that you can start on your own path and out of that awful place.

First of all, well done for having the courage and clarity to put your thoughts down so eloquently.  I am English and frankly your English is superb. I have no idea where you are from originally from your writing.  You will probably find more mistakes in this reply than there are in your post!  That’s an achievement to congratulate yourself on and something to be proud of.

Coming back to the subject of having no purpose.  I wish that we could be having this conversation face to face as there are just so many things that I been through to get to this point and that I would like to share with you, but it will take forever to write here.  It’s difficult to know where to start, so I apologise if I jump around a bit.

So much of what you wrote reminded me of how I felt.  The sheer hopelessness of having no goal in life, or feeling that the goals that I did have, were beyond my ability.  I am now 45 although this phase of my life probably started when I was around 37 – so you are still younger than me and in a great position to take positive action.  Never think that it is too late – that was one of my first mistakes.  I considered going to university 6 years ago, but didn’t because I thought that it would be a waste of 3 years so late in life. Instead it’s now 6 years later and I have really done nothing with those years.  Never think that it’s too late or you are too old, because when you get to 45, I promise you that you will look back in wish that you had taken action when you were 38.

I am a 45 year old man.  Never married and no children, although I have had a lot of relationships.  I’m quite handsome and have learnt to be quite capable in social situations, which gives people the impression that I am quite confident.  People can never understand how someone that is good looking, charming and intelligent could be so lost.  Yet, inside I have been struggling to find purpose for many years.  I used to think I was boring in the company of others, and then one day I realised that it was because I did so little in my life, that I had nothing of interest to talk about.  So I set about doing more – I travelled, read books, and did stuff. Then “hey presto!” I suddenly found that I had much more to talk about and people were actually interested in what I had to say.  But most importantly, it was that I now believed that I had something interesting to say and that changed how people related to me during conversations.  If you believe you are boring or that you don’t have anything interesting to say, then people will think you are boring.  It’s important that you start to believe in yourself.  It sounds like you’ve actually had an interesting life, even though you don’t think so yourself.  DO you know how many of those people that are happily married or on the way to fulfilling their passion want to go off and travel the world. Leaving the drudgery of their 9-to5 lives behind them?  You would be so surprised.

Like you, I too have travelled extensively, although I have come to realise that it would have been so much more fulfilling for me had I given it some purpose.  In hindsight I could have chosen to learn another language, I could have volunteered, I could have learnt new skills, I could even have written a book or a blog! But instead I just partied my way around the world.  It was fun for a bit, but ultimately, I think pointless and instead of setting a direction and following it, I continued to go with the flow waiting for that purpose to magically appear – which it never did.  Eventually I ended up on the so-called paradise island of Bali – a holiday island where hedonism is a way of life.  This was the worst possible move as it allowed me to indulge further and deepen my loss of purpose.  Over many years without purposeful work, or working alone, I became gradually more depressed, more frustrated with myself that I had wasted so much time, opportunities missed, and money wasted. My money gradually dried up along with my desire to party.  I always have had great ideas – many, many great ideas actually, but I never had that passion to, or more importantly the self-belief to turn them in to reality. And now I barely have enough money left to live on.  I drifted for years.  I’ve been in Bali for over 5 years now and I’ve achieved almost nothing that I consider worthwhile during that time.

I slowly realised that I was suffering from depression. This was something that had never before occurred to me before and it was only when a few close friends suggested it, that I started looking into it and realised that all the signs were there.  Depression can make it really difficult to see any positivity and little hope of finding a way out of the situation.  I literally felt hopeless. How had I allowed my life to become like this?

One day I was on a flight and sat next to a girl who was also trying to find her purpose.  She shared this with me… “If you don’t have a goal of your own, you’ll end up helping someone else to achieve theirs.”.  I now realise that’s exactly what I had been doing in recent years.  I had been busy helping others to achieve theirs because I didn’t have my own.

I was playing the victim. Just allowing life to happen to me, which left me feeling powerless as if I had no control of the direction my life was taking.  I felt that it wasn’t fair that these other people were having all the luck.  They weren’t smarter than me.  Far from it!  But there was one major difference – They all made a decision and they all followed it through with action.  I was falling at the first hurdle by never even making a decision.  And every time I thought I had made a decision, I wouldn’t follow through with action.  A decision without an action is not a decision. (Read: The compound effect by Darren Hardy).

I wasn’t taking responsibility for my own life and like you, I couldn’t bear the thought of spending the next 30 or 40 years of my life feeling this way.  Not that I wanted to die, but I couldn’t bear the thought of such an existence, knowing that nothing good would ever happen again. I had to end this desperate cycle now and was prepared to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

But recently things have started to change.  Over the years I’ve done an enormous amount of self-reflection, courses, books and online research.  It has been a very slow process and only now am I starting to see things for how they really are and take full responsibility for my life.

So what did I do to break this cycle?  Well, it’s been a slow process and I can’t imagine that there are any quick fixes unfortunately, but we can do anything we put our mind to and so I started to take action to try and turn my life around.  I have tried to consolidate the past 7 years of searching in to the following advice. There is no one solution, no quick fixes, so be patient and be methodical.  If you practice patiently and diligently you are bound to succeed. I strongly recommend that you give these suggestions a try for at least 30 days. Maybe not all at the same time.

First of you, I decided to take responsibility for the situation I was in. It was my own fault.  Not the people I was following.  I had chosen to follow them.  I am an independent thinking human being and at any point I could have made different choices.

Next I realised I had to stop feeling sorry for myself. Stop telling myself “what if”, or “I should have done this and that”. What’s done is done and there’s no point trying to change it. It’s undoable. But we can start to change this point forward. So I stopped looking back and began to look at what I can do today that will change how I feel tomorrow.

Consider reading or listening to the audio book “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy (you can find it on Soundcloud).  The book taught me how to integrate small achievable steps in to my daily routine instead of attempting to make big sweeping changes which will fail, leaving us feeling hopeless.  This book proved to be a great foundation for implementing change in my life.  In short, don’t set an unrealistic target, get frustrated with yourself and give up when you’ve barely take the first steps.

“Watch your beliefs – they become your thoughts,
Watch your thoughts – they become your words,
Watch your words – they become your actions,
Watch your actions – they become your habits,
Watch your habits – they become your values,
Watch your values – they become your destiny.”

Just before reading your post, I saw another article on this site about low self-esteem (https://tinybuddha.com/blog/6-simple-personal-commitments-to-overcome-low-self-esteem/). There was a great quote that sprang to mind as I read your post.  It said “Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself. We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem. We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.”  ~Iyanla Vanzant

As I read your words, I noticed the same lack of self-belief in your language that I too had been using for so long. You focused very much on what you don’t have (boyfriend, pet, kids, car, house etc).  But as I read through, there were lots of things that I could read between the lines. Things that are great about you.  For example, you are well travelled, articulate, multilingual, adaptable to name but a few.  What’s important to take away from this is the importance of the way we speak and think.  When we talk negatively, we harm ourselves and reinforce those beliefs.

Negative thoughts and talk were causing me to feel and notice only the negative in almost everything. Even if something good happened, I would see it as something bad, or it’s now too late, or some other excuse.  It’s critical to your success that you break this cycle immediately.  Stop the voices in your head from pointing out what is wrong and train it to only speak good.  “Easier said than done” I would have said – and yes, it will take time. You didn’t develop the habit of thinking negatively overnight, and equally you won’t create the new habit of thinking positively overnight either.  So you need to commit to it if you want to feel better about yourself.  At first you will find it hard, but slowly you’ll start to catch yourself doing it and correct yourself, then eventually it will become second nature.  If there is one thing that has helped me more than anything else, then it is this one change.  It may take many months and should be something that everyone practices throughout our lives.  The sooner you start, the sooner you will get there.  Take action today and promise me and yourself that you will start this process.

One practical way to start this is to write a gratitude diary.  At the end of each day, write about 3 to 5 positive things that happened that day.  Even if you can’t think of anything that you think is worthy, just find something – anything at this point… even if its’ just being grateful that you had some nice food today, or that you enjoyed a cup of coffee. Gradually you will reprogram your mind to start look for and notice more and more good things that happen to you.  https://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-start-a-gratitude-practice-to-change-your-life/

Have you read anything about the power of attraction?  Although I am a firm believer in it, I realised that I had stopped practicing it. Or rather I was not being mindful that by having such strong negative thoughts, I was attracting negativity in to my life.  I’m not saying that you can win the lottery by merely thinking about it, but by thinking negatively, you will surely attract more misery upon yourself.

Meditate.  I had done some meditation here and there and usually I would feel a bit clearer whenever I did it.  But I had never really committed to it (or anything) before.  You don’t need to give an hour a day – start with 10 minutes a day and consider doing more if you are finding it easy.

Before I started meditation, I would say that my mind was like a monkey – always chattering away, jumping from here to there, with no real direction. Usually the chattering was saying negative thoughts, such “as why didn’t you do this”, or “It’s not fair that everyone else has a good job and a house”. You know that sort of thing, putting yourself down.  Meditation was probably the first step towards taming my monkey mind. I would learn to stop the chatter. And then as time went on I started doing different styles of mediation –  listening to positive affirmations to train my mind how to speak kindly to me. If you’re new to mediation, then I highly recommend the Mindspace phone app as a good place to start that you can do at home. It’s really easy and friendly and the narrator has a voice you will want to listen to for hours!

Then when you feel up to it, I would suggest listening to a fun positive affirmations meditation.  I like some of the meditations from Powerthoughts Meditation Club.  You can listen to them for free on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX159cvbQYBvMFvpdsbIDdA, There’s one 20 minute mediation that I particularly like, but I can’t find it right now.  Take a look through the Powerthoughts YouTube channel and see if you can find one that you can relate to.

The next tip came from a serendipitous meeting with two Australian tourists.   One morning I bumped in to some ladies lost on their first morning in Bali.  They had no local money and were looking for a money changer, of which there were none open.  So I invited them to join me for a coffee and we chatted. They were quite religious and they could see my lack of spirit.  It actually hurt that two complete strangers whom I had only just met a few minutes before could see my loss of direction so clearly.  One of the ladies by the name of Rose suggested that I watch a YouTube video of a pastor called Joel Osteen.  I was sceptical because I am not at all religious, but believing that sometimes people come in to your life to teach you something, I accepted her suggestion and that evening I watched his sermon.  I was blown away!  Don’t worry, it isn’t overly religious, but I do believe Joel Osteen’s message about the importance of using positive words is a must for everyone to understand. I highly recommend that you take just 20 minutes to watch it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA6uE2CPo1I

Exercise – I found this one incredibly difficult. I HATE going to the gym, so I had to find another way to get exercise.  I downloaded an app called “7 minute workout”.  It’s very hard to find a genuine excuse not to work out for 7 minutes a day.  Walks, yoga, anything.  As difficult as it is to get started, its proven that exercise helps improve our state of mind and it has definitely helped me break the cycle and climb out of the hole.

People – It sounds like you do not have many people in your life at the moment.  I too distanced myself from people increasingly as I realised that their lives bore little resemblance to mine. I was ashamed that I wasn’t achieving anything and I felt as though I had nothing worthy to tell them.  I didn’t want to have to answer people’s questions about what I was doing in my boring life.  But having positive influences, people that you can relate to, or even laugh with can make a world of difference.  Personally, I stopped hanging around with the party crowd, and looked for groups that had similar interests to me.  Meetup.com is a good way to find groups in your area. You said that you like people that are “a bit nuts” – then go and meet some nutty people if you connect with them! Just make sure that whoever you choose to hang out with is a positive influence on you.  I have distanced myself from party people to stop myself falling back in to the party lifestyle. Making the first move is often the hardest, but give it a try. What do you have to lose?

Vipassana silent meditation retreat.  Vipassana is a 10-day silent meditation retreat.  There are centres all over the world.  Vipassana’s are run by donation, so you simply pay whatever you can afford.  Several people had told me about the incredible transformative experiences they had by doing a vipassana. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was life changing, but it was definitely helpful.  It was during my Vipassana that I finally accepted the reality that my problems were the result of the poor choices I had made.  Vipassana can be done by anyone. You do not need to be a mediation expert. It is open to everyone. It is not religious.  It is not an easy experience, but I did find it rewarding.  I think importantly for me, it was a commitment to take action.  It was me telling myself that I had had enough of being lost and that I was prepared to do anything to overcome this. https://www.dhamma.org/en/index.  It took me 2 years after learning about it before I took action and booked myself on a Vipassana.  I suggest that you don’t leave it so long, but don’t leap in to it until you feel ready to do so.

Give up stimulants for a month such as drinking alcohol, any drugs or even drinking coffee if you’re a heavy coffee drinker.  All of the above can seriously affect our perception about how we really feel. It can be difficult to tune in to our intuition because it whispers very quietly to us.  When we take stimulants it causes our brains to go in to overdrive and drowns out the tiny whispers of our inner voice. It’s important that you remove all of these influencing factors so that you can begin listening to your true self.  If you use any of the above, set yourself a goal to stop completely – just for month and then see how you feel. It doesn’t have to be forever, but it does have to be long enough for you to be able to hear your own true feelings again.

For years people could spot that I was lacking purpose and their advice was usually to tell me that I need to find my purpose – this frustrated me even more because I would tell them it’s not as if I hadn’t been looking for it all this time! It’s just not coming to me!!  But I think while they meant well, their message just wasn’t the right one.  It’s not that we need to find our purpose, it’s that we need to CHOOSE our purpose.  Our purpose can be whatever we want it to be.  There are no rights or wrongs.  If we go down a path and find that it’s not for us, we can always change it.   Our purpose doesn’t have to be forever, so it doesn’t need to be the big scary decision that I was making it into.  I now realise that I was scared of choosing a purpose.  I feared making a bad choice. I didn’t believe in my own ability to make good decisions. I would always ask other people what they thought, or I would abdicate responsibility by piggy backing on other people’s goals. But ultimately these were never fulfilling because they were not mine.  Instead I have now realised that making no choice was the worse choice I could have made.

Life is like a treadmill. If you are not moving forward then by default you will be moving backwards, because time stops for no one. By making no choice, I stopped moving forward and instead started moving backwards.  Even a bad move would have been a move forward.  Even learning that I didn’t enjoy something would have taught me what I do like.

Reading through your post, I think that perhaps you already know your purpose, or one of them at least.  It completely jumps off the page to me that you would love to do something charitable.  You despair about the state of the world and there’s a lot you would like to change.  You can’t change it all.  You can’t stop kids from pulling wings off insects.  Accept that which you cannot change. You cannot take on all of the worlds ills.  Just focus on the ones that you can. That seems a pretty good place to start looking.  Don’t worry about the money. It will come as you start to build your picture of what it is you want to create.

I really hope that my story inspires you to take action.  Please look in to the suggestions above and write again how you are progressing. I’d love to hear what works for you.

Safe travels

Paul