How to find out what you want from life ? Lost with no sense of motivation

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This topic has 11 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 10 months ago by Anonymous.

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December 6, 2016 at 11:59 pm #122119
Zita
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Dear Tiny Buddha community,

( Apologies, it’s a bit of a read but it will be much much appreciated)
I am a 28 year old female who is practically getting by in life on a autopilot. I get up late in the mornings, turn my pillow upside down as I feel anxious thinking about the number of things I have to do. I continue to stay in bed for a few more hours as I have zero motivation to jump start. A little background on me; I got by college somehow ( took me 6 years to complete an undergraduate degree), then had a little ” wake up” call after being in a toxic 4 year long relationship. The wake up call ended up dragging me to another city where I was hoping to jump start my new life. The year between my break up and preparing for my move, I had about a year full of zest, determination, excitement, plans and specific goal in mind to start a graduate program at a prestigious institution.

One year forward and here I am at an Ivy school (yes I made it here) but I have no idea what the hell am I doing or WHY I came here (maybe I was desperate for a change and wanted to make something out of myself). However, now that I am here, day in and day out, time passes by and I don’t seem to move. I am constantly surrounded by an overwhelming majority of driven geniuses from around the world who (at least from the looks of it ), seem to know what they want out of life. I, on the contrary, have no idea. I have zero motivation to study and follow through my graduate program (I procrastinate a lot), I have no sense of financial stability ( I resort to spending in times of stress although I can’t afford any of it, I have 000s in student debt). Long story short, I dislike myself and my current state of existence. I might as well not exist, I am not really making a difference in my life or those around me ( besides my poor parents who think I am trying to do something meaningful with my life from afar). I have a lot of responsibilities on my shoulder, my family is not well off unlike other students here. So I don’t really have the luxury or dropping out and going home. Sometimes it is very debilitating, I can’t move forward with this fear of failure.

I feel so lost and confused about everything in life, from what clothes to wear in the morning to my relationships (ha the irony of options). I know most people would give up so much to get where I am ( trust me I have given up a lot to get here as well ) but now I am that ungrateful moron who is not able to seize the day. I have all these opportunities in the world passing right in front of me and I am doing nothing. Nothing at all… The truth is I am scared of uncertainty, not trying at all gives me a false sense of temporary comfort in the moment ( creates anxiety though) but at least I can guarantee failure and be miserable about it, that I know something for certain ( perhaps this in the introspective subconscious thought). Uncertainty is the most daunting thing I have ever experienced. I am not able to embrace it or work to resolve it. When the stakes are high don’t we all want a little certainty that we won’t be ultimately a failure in life ? (Rhetorical question, don’t answer that). I guess on the positive note, one thing I can say with a LOT of certainty is that I AM NOT HAPPY NOT DOING ANYTHING. It is extremely anxiety provoking, knowing that I have all the possibilities in front of me and I have so much potential ( not to toot my own horn but I am pretty intelligent, curious and capable). I just don’t know how to act on that potential. Where to start and how to allow myself to sit through that uncomfortable space between wanting to do something and actually doing it. I don’t have a concrete plan in life unlike most people here ( yes I know I keep bringing up most people because the benchmark is high, one cannot avoid measuring themselves in accordance to their immediate environment can we now and I also have personal expectations, I expect myself to do more in life ( create impact) rather than just exist?). The problem is that I don’t have an explicitly defined dream. I barely have a vague idea. I am at such a transitional point in my life that if I don’t find myself now, I probably will fall into major depression and believe that I have failed everyone that relies on me ( financially and otherwise, the pressure is real haha). My existence will have no purpose then, maybe I will be suicidal who knows.

I need help, I want to hear from you guys, how do I find myself ? Where do I start? where did you guys start, people who are or have been in their late 20ties. I don’t know what motivates me or excites me to get up in the morning. I haven’t found that thing yet and I hate myself for not knowing. I am suppose to know by now and not live my life on autopilot, barely meeting my ends. I feel mediocre as an individual. Sometimes I think maybe I need another trauma to have that wake up call again ( which is scary and sad), I want to live my life with drive/s passion/s and zest. I want to ” find myself” and what I want out of life. I am stuck in this maze of mediocrity and I don’t know how to push myself anymore. Please please share your experiences, insights, anything will help.

Thanks
- This topic was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Zita.
- This topic was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Zita.
- This topic was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Zita.
December 7, 2016 at 5:08 am #122138

Amaya Pryce
Participant

Hi Zita! This is my first time on a forum here. I just wanted to say: hang in there! At 54, I have been through many phases of feeling lost and directionless. Unfortunately, they still pop up from time to time, and mid-life is another period of huge transition. The best thing I have learned is to simply accept discomfort as part of life, without seeing it as wrong or abnormal. Like you, I tend to castigate myself when I’m not feeling all chipper and motivated, especially when everyone around me seems to be living perfect lives, but resisting the feelings only make them worse. So first, just breathe and let those feelings be without trying to push them away. Then, think in baby steps. I know it feels great when you can look a long way down the road ahead, but that’s mostly an illusion anyway. Just look at one day or week at a time: what really needs doing in that time period? Give yourself permission to just not know what’s going to happen beyond that. You will know when the time comes! I can see what an amazing person you are: funny and interesting and caring. You will get through this with flying colors. Amaya

December 7, 2016 at 6:43 am #122143

R Nair
Participant

Hi Zita, for the first time, I completely and genuinely connect with what someone has written ( in fact I freaked out reading your post at first for the similarity in thoughts). It is as if you have literally taken words out of my mind and wrote them down. I feel the same, exact same – stuck in a maze of mediocrity with no progress whatsoever even with the umpteen options in front of me. And, I am not happy with myself. Sorry I am not writing to help you but here to say that you are not alone and it’s OK. I don’t have the courage to tell you that there is nothing to worry since I am myself a wrecked soul here. Except for few stats that you have mentioned, we literally live the same life through the same emotions probably at different parts of this world.
Like how @amaya has mentioned, may be we should hang in there and let it be for a while. Slowly and steadily we may find our purposes. Things will change even without our knowledge but the feeling to be a someone or a success wouldn’t let us just be still…But where do I start(my million dollar Q almost everyday). What is that one thing that I want to passionately wake up to? Some mornings are power packed and I want to conquer the world but other days I have numerous why’s and how’s running in my head with no answers. Many would give up anything to be where I am and to do all that I have been doing, when I genuinely fail to notice any worth. I know of people who always look up to me because they think I have it all in my life. Seriously??!! Hmm. Why this life? What’s the purpose? Why me? How to change? How to feel the worth? so on and so forth. What is my achievement in this 29 years of life on this planet?!! It’s hard to give answers to your self since that’s one place where you can’t fake it or lie to your own conscience. I am painfully truthful to self at all times (bane or boon)

I read. Read more when I am confused. It’s like an unending search for the truth, just like how I stumbled upon your post while digging in google (irony) for some answers to the rather grave doubts about my own existence. Good to know there are others like me. I always feel there is something missing even when I have it all, which makes me look deeper for the truth, questioning every view. It is not easy or rather difficult to stay calm with the obvious pressure on our shoulders. Some days my body just refuses to move or to cooperate, the whole system just slows down giving no damn to any deadlines or time and other days I have no idea how to calm my pulses down. I fail to understand self then. Are we in depression or anxiety and do we need medical support? Is this a psychological issue or a mere perspective problem? I wish I had answers to the simplest questions at the least to live through the day. I even go to the extreme of questioning why feed myself and push this life when I dont know the purpose of it. Isn’t something somewhere missing which I fail to notice, may be.

There are days where all I want from this life is to make my parents smile – the pure affectionate smile they give when they are so proud of your achievement. These days I am trying to live by for them, hoping that their faces would give me a reason to live. I am not that old that I should lose all the zest and passion to live, neither am I content with my own achievements so far. May be it will clear itself out one day (is it lame to think so?). Anyway, we have no rights to end what we didn’t start. So let’s live and find out.

May be you can also keep searching, reading, and connecting with similar people to make this ride a bit more easier. Hope you will find your answers soon. Cheers mate 🙂

December 7, 2016 at 10:37 am #122169

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Zita:

I read some of your previous posts, far from all, since I believe March 2014. You started posting here, I believe, right after the breakup of that very meaningful relationship. It was then, if I understand correctly, that you had the wake up call and that year “full of zest”- a state of mind that you now wish to experience again.

I agree with you: you are (very) intelligent. But it is not intelligence, I found out, that keeps the great majority of people from living a better life. And it is not lack of learning, either. You are educated enough; you read enough, to live a better life.

I believe the problem is that you need to unlearn some things you already learned. There is only temporary zest with learning when the foundations of existing knowing need to be removed because they are not correct.

If you’d like to communicate with me about your current and past relationship with your parents, please do. I think that what needs to be unlearned is there.

anita

December 8, 2016 at 2:47 am #122245

VJ
Participant

Hi Zita,

“I need help, I want to hear from you guys, how do I find myself ? Where do I start? where did you guys start, people who are or have been in their late 20ties. I don’t know what motivates me or excites me to get up in the morning. I haven’t found that thing yet and I hate myself for not knowing….I want to live my life with drive/s passion/s and zest. I want to ” find myself” and what I want out of life. I am stuck in this maze of mediocrity and I don’t know how to push myself anymore. Please please share your experiences, insights, anything will help.”

What is required from YOU will be known only to YOU and from YOU.
Only your heart will know what is best for you at this time. External factors of life, negative emotions, life experiences, and several other things suppress this inner guidance system that we have in our soul.

I will share with one such wonderful technique that will allow your heart to guide you to the best that is required from you at this moment.

(http://www.globalloveproject.com/2013/07/ask-your-heart/)

Please practice diligently and be open to insights that you may come across.
You can use this practice as and when you like on a moment-to-moment basis to know what is needed to be done at that moment.

Best of Luck!
VJ

December 9, 2016 at 10:45 am #122352

Tripti
Participant

Oh boy! Zita dear, just like @meraki6, it was uncanny to see such similar thoughts! I am 33 and despite doing my Masters and graduation from top colleges, I lost my way- not just professionally but personally as well.
Though I don’t have financial liabilities on my shoulders but I have my plate overflowing with health issues and personal matters.

@amaya is right; just take one day or max one week at a time. Accepting all your flaws (low motivation, procrastination, etc) just tell yourself- ‘I know I am not where I wanted to be, but I will take one small step today that will make me feel better about myself.’

When you think about just ONE SMALL STEP EACH DAY, it doesn’t overwhelm you or makes you postpone things you must do. BE GENTLE AND FIRM with yourself in the process- just the way you would be with your younger sister 🙂

Good Luck!

December 9, 2016 at 6:50 pm #122361

Zita
Participant

Thanks Amaya,

I do give myself permission to not look beyond the given day but having no vision of tomorrow, my today seems confused and pointless on most days. I have been trying to sit with my feelings of discomfort and let them pass by, it is extremely difficult. Your words does give me some comfort knowing that others also go through similar emotional roller coaster.

December 9, 2016 at 7:00 pm #122363

Zita
Participant

@meraki6 Hang in there bud. Honestly, reading your response made me feel like you are expanding on how I feel on most days. Especially the physiological symptoms, I have stopped caring about deadlines. I ask for extensions after extensions, sometimes to the point that I miss my 2nd, 3rd extensions as well. There is no sense of motivation to do them but constantly feeling this uneasiness and anxiety about them (knowing there is work to be done in the back of my head). Perhaps clear case of procrastination ? or a lack of perspective ? I don’t know. Its really lonely down inside and nothing seems to fulfill that. Maybe this is just a phase, I do know late twenties can be verya difficult time period, so I have heard from my elders, that gives me some hope. But hang in there, this shall pass by as well. Sending you much love.

December 9, 2016 at 7:12 pm #122365

Zita
Participant

@newlife123 Dear Anita,
It is so lovely to hear from you. You are absolutely right, you have seen me throughout the years. Yes I did post sometime ago when I was struggling to recover from my major break up. As far as I recall you were a great help. I would love to connect with you further. But I am not sure what you mean by unlearning some of the problematic things? I definitely believe I have formed unhealthy patterns and one of them is not being able to be alone, be still, without feeling the need to be somewhere else, be seen, be heard, takes so much time though ( all the time that I waste moving from one place to another within my day, if I only I could get work done in that time. I will do another post about this, seems like a deeper existential query.

December 9, 2016 at 7:26 pm #122367

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Zita:

I believe you need to unlearn letting others tell you what is right and wrong for you to do.

When you don’t have YOU as the one deciding how to live your life, you cannot be motivated. When you live “under this constant fear of judgment from friends, families, relatives etc” (your words)- then you are afraid, not excited!

Unlearn having others as the center of your life, learn to place YOU in that center. Then you will be excited living your the way you choose!

anita

December 9, 2016 at 7:53 pm #122375

Zita
Participant

@Anita,

The questions is how ? how do I unlearn making others the centre of my life ? I do not know the answer and I am struggling. I have a certain relationship with loneliness, I am not able to be alone because of my past childhood experiences. These ” others” are what I resort to, when I am running away from being still, from being with myself, therefore their judgment takes a sort of toll on my mind and body. Maybe if I can figure out a way to be with myself, I won’t be so dependent on others and their judgement ( to an unhealthy extent I mean, everybody needs healthy levels of social support sure).

December 9, 2016 at 8:37 pm #122382

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Zita:

“How to”- this is in the title of your thread; and in the last post you ask: how to unlearn making others the center of your life? Best in competent psychotherapy. But there is a way to start doing it every day: pay attention to any opportunity when you can practice being the center of the moment. Any time you are about to make a choice, you have that opportunity, and no opportunity is too small.

For example: you are about to comb your hair as you do every morning, and you do it the way you normally do, but wait… you don’t have to do it the same way. Maybe a friend told you long ago that you should have bangs over your forehead because it makes your nose look smaller (just an example, I know not your nose situation)- and you have let that friend choose these bangs for you. Try your hair different today, see if YOU like it the new way, your way. Maybe not, but try it. (if it works, you will be unlearning the old way, the bangs, and learning a new way)

Next, you make a toast for breakfast and you cut the crust off because your mother likes it that way. Wait! leave the crust on, try it. Maybe you will like it YOUR way. Unlearn the old way, no crust, and learn a new way, crust on. And so on and on and on.

You pay attention to ongoing opportunities throughout the day, experiment doing things differently, making your own choices… not being used to it, you don’t know what Your Way is. This is why you Experiment.

Will you try having a day like this?

anita
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