Hi everyone,
I’m new here and usually I would never speak out but I’m trying to break out of my bad habits and therefore I decided to make an introductory post. I read a few posts before attempting this entry and it seems that there a lot of people here going through what I’m currently going through and that in it self is incredibly comforting. I’m a 25-year-old male currently residing in Houston, TX and I recently decided that before I lose my sanity I needed to make a drastic change. In realizing this I quit my job, which I absolutely hated. Without going in to too much detail about it, I was constantly asked to lie and manipulate and in return paid very well for it. This isn’t something I planned to do with my life but it’s something I sort of fell in to and then excelled at. When you lie everyday of your life 8-12 hours out of the day you forget what the truth is and you end up lying to yourself without even realizing it. I went from being social and a health nut to an overweight shut-in. When you aren’t happy with yourself and you’re constantly doing something you hate everyday of your life in order to have the ability to buy material things you end up in a very depressing place. I began seeing a therapist and besides from a lot of self-realization the one thing that she did tell me was is that I was unhappy because my “alignment” was off. In my mind I was okay with this job because it brought me financial security but in my heart I was completely miserable because it was incredibly unfulfilling and something I deemed to be unethical. I was conflicted everyday of my life so how could I be happy? After a doing some research online about changing careers and being unhappy with one’s career I came across a lot of people who decided to take sometime away from everything and travel. Aside from research online I’ve been reading a lot of different books about philosophy and psychology in order to better understand the human mind and Buddhism is constantly something I’m gravitating towards and that is what lead me to my next course of action. I plan to visit a Buddhist monastery where I can learn more about Buddhism and meditating, I’m hoping I can clear my head of all the different pulling forces and come face to face with person I lost and gain some clarity. Before I can do that I need to get into better shape both physically and mentally and that’s how I ended up here. Well, this is part of my story. I’m sure there are much more older and wiser participants here but if I could share one thing that I’ve learned, it would be this: You’ve got to do something you love. You shouldn’t let money be the primary reason for waking up in the morning because you will definitely find it difficult to get out of bed.