Take a good look at yourself.
If your daily activities drain you, are of questionable or no service to others, have a negligible potential to produce income, and just feel like a block to what you really want to do or something you merely have to do to please others…
Your life is full of sh*t.
Looky here, my man. You know when you’re on the wrong path. You know when the things that occupy your attention are of minimal worth to you, even if screams of “But I’m supposed to do these things! Civilization requires it!” plague you in response. You know when the work you’re doing either needs a boost or is simply a load of useless B.S. that will take you down the path to buttf*$k nowhere.
You know that awful feeling when this isn’t right. You know when the message pops up again, and again, and again- especially when you see an alternative which must be right. How could it not be? You know when you are constantly angry and bitter about having to waste your precious moments of life doing things you don’t care about.
I’m not asking specifically whether what you do matters to all humanity, or God, or the fish in the deep blue sea, or to yourself; however, if your typical actions are ultimately meaningless to all of these entities, then what the heck are you doing?
I know you’ve probably accepted your anger and resentment as normal by now, and have attempted to suppress these feelings. But ignoring your feelings won’t change their causes. Maybe you can get away with trying to blend into the “normal,” acceptable crowd for a while- perhaps even for decades- but someday you will likely find yourself beaten up by regret. Then you’ll finally know that you did not live as you really wanted to— not at all. You did not live a real life. You could have, but the haze of lies made you believe you could not. I can assure you that this realization will hurt.
Just stop, dude. It might seem noble and manly to press forward and be a so-called “high-achiever,” decorated in accolades and special job titles-- especially when your feelings tell you differently. Well guess what: it’s not. In fact, it’s stupid. Unless you are truly incapable of producing an alternative for survival, it’s one of the dumbest things you could ever do.
Of course, I’m no perfect preacher. Right now I’m in my 2nd (and likely final) semester of community college, taking 10 classes across two majors. And I’m pissed off. I’ve known from the start that I’m not going to use any degree I may get- which looks like none at this point. I will not lie to you: my main reason for staying in school is so that my parents don’t kick me out of the house. And I suspect that many of you, my dear peers, are guilty of the same B.S. Don’t feed me your idiocy. We both know that, existentially, you don’t care about having a piece of paper that says “You did it!”
Even more, we all know that before long those pieces of paper probably won’t mean diddley-squat. You’re just letting some institution rob you of thousands of dollars every semester because you don’t know what else to do. Because it’s what you’re supposed to do!
Someone tell me. Really, honestly, truly tell me. Do most of the jobs people do these days matter? I can’t convince myself they do, and if you can’t convince yourself either (note: if you have to try convincing yourself, you don’t really believe it) there’s probably no use in sticking around at yours. Might your job be even worse than useless, but actually harmful?
I understand that the premise of the less-beaten path can seem overly uncertain. If I was far enough down it I probably wouldn’t be in school anymore (though I might stick out this semester). But it’s not impossible: plenty of people have achieved it. Take a look at the links at the bottom of my home page to see.
Perhaps these are merely the romantic musings of an emotionally-compromised teenager, but I believe that the work most people really want to do can co-exist with the means for survival for each person who chooses the path. “Means for survival” basically means money, but who knows: things might change so much before the end of my life that money becomes inert. As more and more people step out of the haze (which I hope is purple) and restart life based on consciously chosen values, money might just not work anymore. Of course, I’m not going to bank on that, but some day these “crazy” instincts of ours may indeed take us there.
Let me throw in another pointer for ya: if your physical health is poor, like mine currently is, ask yourself if it might have something to do with non-physiological factors. Are you still bothered by painful events from your past? Are you holding on to stories that cause you suffering, which you perhaps have taken for granted as a “normal”, everyday train of thought? Those stories are probably wreaking havoc on your little nerve cells, man.
Might you constantly be under distress of some sort in response to doing things that don’t matter? Don’t block out your feelings: they aren’t dumb. Your body isn’t dumb either. Your physical and emotional signals are trying to tell you something. What do you think that something might be? It might be the answer to this question: What do you need to do to heal not just your body, but your life?
Gentlemen, in the war against your conflicts and desires, drop your weapons. The sword of social conditioning is double-edged, and it kills slowly. This is a fight that cannot be won. Choose instead to love life by being honest and adventurous- open to all possibilities- and you will quickly realize that you have been fighting all this time for nothing.
(For you gamer nerds, you know that low-level monsters drop almost no loot anyway. Go get the big ones. :) )
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