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Ask HN: How do you overcome feeling completely lost in life?
I feel a bit ambivalent posting this on HN. On one hand, I keep coming back here because it's one of the only places on the internet that I trust and that makes sense to me. On the other hand, most people on here seem to have their sh* together, so to speak, and in that respect I feel like an outsider. Admittedly, these days I come to HN more for self-help than tech news. Reading through the recent threads on loneliness have given me some courage to reach out and be vulnerable, so here goes.
I'm a software developer quickly approaching 30 with no direction in life, no hobbies, no friends, no family, and no idea what I even want to change. I've somehow floated through 30 years of life like this. I've had a few highs and a few more lows, but what's been constant is just this deep sense of emptiness. Like a longing for something I don't have and maybe never will. With every passing year, I've grown more and more weary of life.
In my early twenties, I would self-medicate with various addictions, but for the past few years not even those purely hedonistic activities seem appealing to me. These days I work remotely Monday-Friday, eat, sleep, repeat. Some weekends I even look forward to Mondays, just so I have something to do. But every night, the emptiness of this endless cycle hits me and it feels so paradoxically heavy, like an insurmountable gravitational pull into the void. Though I have no close friends or family, most days I don't even feel lonely -- just hopelessly lost.
The advice I've read concerning this sort of disillusionment boils down to making friends/establishing a sense of connection to the world, and having a sense of personal direction. Doesn't seem to matter whether you start top-down or bottom-up, eventually you're supposed to end up somewhere in the middle as a fulfilled, self-actualized human being. But no matter which end I try to start from, I can't seem to escape the sheer meaninglessness of it all. Making friends/maintaining close relationships doesn't come naturally to me, and the more effort I put into it, the more detached and dishonest I feel. This also seems to be getting harder as I get older, without school or some other form of "forced" interaction. Setting personal goals is even more hopeless when at the core, I just feel empty. Every time I try to set even small goals for myself (starting personal projects, hobbies, etc.), gravity pulls me back into the void. Any sort of direction or intention feels like trying to build a house of cards on a non-existent foundation.
At this point, I'm not sure if I can do this for another 30 years. I feel like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill in an eternal loop, leaving me with a worsening sense of existential--sometimes literal--nausea.
Thank you for reading. I hope someone can relate to this and impart some wisdom. I've also included an email in my profile because at times I will read a comment or post on here that resonates with me, and I'm disappointed to have no way to reach out directly to the OP. So if that applies to anyone, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.
- danjc 4y agoRead Ecclesiastes - he feels your pain.
- sourcecodeplz 4y agoYou can get a pet to start, a fish-tank is super-low maintenance and quite nice and distracting when you need it to be. Make a routine where you get out of the house and go buy a newspaper. Then read it on a bench somewhere. Start with these two.
- t-3 4y agoI'm pretty much in the same boat, so I don't have any good advice, but you have my sympathy. The only thing that's kept me going for the past year is setting a "final project" to complete before I die. This "big goal" feels a little less pointless than the "small goals", even though I know it's not.
- adantical 4y agoMay I ask what your "final project" is? I'm curious what you've identified as important or close to you in this way. I've felt like this before as well, like might as well dedicate my life to a project, but have never been able to keep up the motivation for big goals like this.
- t-3 4y agoDesigning and writing a programming language and compiler/interpreter/IDE completely from scratch. The motivation is due to my lack of joy/outright hate of using most languages, and a big dose of wanting to do something that most people haven't. The idea of it has taken hold of me and become an obsession, but I've also been afraid to speak about it until recently for fear of losing hold of the only goal I've ever had in life.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- brutus1213 4y agoI used to feel intensely lonely until my 30s. I made significant efforts to get out there and socialize. Something changed and I'm now considered a very extroverted person by others. A few things clicked inside me. Some books you may want to consider: 1) Dale Carnegie's how to win friends and influence people book. 2) The Game by Neil Strauss(friend gave me a copy .. this is about pick up artists, something I never did but it was influential in some way) 3) Surely you're joking Mr. Feynmann All these books have something about being social. I make it a bit to get to know strangers (on planes, uber rides, whatever). I almost think of it as a missed opportunity if I don't have an engaging conversation with people. Many are strangers and I'll never see them again, so if I say something stupid, whatever. I guess that is the idea I got from The Game. I still suck in group settings socially. I feel incredibly awkward. But 1-1, I am actually impressed with my transformation. I was super introverted until exactly 30. I guess one other thing that changed is if someone invites me to something social, I always came along, and I kept a smile on my face. This was exceptionally easy to do in NYC (getting invites to hang out with people I mean). I also have to say, friend, you must love and respect yourself, first and foremost. I felt some pain in your words. Look .. we all have done stupid things we may cringe on in reflection. My addiction is tech and online shopping. I try to do my vices in moderation. Don't judge yourself too harshly. We're all imperfect humans. Good luck to you.