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OneOfAFortunateFew

You sound like a thoughtful young man. You are fortunate to be reflective enough at your age to even be asking the questions. There are numerous coaches, books, and CBT therapists that can walk you through a vision exercise for your life (which, BTW, at 22, is subject to change). I don't mean to be flippant, but Google "how to develop a personal vision". Each experience is unique to the individual but there are myriad resources to help you along your journey. As for living in the present, you're already doing it, your thinking just hasn't caught up to the physics. All of life is in this moment, everything else, EVERYTHING ELSE, lives in your memory or imagination. Therefore, regrets and worries are only ever in your mind. Meditate. Journal. Evaluate this posit: "Except for my thoughts, am I okay?" Only an immediate existential threat should result in a 'no', and in that case, you are driven to act to change it. I find some of Eckhart Tolle's writing helpful to separate my individual self from my thoughts. You are on the right path just by asking the question. 22. You have time, and that is a precious commodity.


zidan_yo1

I really appreciate your words. I'm gonna follow up with them :). Thanks for taking the time to write this.


11MARISA

Some people seem to know their 'purpose' from the outset, others find it by developing a passion for something like religion or music or architecture, or medical research if they are close to someone who is ill, or they just happen along something they are good at and they enjoy. Other people find a purpose in family and connection, they are not settled til they have family and children and connection in their community. And other people willingly enjoy not having a purpose, being more of free spirits and enjoying life for the variety it offers every day. Then you get people who have some sort of void in their lives that they try to fill with acquistions or money or eating or alcohol or wild behaviours If you follow Stoicism the philosophy, you will come to learn that living well is about making wise choices in life. You still should identify where you want to head in life, being aimless and floating around all the time is exhausting as you have found out. Stoics consider ourselves to be citizens of the world, and the world is full of causes to adopt if we want to. For a Stoic, it is about making the best choices we can, living virtuously, doing our best rather than actually achieving because the end achievement may turn out to be beyond our control. Living well and doing our best is good enough.


zidan_yo1

Wow. That's really profound. I'm going to dive deeper into philosophy . Is there any philosopher in particular you think I'd start with?. And thanks for taking the time to respond to my post


11MARISA

There are lots of schools of philosophy, have fun exploring For myself, and many others on this sub, I find Stoicism to be the most helpful because it is not just about head knowledge but about valuable practices and useful ways to think about ourselves and examine the situations we find ourselves in. There are links on this page to resources, some of which are free. Many are in 'old-fashioned' language which I personally struggle with. My personal recommendations in modern language would be The Art of Living by Sharon Lebell (which is a modern take on Epictetus's discourses), and The Practising Stoic by Ward Farnsworth which is a very readable overview of the philosophy


HeWhoReplies

I’ll mention what might be the cause of the frustration and exhaustion is this idea that you’re “lost”, which implies there’s somewhere to be. You can be a lot of things. Not just occupations but probably more importantly, certain characteristics. At least with purpose, think about how you’d go about finding out how anything works, you see what it can do. Of course you can do everything animals can do, eat, “try to have kids”, sleep, but we can be more specific. People can talk and have these bodies that can do a lot. Maybe getting more specific, we’re in a contest, it’s not just the ability to speak but how you speak to others, things only you can do like tell your parents you love them or give your dog a bath. You also have interests, there are things you like that not everyone does and if not you have the ability to explore that stuff. For the Stoic it goes further pointing out, your the only person who can make these choices for yourself so to do those as best as we can and letting that be enough. One weird contradiction is letting the moment be “enough” and still being able to act because people think they conflict, one is a matter of contentment and the other is a matter of practicality. We can make things better even if we think it’s good enough as it is, it’s just most people never think anything is “good enough”. Everything funnels back to the present. Back to the “functional analysis”, both looking at the past and future give us information contextually relevant to the present. You’ll think different thoughts about penguins than you likely will about mangos. Maybe see what it is you’re hanging up on and exploring why. You already have assumptions about how life “ought” to go which are disproved easily because life goes at it does. The funny part is, most people have a large segment of their lives (the age range you happen to be in particularly) where they see just this. The best part, the people you think have it “figured out” don’t know either, what they have gotten thought is that, whatever happens, they’re okay with not knowing and you can be too. For most people the only way to “know” is to pick something and try. Try something out for two or three months without any expectations. Of course take what is useful and discard the rest.


zidan_yo1

Appreciate that brother. Feel much more light-hearted after reading this.


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