How do you overcome feeling completely lost in life?

My advice is this:

Become a different person.

Take your life and incinerate it. Not literally of course.

I mean completely change what and who you are.

You’re an accomplished software engineer at 30? Great. You’re done doing that.

Go buy a $15k trailer, get a truck, and hit the road. Stop looking at screens, only read books. Stop working a job behind a desk, find something else, or if you can afford it don’t work at all.

I suggest reading CrimeThInc: Days of War, Nights of Love. https://crimethinc.com/books/days-of-war-nights-of-love

Pick up a guitar, learn to farm, meet some nomads. Do it all in another country. Break the law. Do whatever you feel like. Don’t hurt people, obviously, but you’re probably a sane enough person to not want to anyway. Learn a new language. Stop speaking your old one. I mean, really, and truly, break out of the matrix. Go to the edges of your universe, like the “Thirteenth Floor”. Get fit, dissolve your old identity. Become awesome at yoga, or weightlifting, or Jiu Jitsu.

You really can choose to become unstuck. Fly to Europe, buy a bike and a tent, and just go, man. Figure it out later. What’s there to be afraid of, really?

I 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.

Jim Carrey said:

“People talk about depression all the time. The difference between depression and sadness is sadness is just from happenstance — whatever happened or didn’t happen for you, or grief, or whatever it is. Depression is your body saying f*ck you, I don’t want to be this character anymore, I don’t want to hold up this avatar that you’ve created in the world. It’s too much for me.

You should think of the word ‘depressed’ as ‘deep rest.’ Your body needs to be depressed. It needs deep rest from the character that you’ve been trying to play.”

I was in your exact same situation and know the feeling of nausea-inducing existential dread all too well. I abused alcohol pretty heavily to cope.

I can’t believe I’m about to post this, and I’m almost certain it won’t be received well by this community, but stepping into a local Christian church could potentially give you all of the things you’re longing for. You don’t have to be unintelligent or believe in mysticism to be spiritually connected through Christianity.

I attempted to pursue Buddhism previously, but there wasn’t anything pulling me away from the void strongly enough to get me to keep going. If you step into a Christian church, you’re likely to find people who will spend energy pulling you away from the void.

This is clearly linked to one of the four existential givens "meaning and meaninglessness.

Carl Jung said, man needs to find meaning to continue his journey around the world, therefore, without this meaning, he is lost in no man’s land and wandering the labyrinth of existence.

I too felt this great cloud hanging over me in my early 30's, I am now nearly 70.

I left school with no formal qualifications, worked in the building trade and constantly asked myself "Is this all there is". For me, I found that while I was stuck in this place of no return, the boredom, the depression and an overwhelming sense of just giving up on life I found my way. It is in this place that you need to trust your organic self to find your way.

I came to realise that everything I had previously done in my life has been programming by society, family and a raft of other institutions. Ultimately none of this I actaully chose to be my life.

So I changed my life to do things that I wanted. I gorged on books and went back to college and university, qualified as a psychotherapists and spent the next 30 years loving life.

Taking responsibility, another existentialist requirement. Namely taking responsibility for your current life situation. As Sartre said, "The individual still retains the agency over their own existence and they are still free to make the choice"

At 30 years old your brain has only been fully developed for about 5 years, Now is the time to reconstruct the life you choose.

books: all Carl Jung, Victor Frankl, Irvin Yalom or any existential philosophers

It's 6 AM. My wife's away for work, I didn't digest a pizza, I have dishes to do before the plumber comes at 8, a gift package to collect at some UPS point at 7, some residual burnout due to too many things to do in the last week, month, year, years, and a Monster energy drink yesterday which has completely blown up my metabolism. I'm on Discord looking for humans, you know, a little irrational, non-conformant human beings. That spark of chaos that brings curiosity back in and depression out. I've been struggling all life with minor depression, I'm 38. A developer who hasn't done any career. I remember times being younger nerding at night learning Linux with no regrets , or when I was playing in a videogames' music band. It's not what I do, it's the degree of freedom that I felt in doing it. Now I could play bass again but it would not be the same. But I'll tell you, keep on searching and fighting. Life is a journey, you'll never know where you'll end up. Things come unexpected

I prayed at a party while sleeping on a friend's sofa in the 80s and said, "if you are out there Jesus, will you come into my life?" This was the beginning of a new life for me.

My understanding of life has been shaped over the decades by biblical teaching and personal encounters with the Holy Spirit.

Rather than hoping that life is good to me, I try to do good. I also have an eternal view on my actions. What the bible would refer to as storing up treasures in heaven.

I think I would feel lost like yourself if I was trying to understand life from inside my own head. I lean on the the wisdom of the bible and fellowship of other christians.

I would recommend you connect with a local church. Church websites give a good indication of what's going on on in your local church.

Good luck on your journey.

I don't have any advice, I'm in a similar situation. Just know you're not alone and plenty of people here will be more than willing to lend you their ear. It won't fix your depression, but venting to someone who understands your situation will at least make you feel less alone. Therapy with a professional will also help, but it often takes a while to find one you resonate with.

I'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.

Jesus guys. The problem isn't the guy doesn't know what to do , it's that he's not motivated to do anything . In most cases you get motivated by doing, thats true, but know this : it doesnt matter, because you are Sisyphus, we all are. Find a struggle and embrace the suck cause that's all there is. Everyone has their delusions. My only recommendation is reading books you'll find that you re not alone and sometimes that's enough to feel just a little better to do something about however you feel.

> But no matter which end I try to start from, I can't seem to escape the sheer meaninglessness of it all.

First of all, you are right. There isn't an once of "meaning" to anything. So don't feel "flawed" for seeing the naked truth as it is, while surrounded by a bunch of us delusionals thinking there is some sort of "meaning" to our lives. The meaning is what we put in ourselves. It's a product of our minds. Sso there is nothing to escape from.

Now, what next then?

Writting this whole post shows effort and concern. You seem concerned about your situation. This is good, this is a driving force. Use it. You are an organism, a system, that for some reason function out of the "norm". Study this system scientifically and figure out why that it. Not necesserily for the purpose of getting better. But for the shake of knowledge, for the shake of understanding yourself and putting your mind at ease.

> 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.

No reason to feel dishonest. Be straight upfront, state your selfish reasons for interacting with others and i bet you will find people who will love to hang out with you and help you, because you know why? They also need what you need, they just don't see it as clearly as you do. You know you need to interact with them to get better, they just do it instictively without knowing. As before, you've just seen the naked truth, unlike the rest.

Focus on getting out the house first. Experience the world. Try meditation. Exercise - not for muscle or aesthetics, but because of the endorphins that will make you feel better.

Don't set goals. The only goal should be to undertake these actions regularly. Life might still feel intellectually empty while doing these things, and that's okay. The point here is to start with your body as it'll feed your mind and you might start to feel a bit better.

It's a little hard to provide good advice when you say that the deep sense of emptiness has always been with you, and that you have no idea what you want to change.

I'm sure you've spent a lot of time thinking about how you feel, so I find it interesting that you're unable to identify what potentially could fix the sense of emptiness. Have there been any times in your life when you felt significantly less empty or even somewhat closer to a sense of meaning?

I agree with a couple of the other posters that what society expects people to want can feel very sick and pointless, and that people in such a society often internalize unhealthy assumptions over time (selfishness, isolation, etc).

Maybe spending time in a foreign country with a healthier culture would be good, or trying to carefully reconsider some of the most fundamental axioms / perspectives that you might have unconsciously internalized. Maybe it's worth dropping some of those axioms or adopting new ones? If you feel like you've hit a bottom, then testing out new perspectives just for fun might be worthwhile (or at least harmless, since the only place to go is up).

> There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveler hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding on to the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them. In the same way I am clinging to the tree of life, knowing full well that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand how I have fallen into this torment. And I try licking the honey that once consoled me, but it no longer gives me pleasure. The white mouse and the black mouse – day and night – are gnawing at the branch from which I am hanging. I can see the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tastes sweet. I can see only one thing; the inescapable dragon and the mice, and I cannot tear my eyes away from them. And this is no fable but the truth, the truth that is irrefutable and intelligible to everyone.

> The delusion of the joys of life that had formerly stifled my fear of the dragon no longer deceived me. No matter how many times I am told: you cannot understand the meaning of life, do not thinking about it but live, I cannot do so because I have already done it for too long. Now I cannot help seeing day and night chasing me and leading me to my death. This is all I can see because it is the only truth. All the rest is a lie.

> Those two drops of honey, which more than all else had diverted my eyes from the cruel truth, my love for my family and for my writing, which I called art – I no longer found sweet.

—Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

Volunteer. Go help other people. Something with commitment, not just casual. See how other people are trying to survive. Perhaps you’ll start appreciating how fortunate you are in the process. Take responsibility upon yourself. Stick through it.

Join the military. Join the police. Set a goal to pass and get accepted.

Start doing a sport. Track your progress vigorously. Commit to doing it for at least a year. Rain or sunshine, snow or mud.

You 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.

I was there with you at that age and I am sure that those smarter than me will offer great advice. Now I'm older, married and have a child and I don't even think about myself and what I am feeling anymore. Looking after other people seems to be the key for me. I don't even have an internal monologue anymore!

Newtons law of motion: Things will keep on going in their same staight line until you change it. If you keep doing the same, you'll get the same kind of result.

If you want to change, something will have to change. You'll have to do it yourself.

They can be dramatic or incremental - doesn't matter.

The difficulty lies in obtaining Motivation, from a world where everything is comfortable. Modern world does not really require you to do much, so your biology will always gravitate to the least-effort path. That's why McDonald's exists, or why people don't challenge their religious belief-systems.

Do something hard - because it is hard. And while doing that, think about how you're giving a big FU to society and your biology.

Anger is a really good motivator.

A couple other comments alluded to this, but the advice I would give (as someone who felt lost when I was way younger and joined the Army to fix it) is to get in great shape. Doesn't have to be some crazy fitness goal, maybe something simple like "I want to be able to do 80 pushups without stopping".

For your health, obviously, this is good. But it's also a gateway to meeting new friends. Your weight lifting buddy suddenly invites you out to grab a beer or go to a ballgame, and suddenly his/her friends are your friends and then that longing for Monday starts to dissipate a bit. It can be a real gateway.

I definitely get the emptiness... In many ways it's totally rational to feel like this because there is no global meaning out there. Meaning only makes sense at the local level and within the confines of a project/goal. That elusive transcendent purpose can only be found within religion, which is functionally just a different kind of project.

For me, accepting this reality has been therapeutic but it doesn't help you work out what to do with your time. The search for meaning seems to be baked in to human nature so my advice would be to just choose some projects and embrace those localised meaning structures. I use the term "project" here very loosely - it could be building a game, being a better partner, travelling, improving your health, raising a child, watching all the films of Agnes Varda. Whatever!

You might ask, well what criteria should I use to choose which projects to focus on? Unfortunately there is no good answer here. If there are things you like doing or feel you want to achieve, start there. Don't take it too seriously and avoid over-analysis because humans aren't actually very good at working out what they desire anyway.

Life really is just choosing projects that resonate and focusing on them for a while. That might not feel like enough but in my experience, anyone offering more than this is probably trying to sell you something. Freedom and emptiness are just two sides of the same coin unfortunately.

What helps me is telling the truth about how I feel, to myself and to others.

It may seem too simple, yet it has helped me so much.

> 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.

For me, that detachment and dishonesty drives me deeper into meaninglessness.

I really try to just answer the questions "How do I feel right now" and maybe "How do I want to feel" or "What do I want to do". Very simple yet really really hard to answer sometimes.

You say you feel empty and when I've felt that way, it's often because my body is feeling something and I feel so disconnected from it. Maybe it's not the same for you.

Regardless, it has helped me so much. It's hard for me to answer "What do I want to do with my life" if I can't even answer "What do I want to eat for dinner" and I've found one of the easiest ways to answer that is "How do I feel when I think about eating pizza...how do I feel when I think about eating a salad...how do I feel when I think about eating dessert...etc." Connecting to the feeling, to the body, and putting it into words has really helped me a lot.

Anyways, I'd love to chat with you more about this if you find it helpful, I sure hope it helps a bit.

Read Ecclesiastes - he feels your pain.

The restaurant industry has been completely wrecked. Maybe pick up a line-cook or other back of house gig. Since it’s fairly easy work to pick up, you can shop around a bit. You might not even need to give them a resume, just ask to talk to a manager and tell them you’re looking to pick some kitchen work up. There are places that’ll just toss you an apron. It can be a pretty hard job at times but there is a lot of bonding and some have a great atmosphere that will feel like family after a while. Just an idea, you’ll get some life skills and free food. Food trucks are actually kind of a neat middle ground and the hours could be easier on your schedule if you tell them you can only work weekends and some dinners. It’ll be very tight inside so guaranteed bonding over a scorching hot summer. You’ll work with young people still in the friend making frame of mind.

Interesting question. I’ve felt lost most of my life but haven’t consciously thought of trying to overcome the feeling itself. Lately I’ve been looking at humans and animals as all not knowing why we’re here but doing stuff anyway and wondering why and what’s the point. I’m exploring the idea of the point being to just be and if that’s the case then how can I be the most alive in any given moment. I’ve been examining when I feel the most alive and how to have more of those moments. For you it seems you’re unable to identify those moments but you mentioned you have had a few highs. I wonder if that’s a good place to start. Whatever you were doing leading up to those moments, do more of that. See what’s tangential and explore from there. As others have said, you’re not alone. I hope you figure out ways to have more moments of feeling less lost

To me this sounds like loneliness caused by lack of community. If you could make some friends, from all ages, walks of life, you'd probably be much happier and have perspective on things. The challenge is the place to meet people. I'd recommend doing some volunteer hours, for various causes that are worthwhile and a way to meet other people. If one is ever depressed, a fast way out of it is to help someone, in person (rather than remotely) and see a smile that you helped put on their face. Others mentioned church. That might be worth exploring, if you're open to the idea of such beliefs. Preferably something fairly mainstream and diverse rather than wacky or cultish. Good luck :)

Check out “childhood emotional neglect” and “complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD)”. There are lots of books, websites, and forums about this.

Your chronic feeling of emptiness and lack of joy indicate that you have turned off your emotions, maybe in early childhood, maybe to block out a traumatic experience or because your family ignored you and so emotions felt useless.

Look for a therapist who specializes in these issues. You will probably need to try out multiple therapists before you find one for you.

Sounds like you have a lot going for you. It is really common with these issues to have low self-esteem, to feel lots of shame, to feel hopelessly broken, etc, but other people probably do not see you like that.

Remember that your overall purpose of life is to simply live it. Let go of your inner expectations ('long term goals') and exist. New long term goals will appear in a new direction as they see fit, and if you have interest, work on those. When those change, continue onward.

Long term is simply 'in this period when I'm alive". We don't know this duration. Ease up on yourself, breathe and enjoy what interests you.

Obviously 5hing changes when you/it you have children, but tia but another path to be pursued if it arises!

Keep your job, but wonder the earth a bit. Do some traveling, either road trips or flying places. Meet other people, see other things, ways of life, discover what's put there and then once you've expressed a bit you will just know. You'll just know what things you like, what things you don't, what you want to double down on and what you want to avoid. Give yourself the space to explore and discover what you like. To do so you need to go out in the world and explore.

every word you typed sounds true to me, I'm also in same age group and job , social situation etc, i have not figured out everything, but on the social interaction part i can say something, that i observed and trying to do, in school and college i did this unconsciously, so when I was with my friends, i have not necessarily thought i have to engage in conversation or etc, but i would be with my friends silently and talk when some topic i like comes, but as i get older and got into job, i came to a mind set that i have to constantly engage with people verbally, which is the trap for avoiding social interaction and getting lonely, sometimes you don't have to talk when in group, you can just sit there and watch people talk or engage in some imagination , but the being physically present gives some kind of fulfillment, that i did my social interaction for the day,second thing not to do is trying to judge or correct all the time if someone is wrong about something, we can just cross over it and find something common to talk about

This might be overly pragmatic and underthinking things, but what worked very well for me personally is to make an account on meetup.com and go to random events (but of course things that you're likely to enjoy). Especially meeting up again with the same group on a semi-regular basis is very satisfying and I made a lot of new friends and certainly got out of the door a lot using this strategy.

I don't have any advice. But I gotta say, I relate to this so much I may as well have written this post word for word.

I’m surprised there’s no mention of psychedelics as a way to get out of your rut. Magic mushrooms aren’t a cure all, but they can help lift the fog and aid rediscovery in your passions and purpose. Of course, you should always do this with a sitter and with preexisting medical conditions taken into account.

Change your location and observe yourself. If you feel better, that's the right direction.

I'll e-mail you with more ideas.

Hard situation to be in...

Here are different things that have helped me or some of my friends (none with exactly the same situation, but with similarities...). Many things have a small effect short term that compound over the time...

- Finding a good counselor you click with (they had to change to find the good one) had been very important and very impactful for 2 of my friends with dire situations... This had been a gradual, over several years, but "spectacular". I think everybody could be better/happier if could do that at some point. (On the top of that, some of my friends got diagnosed "gifted", hypersensitive or on the autism spectrum, and that helped them to understand past things and to navigate present. And I think there is an over-representation of those situation among HN readers...)

- Volunteering, if possible in a group, and helping people you are in contact with, and doing something else than what you do for a living. This is not game changing, but you do help some people, meet new people (that you don't choose), test something different

- Going to work regularly on a small coworking space you kinda click with (me was a self-managed community one). Short term I enjoyed having lunch or coffee with people different than me or my colleagues (and be less alone all day), learning things, giving them a hand at the occasion. Longer term I made some acquaintances and even friends.

- Trying one/some extracurricular activities with the same group of people, some commitment, and fixed time in the week. Those constraints lower the motivation required to keep attending it, which is very important to be able to keep doing it, and then secondly, being in position to benefits from it. It is much harder to keep doing things in you own (ex. running alone, or learning guitar on youtube)

- Trying to live abroad for couple of years (and doing some of the things listed above at the same time). Abroad it is often easier to connect with people. Because people does not know you (yet) and you are in a very new place, you can sometimes feel more free from many (unconscious) "constraints" or burden you were carrying. Being in a very new environment can be stimulating. It helps to get a different insights on you. Depending were you are from and what you like, the place can be very different, with very different experience (personally I met people who really got something from moving from Europe to (busy) Saigon, Chiang Mai or (relatively quiet) Vientiane, or American people moving to Saigon, Vientiane or France)

Sounds like you are depressed. It happens to a lot of us. There’s no answer. Depression is sometimes just there.

No, exercise won’t fix it. Neither will eating well.

Maybe do an appointment with a doctor and see how that goes. Maybe see a therapist? It might help to just talk to someone not emotionally invested.

Best of luck.

> 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 [...] 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.

I'm also quickly approaching thirty as a remote-working dev, have a nice social life + an amazing GF, but existential dread is still an issue now and then :)

Improving your social life is generally a good idea, but to me it seems that fundamental problem is a lack of meaning, purpose and direction.

Some people are merrily living their lives and never face the abyss of „what's the point of all of this”. Apparently you're not one of them, so might need to find purpose in order to achieve a reasonable level of satisfaction in life.

The elephant in the room: Unless you are convinced that every human life (including yours) or at least humanity at whole is inherently valuable, there really is no point in all of this. Especially when considering all the looming crises humanity is facing. Hedonism isn't fulfilling, as you've noticed yourself.

Go take a deep dive into philosophy, religion, psychology. Figure out what you want in life and work towards it.

I can very much recommend listening to/reading Jordan Peterson. Helped me a lot over the past years. I'm currently reading Carl Jung about yearning as a fundamental condition of life and its relation to creativity.

Not every problem has a solution.

Your problem has no solution, statistically speaking.

Please consider the possibility that you can't really change anything, just adapt and accept life as it is.

Can relate. At least you don't have a family which makes you a lot more flexible.

Sometimes I just wish I could dump everything, every responsibility, be the bad guy and be gone.

Are you really lost if you can point out you're lost?

Read some Ecclesiastes or "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. Or maybe "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" for some perspective.

At certain times in life the watering hole dries up, when external and/or internal motives have been squeezed to their last drop it sometimes feels like a desert. Those moments present the opportunity to head down a path to become more authentically loving (Christ-like). Following that lighthouse is always the right direction, no matter how lost you may feel.

read books and workout. very simple. simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, as always. worked for me when I failed the national exam. worked for me when I was unemployed. worked for me when my startup almost went bankrupt the moment Covid hit. worked for me when nearly all my employees left. worked for me and my people every single time… hope you will find happiness and peace in life.

I could type out a long essay that could potentially have relevance to a few points at play here, but let me try something else.

While your attempts to create direction/meaning/etc. for yourself have largely, by your account failed, it seems that you're sufficiently responsible to maintain employment doing software development. As you say, it gives you something to do, and for whatever reason, it makes enough sense to your mind as a motivator to keep at it for the long term.

What if you were to get a dev job that's 100% in-office? Yes, it's forced interaction, but unless you're ultimately a sociopath or something, you'll create enough context with people to potentially form some friendships that can extend beyond work hours. Don't be like a sad puppy following everyone around and don't be an aloof hermit hiding in your cubicle or whatever setup there would be -- both of those things would halt any progress. Observe the social environment and look for opportunities to get involved in the ways that you may be interested in without forcing yourself to be the opposite of who you think you are. If you don't know what you're interested in, then observe until you start getting some ideas. You have the ability in you -- being a software dev requires some level of imagination.

Maybe there's a delivery team monthly bar meetup -- go to that. Maybe there's a department-wide softball match every quarter -- go to that. Go and give it a try, and if it doesn't work out, at least you'd have the satisfaction of having tried.

Books. Read. Read a lot.

This is Oogway in you is getting disappointed with Shifu.

Same. Let me know when you find the answer.

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

Read the Unabomber manifesto

I've been in what I think is a similar place before. Every now and then, I still find myself right there on the edge. In those moments, for me, it's not that I want to exist, or not exist, it's just ...grey. And, an average grey at that - let's call it #CCC. Nothing drives me or energizes me. I just ... am. The advice you mention -- finding friends, connecting with the world around you, finding purpose, finding passion, finding things that satisfy the brain -- was always useless advice to me. It's honestly good advice if a person is in a position to receive it and when they try it, it actually works and moves the needle. It just didn't work for me because it was the wrong timing. I needed to solve my first problems first.

I had to figure out my brain chemistry and what my brain needed. Once everything was mostly fine-tuned through some meds and therapy, I was able to better figure out what I needed.

I found the advice that was previously useless to me made a difference. It's not like code though where you knock something out and after twenty hours of hard work you feel like you achieved something grand and you're proud of your work. No, this is a much slower pace and it requires persistence. Small attempts day by day leads to things looking entirely different after a year.

I needed to work on my physical health and exercise more. I needed healthier habits and boundaries with work. That put my brain chemistry in an even better position.

I needed a connection to people. I too am not the best at maintaining relationships. My brain has issues with object permanence. If it is not in front of me, even people, I just don't think about them. I set up a notebook as a personal CRM and I try to check in with a group of friends and a very close friend as often as I can. Be sure to make a close friend or two. Someone you can share who you really are with. Talk about the things that are not going well in your life. Our culture doesn't promote people being vulnerable with one another but it makes a huge difference if you can find a friend you feel comfortable getting close to. It was challenging for me in my mid to late thirties to try and connect with people again. People are married, have kids, and have moved on and I simply did not stay in touch. Here I was suddenly 'showing back up' as if I hadn't flaked on them for the last 15 years. It has made a difference to have friends. At the end of the day, we're a social species, even the most introverted of us. It may not feel natural or it may not even feel like it's improving your situation but keep grinding it out to create some close friends. I'm a software developer too. I find I like the ritual of being tenacious and pushing through to solve interesting problems. It's a dopamine hit for me to have an interesting problem and solve it. I then love factoring the solution until it is the best abstraction I can come up with. But, my brain has an issue with classifying "interesting" correctly so I have to hack my motivation on mundane work frequently. If an issue isn't interesting, my brain loses motivation. If it is something that really interests my brain, I'm fully on board until I understand the inner workings. I find I have to hack my motivations with relationships, too. I started to treat it as a social experiment and something I needed to figure out.

You might try to find some gregarious folks who do things outside of your comfort zone. Find people with passions that are different than yours but not in a mediocre way where you will be bored and not interested when they talk. You write code and debug it and build up a mental model of how it works. You're going to want to find people with similarly challenging work and passions. It could be anything, maybe they like riding horses, magnet fishing, riding ATVs, camping, shooting, goofing around on a podcast, rock climbing, ballroom dancing, sewing, or painting. Maybe they're just funny and make you laugh and you appreciate the hours of hard work and their ability to craft and weave an interesting story and nail it with a punch line. Find a friend that will call you up on a Saturday and get you to do something you haven't done before. Some of my best memories with friends are of them pushing me out of my comfort zones and me pushing them out of theirs. If that is too far of a reach, I've found working on open-source software gets you into a community and it's not that far of a stretch to make friends in those communities. I met a lot of people through the Asterisk PBX community decades ago. I couldn't value any of this though until I solved my first problems first.

I don't know if any of my advice is helpful or resonates. I am absolutely not an expert. I'm just another person slinging code, trying to find my wallet or keys in my house, living on this rock that is hurling through space at 1.3 million miles per hour.

My personal email is in my profile. Don't hesitate to reach out to me either.

This is one of those few posts that i feel like I’ve posted myself while sleepwalking:)

I feel your pain, bro. At least to the degree possible via writing.

I’ve been there and partially still am.

I haven’t got my sh* together. And haven’t even figured out for sure what i wanna do with my life. Or better say - what else/next I am going to do with it.

And you know what, a substantial (if not most) part of the so called successful people you see on the internet - neither.

I promised myself not to pretend anymore that I have. Not to lie to myself and others when possible.

The good thing is that you have something inside you that craves for a change. It cannot take it no more.

I would focus on this something first.

> no idea what I even want to change

Here you go! There’s a force inside you that wants to change your state of being.

And this has giant meaning for you. Otherwise you wouldn’t bother posting here, right?

So why don’t you start respecting and nourishing this part of you first?

You have nothing to loose, as your other parts didn’t have any luck finding any meaning anyway, did they?

This is what helped me to climb out of the deep black hole i once spiraled down into.

Not to the happy life, but at least to the level when I was motivated enough not to miss an amazing wife god sent my way and start a family.

This has not solved the “void” issue for me. No happy end here, sorry.

But this and having a baby pushed me out of my comfort zone in a good, even though very mentally and physically challenging, way.

Next big step up from the void for me was working with psychotherapist. Although I’ve spent quite an effort finding the “right one”.

This hasn’t made me happy either, sorry :)

But it helped me to start learning to listen to my deep inner voice. The same one that originally screamed for help to get him out of the emotional, social and mental void I’ve put him into.

It helped me to start really caring about me, instead of boosting my ego or supporting my public mask.

It helped me to start recovering that intimate connection with myself most people suggesting to solve such issues by healthy diet or Stoicism teaching take for granted.

I keep learning. And my wifi signal from this inner self is still weak, connection keeps interrupting :)

But at least I am at the point where those surface level meditation/hobby/gym/books/sleeping advice start making some sense to me. And start having some positive effect.

There is a mix of advice on here and I think some of it is quite good. It’s always more difficult to create meaningful connections with people the older you get. But it’s also very possible to have community and still feel alone. Things can also seem bland when life becomes monotonous and repetitive.

However, I think there is something more deeper at play here, and I’m not sure becoming an entirely different person is the way to go. What struck me the most in your post is after coming up with solutions for yourself, you tend to refer back to the feeling of “what’s the point”, or the meaninglessness of it all, and I think that’s what needs to be addressed for any other advice to be useful.

So I wanted to give some opinionated advice regarding this specifically. This is my own personal outlook on life but I feel I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t at least share it.

I’m roughly the same age as you and also a Software Engineer. I’ve spent some time working at startups, larger companies, personal indie projects. Teaching CS even. But I try to not let any of those things define my existence or purpose. I believe it’s important to divorce your profession from your purpose. Your identity as a human being should not be wrapped up in your job, as is the case with most people. It’s harder said than done, but that’s the first thing.

I do not believe we exist as human beings to work, or to create companies, or to build projects, or even to have meaningful relationships, raise children, give charity. All of these things are really important, necessary, take effort, and are awesome. But they are not the point of life. They’re meant to aid the point of life.

Second thing is, I think you are placing too much burden on yourself. There’s a concept in my religion known as Tawakkul. It’s the complete reliance on God. We do not have the answers for everything, and it’s not our job to find all the answers for everything. We put in our best effort and do the best we can with what we have, and we leave the rest to God. In everything we do.

Life is difficult, maintaining relationships is difficult, continuing to go through all of it is not easy. And I can only imagine how much more difficult it is if a person doesn’t have a why.

“And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me.” - Chapter 51, Verse 56

You don’t need to become a monk and give up the things that makes your life comfortable. You also don’t need to reinvent who you are. Life is about balance. You don’t go to the extreme of giving up everything in life and abandoning your place in it for the pursuit of contentment. But you also don’t lead a purely hedonistic life, not realising you will be asked about it one day. Juxtapose these verses for example:

“This worldly life is no more than play and amusement. But the Hereafter is indeed the real life, if only they knew” - Chapter 29, Verse 64

“… do not forget your share of the world. And do good as God has done good to you. And desire not corruption in the land. Indeed, God does not like corrupters." - Chapter 28, Verse 77

Personally, I think most people will have a difficult time making sense of life without any relationship with the One who created them. People tend to be in a perpetual state of pretending to themselves that they are happy. How many people can really answer the question: “what’s the point of literally anything you do if you’ll just die at the end of it?” Most people cannot be still with themselves, and with their thoughts. It’s constant restlessness, unless they are distracting themselves with booze, sex, work, or whatever else.

“Surely in the remembrance of Allah do the hearts find rest.” - Chapter 13, Verse 28.

I’m a Muslim, and the references in this comment are from the Qur’an. You can read it online at quran.com, or order a free physical English copy from https://www.quranproject.org/freequran.php.

Islam, by definition, is about submitting your will to the one who created you, and understanding you are not in control of your destiny. Once someone has internalised this, you really feel a huge weight lift from your shoulders, and the sky begins to clear. Religion is not about being perfect and sinless. It’s about striving to tame your soul and understanding your creator is easy to forgive: “All the sons of Adam are sinners, but the best of sinners are those who repent.” - The Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH).

Beyond that, we were not meant to go through life alone. Islam places a huge emphasis on community:

“A believer to another believer is like a building whose different parts enforce each other.” - The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said this while clasping his hands with his fingers interlaced.

It’s worth pointing out this isn’t always immediate family. Some of the Prophet’s own family did not want good for Him. But this community is the expectation Muslims have of one another. It’s very normal for me to smile and greet a stranger walking down the road and for them to do the same, and go our separate ways, simply because we recognise they’re Muslim. They’re family. As the Prophet (PBUH) said “Every good deed is charity, even meeting your brother with a cheerful face.”

The small things that you do suddenly have meaning, because you’re doing them for the right reasons. You’re no longer expectant from people, only God.

You try to go to the gym not because you want to pull a woman, but because Allah says “The strong believer is more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, but there is goodness in both of them.” (This also applies to mental fortitude, not just physical strength, i.e. controlling your anger.)

You try to be kind and present for your spouse, parents, family and friends not because you expect them to reciprocate, but because the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) says “The merciful will be shown mercy by the Most Merciful. Be merciful to those on the earth and the One in the heavens will have mercy upon you”.

You end up in a constant state of seeking closeness to God, because you have conviction that everything that’s good for you comes from Him, even the things you don’t ask for.

I did say my advice was opinionated, but I hope it’s at least provoked some thinking. I am also quite happy to speak with you about anything I’ve mentioned, or any questions/thoughts you may have related to this. Both on here or privately. I also just want to say that you are not alone, and life can be pretty crappy. So I’ve tried to share how many people on earth understand their life and their purpose. Thank you for being vulnerable and I hope things get better soon.

You seem like a person I can relate to. I felt way you do too, only I had a wife and kids. Then I burnt it all down and went to prison by allowing escapes/shortcuts to become habits, habits replace actual living, and ultimately prison. Let me give you my ex-con wisdom.

1. You are worth getting to know. You are worthy of friendship. This isn't a medium for it, but in another medium I would love to sit down with you and understand you. The fact that you are self aware enough and motived enough to post this here interests me in your story.

2. You are worthy of being loved! I 100% can see from this post a human being that is worthy and deserving of that!

3. You have to NOT make decisions for other people. That isn't fair. Instead of developing healthy relationships where I interacted with people, I instead interacted with made up versions of them in my head, often with the conclusion I wasn't worthy of bothering them/taking their time, or in the case of my spouse, being 100% fully honest with them for the sake of avoiding difficult discussions (that we could have both grown from if I had given us that opportunity). STOP. Let them decide if they want to answer your phone call/email/however you kids are communicating these day. Never make decisions for them.

Case in point, I almost didn't call my son on Thanksgiving because he would be with my exs family and I didn't want to make it awkward. But guess what, if he doesn't want to he doesn't have to answer the phone. But if I don't call, I take away him getting to make that choice. I called and he told me how he was making my special 'secret recipe' that I had taught only him so that I was still a part of his Thanksgiving. My Thanksgiving went from incredibly horrible to having a bright spot because I DIDN'T MAKE THE CHOICE FOR HIM. Let people choose, don't choose for them by not communicating.

4. This is it. It's our only life. You want it to be a movie or some great novel. But you probably aren't going to save the world or alter the course of history. But that's OK. You can still choose, are you the hero or the villain in YOUR story? And this is enough. It's no just enough, it's NEEDED.

5. The universe is chaos and indifference. Everyone you know or care about will die one day. Anything you build will barely outlast your lifetime. Today is EVERYTHING. Your approx. 60 trips around one yellow dwarf star out of the 200 billion trillion stars is it. If I offered you a trip to visit only Paris for two weeks would you pass it up because there are 10,000 other cities and only visiting one city isn't enough? That because the trip offered is only 2 weeks and you can't accomplish everything you want in 2 weeks it isn't enough time and not worth taking? Heck no, you would take the trip to Paris. But somehow an unbroken chain of life, driving itself to survive over hundreds of millions of years, leading to your unique chance to experience your life is not enough? Come on dude, you are a little inflated on what constitutes 'enough' is.

Look at your life differently. It's not only enough, it's MORE than enough. It's a LIFETIME worth of experiences. You think it's not much, but when I was locked in a prison cell the size of an elevator, with a cellie, bunk bed, lockers, desk, chair for over a year because of COVID, with all normal rights like going outside denied because COVID I would close my eyes and go back to even my most mundane previous days like they were a day spent at Disneyland. I could choose what to eat? I could choose to have hot water to make tea/coffee? OMG was I spoiled in those dream days.

6. Be present. But that means more than all the self help BS. It also means be 100% honest. People deserve that, you deserve that. It's ok to be you. People don't have to accept you. I tried to have everyone like me. I learned in prison not only can you make have everyone like you, most people aren't worth even knowing you.

7. Strange one here. Drink less coffee. It's numbing, it sharpens your mind in non-social directions but dulls social/emotional needs. It is amazing when I need to be a code monkey drone or weight lifting beast, but adds nothing to me living a fulfilled life. Caffeine to motivation is the equivalent of fast food to nurishment. It will keep you going, but it's not going to take you where you want.

8. Look people in the eyes. Shake their hands when you see them. Be happy to see them. Call them by their name. Let them know that they are seen. The downside, so many hungry/thirsty people who are hurting and unseen will try to latch on to you because you see them when most don't. So be honest with them don't fake friendship is you don't feel it with someone.

Mainly you are worthy and deserving of friendship and love, and unless you happen to luck out probably won't find either until you understand that. You have no right to make choices for others, so call them, ask them to do things, give them the opportunity to make choices for themselves. You won a free trip to experience the universe as adantical. Be grateful for that and not upset you didn't get to be Brad Pitt or someone else. Others deserve to have the person known as adantical at HN treat them with 100% honesty, and you deserve to be able to be 100% to who you are. This doesn't mean everyone has to accept your or what you say, don't expect that. Others get to be honest too, and their honesty is a gift to you, when again, dishonesty could be easier in the moment. Shortcuts to goals, including simple things like stimulants such as coffee, or finding community in places like HN that ultimately can't develop to what you want, can not be allowed to develop from shortcuts to habits, and from habits to completely replacing those things you need.

Finally, as we told each other in prison 'Keep your head up!'

I agree with virtueman's comment here that there is something messed up with environment (using that term quite liberally here) where you have material luxury but can't quite share it with anybody. However in every problem lies an opportunity. And allow me to share it as how I -an outsider- sees it.

When you say `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 see the following facts: a person who can earn a reasonable amount of money to live well and who does not have pressing personal obligations to others at this point in their lives. This allows this person to do things that a lot of people can't do and as such he/she should try somethings that are well suited for said person as described by the facts.

Some actionable ideas: 1. Volunteer - ideally through physical labour. 2. Leave the country you are in work in a different place/culture. 3. Leave the country you are in and travel while keeping your job (this requires you have a remote job) 4. Explore new hobbies. People typically make friends around shared interests. 4.1 - eg: photography but of type that requires doing something new like, sports photography - forces you to go out to events and capture action; astrophotography - forces you to go out explore the night skies and be a part of that group; macro photography - forces you to see things that most people miss, Microscopic photography - get a microscope, stick a camera on it and stick a small piece of whatever you are having for lunch or dinner under it; bird photography - forces you to chase birds and the next thing you know you will meet interesting members from the Audubon society. 4.2 Arts: drawing, painting, sketching.. take some classes - ideally in person- see if anything sticks. 4.3 Creating something with your hands: wood working, ceramics etc 5. Last but not least - start listening to your inner voice. Most people feel lost (including myself when I was - more before than now) when for one reason or another have stopped listening what they wanted. I think this typically happens during childhood/yound adulthood and progresses over time to a point where what you want is completely overshadowed by your conceptions of what the society/environment/culture thinks of what somebody your age/type should want. This is usually years in the making and take some time to undo but with perseverance can be undone. Start small with little things like lunch - what do you want for lunch and not what you should be having for lunch. ask yourself such questions at various time during the day everyday to see if there is an incongruence between what you are doing in that moment / timeframe and what you want to do ideally (even if its impractical). this is how you listen yourself and over time learn to listen to you 'voice'

Good luck and the best is most definitely yet to come for you!

> In my early twenties, I would self-medicate with various addictions

Which ones? Some drugs are more social than others. On the other hand, your problems sound pretty deep-seated and you probably won't relax enough to bridge that gap with recreational use. You'd probably be better with a therapeutic approach.

> 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.)

I don't think 'deciding' to have a hobby ever works that well. It is perfectly normal to get interested in something, try it out, and then lose interest after the initial thrill has worn off. But drive comes from being obsessed by something even if you're useless at it. Avoid comparing yourself to others, which is a huge problem in this age of social media. Your solitary tendencies are an asset here in that you can take time to get really into something that fascinates you. It's fine to find this late or be lost along the way.

> [...] 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.

It sounds very much like you're judging your efforts on the foreseeable outcome, and lacking depth/experience that outcome doesn't seem that great. Don't worry about it. It's perfectly OK to just please yourself, and even if all you ever work on are simple things, those might be the useful examples someone else desperately needs. Don't worry about the outcome, do it because you like it. Being goal-oriented is not the only way to go and tbh I think it's massively overrated.

Some of that is cultural. One approach you should consider is trying out a different culture for a while to see if you like it. Moving to a different country for a while is the closest thing there is to a life reset button. You have to deal with people because you don't know your way around, to the point of perhaps needing language classes. And you have to work differently at it because you'll need to meet people across linguistic and cultural gap, so you'll get a lot of practice telling your backstory and answering the kind of predictable questions about it (from superficial to serious and thought provoking). It's totally OK to be kind of awkward in this situation. In general it's fine to be awkward as long as you're nice. You'll also be able to practice listening and asking other people about their lives, and making it easier for other awkward people to communicate with you.

Having a solid economic situation gives you a huge head start. Figure out the logistics, pack a bag, and head off somewhere - don't overthink it, just follow your whims. If your first whim isn't that rewarding, try somewhere else. Just go be a part-time tourist for a while and immerse yourself in some different environments until you stumble on something you really like.