Anyone else feel like ~99% of their life was kind of wasted?
Anyone else feel like ~99% of their life was kind of wasted?
In the last year or so I started to see so many people of my age that have done truly incredible things and still doing more.
For the vast majority of my life my only goals were gettimg academic satisfaction and doing unproductive stuff in the free time to get temporary pleasure. No end goal whatsoever.
I kind of don't know what I've been doing in the last 17 years while someone gets a patent on solar systems, other invents a new recyclable plastic, and another found a successful startup. I mean, they all find what they're supposed to be doing with their lives and excel in them.
I feel overwhelmed for trying to pace up with these kind of people. Yet I don't like the way the things are and I can't do anything but envy those people.
Anyone with experience in this regard? How did you deal with this? Did you eventually "pace up" with these people or was it too late or an unattainable goal?
Edit: Whoops, I didn't expect so many replies! Thanks, I'll look into them all
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- Comparison is the thief of joy.
- The relationship between hard work and success is tenuous at best.
Your mentality is fucked up IMO. You don't need to keep up with anyone. Just do what you think you can. Live your life instead of chasing someone else's.
unproductive stuff in the free time to get temporary pleasure
You do realize your whole life is temporary, right? The way you phrased that makes it seem like sitting down to listen to your favourite songs is a waste of time.
Agreed. And when you think about, everything is unproductive, really. You are here for a short period of time, and nothing is productive in the grand scheme of things. How does the universe benefit from what Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates have achieved? Absolutely not at all. The Earth is a speck of dust in the grand scheme of the Universe. Just live life and do whatever you want. Enjoy this weird existence that we somehow all were blessed (and cursed) with. Nobody knows why or how we are even here, so just enjoy it as much as you can, while you can.
based
Yeap.
We live through life at different pace. You can be slow at the start and can always progress later. You are the author of your life so don't let people's life decide for you.
Personally, I'm not chasing someone else's life but the life I envision for myself. My biggest dream is living in Iceland, learning Icelandic, having a degree of financial freedom, and time to get fit. Pretty reasonable goals but ones I don't think I'm going to reach working minimum wage retail. I want to do programming but learning it has been a constant challenge.
I think the feeling of wasting your life comes from the reminder that life is temporary. That we're all on a timer and every moment we spend doing something we don't like is another moment we could have spent doing something we loved. I don't accept that death is inevitable, just a disease we haven't cured yet. The hope that I'll have time to complete my dreams makes the knowledge I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel a little more manageable.