I've lost my purpose in life and don't know where to go

Ever since my third year of high school I felt like I could be more. I could be different. I could be better. And as of late, I’ve been feeling like there’s nothing left for me. I’ve been out of school for a few months after finishing college and I haven’t done anything. I haven’t focused on my career, I haven’t found a job, I haven’t met anyone new. I want to advance my career but I always feel inferior to others who are better than me and it brings me down. I’m having trouble sleeping or I will sleep too much. I will eat too much one day and not eat at all the next few. I keep telling myself things will change and I will better myself. But things haven’t changed. I feel like I wasted my parents money and my own on college tuition. I want to focus on my career but I just don’t have the energy. I don’t have the will to get up and do things productively. And it’s not just my career and social life I’m neglecting. It’s my own self being. I have neglected my weight for a few years and have gone up in weight. I feel like I’ve not only let others down but I’ve let myself down the most. Around 2016 was when my depression hit for the worst. I wanted to give up completely. I didn’t think I would graduate high school not only with my grades, but with my life. I haven’t felt like that until the past month or so. I want to do things with my life but I don’t know how.

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Hi there,
man that’s so hard. it’s so difficult to feel like you can be more but don’t know how to be exactly. “I could be more” is such a broad quote. I’m guessing you’re saying you could be more in multiple ways. The truth is that you are. You’re enough. You’re you.

I understand how you feel when you say you could be better, more, and different. But guess what! you are all of those things! You being yourself is being different! there isn’t a clone of you. You are one person, no one else is like you. Learning you’re likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests, are all things that make you YOU. if you feel like you could do more, try doing something out of your comfort zone, something you’ve never experienced before.

It sounds like you’re just stuck in a pit, and all of these worries and struggles just make the pit deeper. Friend, I feel you. I’m STILL in that pit. I’m gonna give you a little bit of advice that I hope helps. A while back, I posted a topic that Dan and Casey talked about on the livestream, where I mentioned I feel lost, hopeless, and was just in a bad place. Casey then started to talk about how we have to strip ourselves down and build ourselves back up. He said it’s like rebuilding a house. Wouldn’t you just love to repaint the house, in this case, touch on the issues right now whether than digging DEEP down to figure out what’s really going on? if we just touched the surface, we wouldn’t have to rebuild the entire house! the problem is that, we can’t do that because the house is BROKEN, we (you) are broken. We have to strip every down to the FOUNDATION of the house and build ourselves back up again.
So the summarize, if you would like to try to better yourself mentally and change, I recommend doing some soul searching (which can be really hard, I know, but really beneficial) and get to the core of what the problem is and find a solution for it! you want to get a job? meet someone?figure out your career? make small goals for yourself! ones that are realistic enough, but challenging. I promise you’ll get so much out of it.
you haven’t wasted your parents. everyone goes through this at some point in their life. they feel like they failed themselves and their parents, and they can’t make it up. first of all, telling yourself you have failed your parents is a lie. your parents love you with all their hearts. they want the best for you and are willing to help in any way they can. I promise.
we love you here. you are so treasured and loved. we believe in you and know you are strong.
keep fighting

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@EverVerse

Hi. Thank you for sharing your struggles. It means a lot to the community. It’s okay to feel this way. This past years, I was in a similar place. I didn’t know of how my life is going to be, my purpose in this world, and I thought I failed everybody. Things got better. I do have problems. That’s part of life. However, it is up to me of how I can view it, cope with it, and decide of what I can do. Back to you, my friend. You are not a failure. You are in a journey. You are in a process of change. It takes time. It maybe a corney thing to say, but hey! Go figure! Hehe. If you need anything, HS is here for you. Keep pressing on.

Hey @EverVerse,

It sounds like we’re around the same age and in-and-out of struggling with a similar topic, and I want to share what I’ve discovered so far with you. I, too, have had a misguided fire in me for a while, and life is a game in which we need to try to discover what makes us come alive. Then, chase it. Maybe sharing my personal story with you will help you brainstorm a little:

When I was in high school, I learned that I had a passion for people. Then, I learned to categorize that passion into wanting to help people either physically and/or mentally. I didn’t know exactly what to do next. After bouncing around in college for a while, I decided to chase a degree in business administration with a focus in music business. Music is powerful and so many music artists have made me feel better when I was going through a difficult time. I decided that wanted to work in record labels and to find more unique music artists to develop and to send out into the world to comfort people through their lyrics. So, in a way, I was fulfilling part of my passion of helping people mentally by finding musicians to help people through music. I still wasn’t satisfied though. I asked myself why I was afraid to be a music artist, myself. So, I stepped outside of my comfort zone and distributed my first single back in March. Then a second one last month. And a third one is planned for early next year. I’ve never felt so alive before, directly impacting and uplifting people like this. So now, I can say 1 of the 2 of helping people “physically and mentally” is being fulfilled through my music, but helping people “physically” is still missing. So, next semester I’m going to get my feet wet by taking a few EMS classes - slowly disembarking from working at a record label and joining the first-responding/firefighting industry instead. Because the shifts are usually 24 hours on and 48 hours off, it’ll give me more than enough time to continue to make music as well. So now, theoretically, I will have fulfilled my passion of directly helping people physically and mentally.

I’m still figuring things out as I go, and you’re not alone. I hope some of this inspired you to continue to dig for your passion. What makes you come alive?

-Eric