What do you want out of life? Dino: Do many people know what they want out of life? I'm not asking for details(though they are welcome), I am just curious as to whether or not many of you have long term plans. I know that I had no long term plans in my mind. I still don't really. I thought that I could be happy wherever my life took me as I had my partner by my side to share it. It gave me great comfort believing she would always be there with me. Now that I am alone, I am thinking I should have greater direction.
My goals were all short to medium term.
Graduate uni - done
Get a job - done
Get a good job - done
Buy house - done
marry love of life - not quite..but still a goal..when i meet her
live happily - work in progress
any great philosophers out there?
Re:What do you want out of life? Chase: You're going through the same as me bitterdino. I've worked out that I need to work on myself. But now I can't work out what it is I want! I could copy your list and call it my own.
Maybe the big picture is not so important, I'm taking the baby steps approach. Over the next few months I'm going to contact friends I've lost touch with, or haven't seen often enough recently. And I'm going to go out with them by myself (sans wife), and do stupid selfish stuff like play a round of golf (always wanted to do that, never have) or go bowling, or just go to a bar, get drunk and catch taxi home. Stuff I've been denying myself for years because I have a family and responsibilities and it's not fair on my wife to do these selfish things.
I reckon my only real big long term goal has been to share my life with someone I love. Maybe thinking I'd achieved that made me lazy or something.
Chase
Re:What do you want out of life? Thinkin: Easy,
Health, wealth, and happiness.
I wish I could find myself a genie
Re:What do you want out of life? down south xhubbie: This is a great topic to bring up
#1 If you are taking a trip to an unfamiliar place, wouldn't you map out your course before taking the trip?
Yet many of us, including myself, have either made such plans, but have lost sight of those plans OR they've never really given it much thought
#2 According to a scripture in the New Testament of the Bible, "without a vision, the people perish." Back in their day and time, if you didn't have long range plans (such as preparing for the winter), you could potentially starve to death. :o Nowadays with supermarkets and restaurants, that's not as likely to happen. However, there are other ways to "starve" to death.
I don't know if I so much make long term plans as plan little things for the future (vacations, new educational credentials, home renovations) that give me hope
Re:What do you want out of life? Daniel: When other's look at my life it's an unbelievable success, but to me it's emtpy. It's true that I've been taking meds for depression for years so my view point is from an "unhealthy" mind, but even on them I still feel that people are avoiding the point that life has little meaning. You can count the little successes, but they're only important and meaningful if you believe/imagine they are. People's brains are set up to look for patterns and to find meaning even where there isn't any. It's necessary for our survival. Here's something to think about:
[quote"> Existential depression is a depression that arises when an individual confronts certain basic issues of existence. Yalom (1980) describes four such issues (or "ultimate concerns")--death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness. Death is an inevitable occurrence. Freedom, in an existential sense, refers to the absence of external structure. That is, humans do not enter a world which is inherently structured. We must give the world a structure which we ourselves create. Isolation recognizes that no matter how close we become to another person, a gap always remains, and we are nonetheless alone. Meaninglessness stems from the first three. If we must die, if we construct our own world, and if each of us is ultimately alone, then what meaning does life have?[/quote">
-Daniel
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