Hi everyone, I would appreciate some advice or perspective.I have reached a weird crossroads in life. Uni graduate, working for 4 years at the same company. I would say I am versatile and have a wide range of technical skills and strong creativity. I very often come up with ideas for projects that I do alone or with others. When I bring them to life (they don’t just stay as ideas, I actually build them), it fulfills me and I really love every part of the process of making something. At work, I even get a chance sometimes to show this side of myself, but of course, it is just a job.Even with everything I do, for some reason, it is hard for me to have a set clear goal in my head. I am talking about any kind of goal, whether it is related to family, career, or finances or even those 'dream' goals like 'I want to make a record label'. I am worried because I don’t think I have a single goal in life right now, as sad as it sounds. It would be completely different if, for example, I wanted to turn one of my ideas into a startup and was just afraid to take that step, but I don’t feel like I want to do that. At least that would be a goal.I need some kind of compass, so that when I look back one day in the future, I don’t feel like time just passed and life happened to me instead of the other way around. I want to avoid ending up paralyzed and doing nothing while time passes. Actually, while writing this, I came to one conclusion: I know I want “more.”. Have you ever found yourselves in a similar situation, and how did you figure out which path to take, what is most important to you, and what you want to work towards? Out of all your interests, how did you know which one to invest in?Thanks!
>>34372514sounds like you are just too pragmatic to have lofty goals swimming around your head. consider the opposite (depicted in this viral image macro) where you have plenty of goals and act on none of them. would you say that would be a better existence? from my perspective as someone like that, it isn't.what is it that is causing this dread for your life? is it a desire to make more money? to leave a bigger impact on the world? a fear of inadequacy personally or intimately? a fear of being forgotten by history? we need more context beyond "I'm an NPC worker drone, how do I fix this?"
>>34372514>I need some kind of compass, so that when I look back one day in the future, I don’t feel like time just passed and life happened to me instead of the other way around. I want to avoid ending up paralyzed and doing nothing while time passes.I had this same problem. Start journaling. Throw out your emotional reaction towards the idea of keeping a gay little diary. This is the one thing you can actively do to slow down the passage of time. When days just blend together in a frenzy, you don't have time to look back on anything and reflect. Take the time at the end of your day to pull out a journal and write down what you did that day. It doesn't need to be long. You can even narrow it down just to things that aren't work or class or whatever. After enough days of writing down the same things, you will have a physical manifestation of your inaction to look back upon, and this was enough for me to start making changes in my life. If one journal entry matches the previous, it's time to do something different. After enough time you will start to have more and more vivid introspection. Trust me bro. Goodluck.
>>3437262>what is it that is causing this dread for your life? It's two things,I recognise that if I really want to do something on the scale and quality I aspire for I will have to really commit to it and say 'no' to all the other options. I just don't know what to commit to, I don't know how to know what I want.Also I want to use that want to steer my lifestyle in a certain way, because I don't want to just take the default path and options because that doesn't feel right to me.>you are just too pragmatic to have lofty goals swimming around your head.I've worked hard on my ability to output and finish things because I was like this too. Out of a million ideas I've had I've made a chunk of them but it's a minority still. The perfect is the enemy of the good was my mentality. Thank you for your answer.>>34372639Thank you! Great advice
one and final bump
>>34372514maybe you don't need goals, maybe you need a set of ethics to follow, morals to uphold, a way of life and just live it everywhere in everything you do. i kind of have that, i am very creative and helpful, if i go out camping i am always the one chopping wood and making the fire and putting up a tarp and stuff like that, maybe i am taken advantage of but my true friends show their appreciation and pay me back.>how did you figure out which path to take, what is most important to you, and what you want to work towards? Out of all your interests, how did you know which one to invest in?i asked myself what i care about and it is conserving old things that are neglected by others, i preserve bits of history and tradition in my own way and people even notice that i uphold "all the days" like shrove tuesday or lent recently for example.i have kind of done this forever though, i don't think that hard about it, i have this drive to do it and i just do.ask yourself what you love or what you care about.
>>34375068thank you anon, but how do I 'get somewhere' if I dont have a plan let alone Goals, if I just have values ethics etc I feel like I'd just be like plastic bag in the wind, being carried around by life, instead of placing my feet firm on the ground and going in a direction. It's great you recognised and you maintain your natural instinct, you make use of something that you always did and it feels rewarding.
>>34372514I'm a neet so I wouldn't knowbtw I cried with your post because you are so polite that I felt moved by your good manners
>>34372514>how did you figure out what to do in lifeI interviewed a bunch of people that had the kinds of jobs I thought I wanted to do and got their honest assessment of what they liked and hated about their jobs.And I ruled out quite a few simply based on where the related companies were located. I wanted to be a toy designer when I was younger, but the locations where those companies are headquartered are very unappealing and the work is stressful according to the people I talked to.I also wanted to be a pilot, but found out that most of the ones I talked to said they were in debt for most of their careers, much in the same way that a lot of doctors are in debt until they're in their early 50s. And that the career path for pilots makes having a family (and seeing them) a real nightmare.By happenstance and hobbies I ended up in drafting, which was the same career path my grandfather on my mother's side had for most of his professional life. Then transitioned to CAM programming, engineering, and metrology.
>>34375490are you for real???? that is so sweet. If it makes you feel better I think I am a polite and empathetic person in general (at least all my friends tell me so haha) so I am glad it translated even across a 4chan post. I hope you find your happiness and your place wherever it may be>>34375521what a pragmatic and clean cut engineer approach. awesome, its definately very specific and doable advice. I might just do that with the industries I'm interested in. Thank you!
