How can I stop seeing the futility of EVERYTHING in this world?

You’re in good company with Hamlet:

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Looked at from one point of view, it is all empty and futile. Everything does come to dust in the end. But if we take another perspective, if we think of the process and not the endpoint, if we give our minds a wider sweep than just our narrow little personal domain, if we think of meaning and not just of matter, if we consider others besides ourselves, or if in any number of other ways we enlarge our view, we no longer think we’ve seen it all just because we’ve seen impermanence.

Exactly Hamlet’s point of view!

That’s what I said.

Thank you and well said. It is not that I do not care about others, it is more myself that I do not care about. But even this “process” seems to me wasted energy. I admit your way of looking at things is correct and a healthy outlook on life. As hard as I try I just can’t get over this attitude and things seem to me even more futile each year that passes by. When I look at what is happening around me all round the globe, then I am convinced of futility!

I hope you don’t mind my asking, but are you under 30? Have you recently studied philosophy or come to some big conclusions in your life? The reason I ask is because it sounds like you’re going through a classic existential crisis. I think a lot of people who think deeply about life get to this point. I’ve certainly been there. The good news is, it can be overcome if you remember that there is an awful lot of joy to be found (and given) just in the living of this temporary life. No further meaning is really necessary, so try to relax and enjoy the ride.

Nope! Well over 30 and I have always had this tendency, it is just getting worse as time goes by and it has become somewhat tyrannical!

Well, crap. That’s a long crisis, huh? So much for my input. :p

Can you think of any changes you could make to your life or lifestyle that might help you break the pattern?

Yes, do you think that these changes will help clear the clouds though?

It very well might. Particularly the type of change that encourages your thoughts to lead outward, to other people. Something like volunteering is a good place to start. Just putting a smile on someone else’s face is like instant gratification. Bigger changes may even make you feel more in control of your life, which may translate into meaning for you. At the very least, it can’t hurt to try. Come to the bright side, @ZEPHYRA… we have cookies, too.

It helped me when I finally realized that there doesn’t have to be any purpose or meaning to anything in order to enjoy it. Example: a beautiful flower grows in a gulch and no one ever sees it. What was the point of that? There is no point. So what? Futility can only exist when there is some sort of expectation or goal.

Be happy because that feels better than not feeling happy, and that is the only reason you need.

Everybody goes through some existential crisis in their lives. I’ve been there, too. Understanding why I feel such helped me. I hope these links will be helpful to you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

and a little something to make you laugh:

http://www.9gag.com/gag/108741/

I personally think we have to embrace the realization of our temporariness and live our life to the fullest, thinking that we are lucky to exist out of the millions who could have… (Just think how many sperm cells are brought to waste, and how many ovums didn’t make it to form a new life because of menstruation. This is the most practical answer I could think of. :D)

@YARNLADY – that is a ga and the way I feel as well. I have been accused on occasion of being shallow but really, I can only do what I can do and I only have a limited time here. So I reckon I might as well have fun. I do good when the opportunity arises, the rest of the time I strive to make me happy. This is from Al-anon and is helpful also, especially number 7 at least for me! So read and heed! :-)

Just for Today

Just for today, I will try to live through this day only,
and not tackle my whole life problem
at once. I can do something for twelve hours
that would appall me if I felt that I had to
keep it up for a lifetime.

Just for today, I will be happy. This assumes to
be true what Abraham Lincoln said, that
“most folks are as happy as they make up
their minds to be.”

Just for today, I will try to strengthen my mind.
I will study. I will learn something useful.
I will not be a mental loafer. I will read
something that requires effort, thought and
concentration.

Just for today, I will adjust myself to what is,
and not try to adjust everything to my own
desires. I will take my “luck” as it comes,
and fit myself to it.

Just for today, I will exercise my soul in three
ways: I will do somebody a good turn, and
not get found out. I will do at least two
things I don’t want to—just for exercise.
I will not show anyone that my feelings are
hurt; they may be hurt, but today I will not
show it

Just for today, I will be agreeable. I will look
as well as I can, dress becomingly, talk low,
act courteously, criticize not one bit, not
find fault with anything and not try to improve
or regulate anybody except myself.

Just for today, I will have a program. I may not
follow it exactly, but I will have it. I will
save myself from two pests: hurry and indecision.

Just for today, I will have a quiet half hour all
by myself, and relax. During this half hour,
sometime, I will try to get a better perspective
of my life.

Just for today, I will be unafraid. Especially I
will not be afraid to enjoy what is beautiful,
and to believe that as I give to the world, so
the world will give to me.

-Kenneth L. Holmes

I go through this at different times in my life it seems. I can relate. But, it always passes until something else causes me to question the point of anything. I have always been this way. I was even more so when I was a teen. I think I just view it as part of being human. The trick is to not let it swallow you whole.

This reminds me of a quote (I believe the author is unknown):
“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.”

I try to remember that, even though my existence seems rather futile in this big world ..that, in my small corner of it, I am somebody. I exist, in this small spot ..in my own way.

I have to agree with @PluckyDog. I try to focus in on what’s my sphere on influence, and where I do matter. And I work on creating a meaningful experience for all in that space. An example is having a gay child. Not what I expected, but how I came to terms with it was the realization that I could be dead, but she would still be gay. I could send her off into adulthood with more emotional baggage than she would pick up on her own, or I could help her in whatever way she needs me to help her. I focus on being the parent she needs me to be. Or I join the Bachelor/Bachelorette pools at work. Not because I’ve ever watched the shows, but because it’s more fun for the others if more people participate, and the ones that do watch like coming by and telling me what happened on the show. It would seem like meaningless conversation, but it is meaningful because it creates a social interaction and connectivity.

Most of the things that matter in life are the small things. My daughters don’t remember the trip to Disney in high school, but they do remember throwing sheets over the dining room table when they were 7 and 5.

I would strongly and seriously suggest some good counseling. Medication may be called for.

I knew someone with exactly your outlook, almost word for word, about five years ago. I hadn’t known about that particular outlook, though, until during the recovery from an attempted suicide. It was a “real” attempt, too, not just a dramatic “cry for attention / assistance”.

Since then, that person’s outlook has changed 180° – the comparison between now and then is nearly unimaginable. (And the course of drugs only lasted a couple of months – they probably weren’t ‘needed’ at all.)

I still think that you may be clinically depressed. You can take the Mayo Clinic’s Depression Self-Assessment to check.

In the meantime, put yourself on a strict news diet. You do not need to know about all the depressing things going on in the world.

Try to laugh more.

Try to see the beauty in life: a bird, a flower, a tree, a puppy.

I agree with the suggestion for volunteering. If you personally make a difference for the positive in people’s lives, it may change your outlook.

Get some exercise. That raises your endorphin levels.

The important thing to know is that you don’t have to go through life feeling bad.

Listening to responses from this guru might help you reach a different level of thought about reality.

I was gonna answer this question, but what’s the point?

You have been making depressed sounding posts for a long time. Have you been in therapy? I know it is easy to look at the long view (or politics) and feel despair but life is more livable if one can find some daily meaning and pleasure. Find a good counselor to explore these feelings with.

Whatever your age, it still sounds like an existential crisis. The first thing to note is this: if nothing matters, then it doesn’t matter that nothing matters. If you find life preferable to the alternative, even if there’s nothing actually bad about being dead, then that is enough of a reason to keep going.

Second, I would disagree that everything is futile just because it isn’t permanent. An act of kindness lasts for only a brief time, but it can be of great importance in that moment. Even the heat death of the universe cannot change the fact that you helped someone out or made someone happy. It can erase all record of the event, but not the fact of its occurrence.

You are stronger than oblivion, so laugh in its face.

It IS all temporary!
This is fact!
Why fight it?
Embrace the FACT that you are a unique life form, you don’t HAVE a life, you ARE life!
From this perspective, you do not attach to finding an identity outside yourself, your BEING is the root of all satisfaction.

You embrace the fleetingness of all things, while also knowing you have the power to bring good into the world and to enjoy the gifts of life without neurotic attachment to the most damaging concept ever….the concept of forever!

No-thing, relationship, job, house, car, state of mind is permanent.
Once you accept this truth, you are truly free, liberated to in-joy the world of form, but not stuck in childish egoic postures of constantly wanting, which keeps you stuck in a chronic state of dissatisfaction.

Learn to find joy in GIVING, get out of the selfish little universe that sits atop your shoulders!
Develop your gifts and SHARE them with the world!

My greatest joy is in making others laugh, and I often have people tell me I ‘made their day.’ THAT is a large part of my happiness, sharing my quirky, offbeat, ad lib humor with others.

Stop taking yourself so SERIOUSLY! We do create our own reality by the thoguhts we keep.
Feast on negative thoughts, doom & gloom, meaninglessness, the woes of the world, and, trust me…the universe will deliver exactly that to your doorstep.

Change your thinking, change your life!

Thank you ALL so much for your brilliant answers, you are all so right. It’s just that I am not feeling comfortable in my own skin! As if I would like to rip out of it? Sick uh??

What makes humans different from other creatures, as far as I can tell, is that we make meaning. We are capable of deciding what our lives mean. Some people are scared of this freedom, so they want to be told what meaning is. It does no good. We’re all stuck in the end, trying to decide what our lives mean.

I see life as a gift. It is a gift of experience and consciousness. It is a gift we get once and that’s it. Once we give it up, there’s nothing. A nothing of a nothing. No awareness ever again.

I’m incredibly lucky to have life. To have awareness. To have consciousness. To be able to decide what my life means. It seems to me that it is likely that we humans may be the only consciousness in the entire universe. Even if there are other conscious beings, the ratio of universe to consciousness is so overwhelmingly large that our lives are less likely than the chances of hitting millions of lotteries in a row.

Now I’ve been in deep pain. I have come close to deciding that this gift was not worth the pain. I have been in enough despair and fear that I almost decided to kill life before life killed me. The uncertainty of when the moment of destruction will come can be unbearable.

I tend to do this in relationships. I’m convinced that the woman will dump me at some point, so I just push the issue and make it happen sooner. I could do that with life, too.

I am having a love affair with life, and I don’t want it to end. I’ll do anything to keep it going. Unless I’m depressed.

So they gave me meds and I got out of depression—perhaps because of the meds and perhaps not. I’m still taking the meds. After I got “better” life seemed more enjoyable. There was more possibility of happiness.

Futility? You don’t have to have futility. You can choose any goal you want. You can choose easy ones or impossible ones. I like impossible goals. I learned at an early age that I was a failure if I didn’t save the world in some way.

What’s that all about? Status is what. I could have other goals that don’t make me more important than anyone, and I could achieve them. It really doesn’t matter. The goals are there for choosing. I can choose ones I can attain, or ones I can’t attain.

You feel like your life is futile because you have goals you can’t attain. The reason why you choose these goals probably has a lot to do with how you were brought up. If you don’t want a life of futility, you have to change your goals. In order to change your goals, you probably need several things. You need to find out what is pushing you to hang your worth on unattainable goals. Then you will need coping techniques to counteract that psychological pressure you feel.

It’s up to you, of course. Right now you want life to be futile. You have to want that, otherwise you wouldn’t choose to feel that way. Unless you are depressed. But deal with depression, revisit your goals, develop coping mechanisms and you will be all right.

@ZEPHYRA, do you feel like you have to pretend to be someone that you’re not?

@BarnacleBill no, not at all. I just couldn’t be bothered with it all!

I like your avatar, it is certainly bright and cheery. I think I understand how you feel though I don’t have an answer. There will be a solution to this for you but you may have to work it out for yourself. We are all different, we are all looking for meaning in our lives, to some it comes easily, to others it is harder, they are the philosophers.

Perhaps you should think about time. You worry about our temporariness. That comes about from the way you view time, but there are different ways of looking at time. A day may seem short compared with a lifetime or the age of the universe but all the time in the world is crammed into each day. A day is overflowing with time. There are also miracles; you may step through a familiar doorway one day and everything will be different.

I might not be the one to give advice, but I hear ya. I’ve been in a similar boat for quite some time now. Life sometimes seems like an endless string of mundane and seemingly pointless tasks that all add up to nothing in the end. I get into my own moods like this on a regular basis. I find in these situations that it helps to focus on the present, as some would say “to live in the moment,” rather than stewing over what could have been, what might be or what hasn’t happened yet. It seems almost as if you have to “fool yourself” to get through each day with a sense of purpose. That can be easier said than done.

P.S. I don’t regard that perspective as over-realistic. I actually think it is less than realistic and that a more realistic view would do you good (and feel better). To me a more realistic view sees things as they are, or attempts to. When you see things with a lot of emotional loading, you are seeing them as you are and not as they are.

@ZEPHYRA Constant depression and not feeling comfortable in your own skin is a huge weight to bear… I did it for years. I can’t tell you how much of a difference therapy and meds made in my life. Life is so much better on the other side of this. After reading all of this, I definitely concur that a therapist (and maybe meds) could be really helpful for you. Please do consider it. We want the best for you. <3

Lots of GAs in this thread. I’ll share my personal epiphany on the matter:

Your life, moment to moment, is the output of the way you’ve been living. If you’re getting undesirable results simply change the way you live and your life necessarily will change with it.

@ninjacolin – you make it sound so simple and easy! :-)

If you haven’t made any changes in a long time, even one change can have a domino effect. For example:
Change the time of day when you shower.
Stop drinking caffeinated sodas.
Start phoning your mother every Sunday at 5:00 p.m.
Plant and tend a garden.
Eat lunch with different people.

This is no substitute for treatment, and if you’re depressed you should seek treatment. It’s just meant to suggest that even a small and seemingly arbitrary change can sometimes introduce a new perspective that helps us move out of a rut. That in itself can be a step toward better health.

Do you do any volunteer work?