What do you want out of life?

I'm old, so shoot me.
 
Your intentions are good.

Your cure for depression is a bit misleading. You're buying into the theory that there's a linear result from doing a, b, and c, and then having x happen. If you do exactly these things, you will get better. Not that you can get better, simply that you will.

Except this isn't true, and propagating that theory causes only harm. You'll have people who do all those things and then come out the other side the same or worse. Since the solution was so ironclad, so specific, there can be only one reason: they're personally responsible. The failure is solely their own. The cure and method is sacrosanct, so any deviation from "Mission Accomplished!" is an obvious sign that the person never really tried, or there's some fatal flaw with them that precludes them from simply following instructions. In essence, any failure to improve is directly tied to the individual. You've reduced severe mental health issues to being a matter of independent willpower and whether or not someone can follow a checklist well enough.

I'm also not sure you can cash in on the disabled angle if you've recovered from being so three times. Don't get me wrong, it is awesome that you're better now, but it feels a bit like someone who got a mass removed and is fine, preaching to a row of long-term chemo patients about how they can cure their cancer. It feels dangerously close to the people who corner me at support groups and in hospitals and then start telling me about how they had what I had and now they're healthy and great because they conquered their mind and simply willed themselves to health. (This paragraph assumes you're referring to your physical health. If you only meant that your mental health was bad enough to be disabling, feel free to ignore.)
Being disabled is not something to cash in on. It’s fuzzy but... The height of my physical disability was from age 12-19, with some somewhat functional periods in between. Minorly functional. I had a lot of medicine to get better. Months of giving myself IV medicine, hyperbaric oxygen, more pills than a liver should ever get to know. Lots of alternative medicine and attempts before the cause was known.

Separate fighting the illness, I rehabbed to health from 18-24. I had significant depressive episodes around 14-18, 20-22, 25-31, and possible health relapses during those times but it’s too hard to know. During down times there were some good tunnels of light at points. But a consistent escape required a lot more.

Take from that what you will.

As per the other part, you’re fundamentally reading me backward, please understand:

If you don’t try, you will fail to get better. General you. The weight of elements might be different for some, there might be other elements as well. It will be harder for some and easier for others.

But if you don’t try, you will fail. So don’t fight the try.

Perhaps you are saying “I don’t want to try and then fail and have you hold that against me”. Ok deal.

But synsensa I’m worried, you’re telling me I’m buying into a theory that x leads to y. But I’m not, it’s not in my post. I told you my lived experience with my understanding of not x is assured to to lead to not y. That doesn’t make the inverse true and certainly doesn’t mean I said it when I did not. Let’s keep this real.

I agree with @Synsensa, an I don't see that he's saying there's no hope, he seems to be saying that there's no guarantee of success. I find a lot of people have this attitude of "This thing worked for me, so it must work just the same for everyone," and that's just certainly not at all true in the slightest, right? Your solution may work for someone else, or bits of it might, but they might have totally different needs from you, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. But you also see people thinking things like "If you can't fix yourself by doing exactly what I did, then something's deeply wrong with you and you're a failure."

You see this a lot with weight too. I put on weight easily, while my sister doesn't. She can be a bit preachy and judgemental, because she thinks her ability to stay thin is completely her doing, and my failure to keep my weight down is because I'm a failure. I eat healthier than she does, I drink less, and such and such - but everyone's body works differently, and I have a tendency to store weight which she doesn't.
In your analogy about weight it would be like I’m saying “if you have trouble with weight you will fail to lose weight if you don’t diet”. Your sister can have it a million times easier but if you use that as the reason to quit, you will fail. If you want to succeed, you have to not choose the path of automatic failure.

From there there is only one thing I cannot stress enough: don’t fight the anti-failure just because it’s not an automatic or easy fix.
 
My friend just sent me this link, I think its relevant to what you just said Terx


Basically to get stuff done on a high level you have to convince yourself it is important in a grander scheme. If you can't do that you won't get stuff done (or you'll do it in a sloppy way)

Without an overarching sense of purpose there is no reason to try hard. Everything you do, even boring paperwork, you need to remind yourself that its necessary, relevant and part of your big picture life plan.
Well.. to my mind that kind of approach is a two-edged sword. The principle is sound. Purpose breeds effort. And consistent effort needs over-arching and hence consistent purpose. Which in the end is who you want to be and what life you want. I would say this video is a good example of a man who uses his ego-ideal to improve himself and enrich his life.

But what rings my alarm bells in that video is that aspiration of being extraordinary, to the point where it risks becoming self-serving (he himself said that it also kinda was a waste of time to read every assignment) As said, it seems to work for that guy, so great, and his mental approach certainly can be utilitized.

However, perfectionism and a need or want to be extraordinary are also strongly related to a myriad of mental health issues. To improve yourself and work on yourself is one thing. To try to compensate mental health issues with aspirations of grandeur however, while tempting, seems also very dangerous to me.
Sometimes it just needs to be okay to be a bit weak and ordinary.
 
I don't know if this is similar to just taking pride in your work but I consider that different. I've always known that what I do isn't going to save the world but that hasn't stopped me from not doing a half assed job. Take pride in what you do.
It is different. Pride in your work can make you overwork yourself, no doubt. That's not the same as being forced to overwork, regardless of your pride and self-identification you have with the work.
 
However, perfectionism and a need or want to be extraordinary are also strongly related to a myriad of mental health issues. To improve yourself and work on yourself is one thing. To try to compensate mental health issues with aspirations of grandeur however, while tempting, seems also very dangerous to me.
Agreed. But one should be brave enough to walk the dangerous path.

People with a "balance" lives and "balanced" minds don't make history.

Sometimes it just needs to be okay to be a bit weak and ordinary.
Weak and ordinary is the default, you don't have to "let yourself".

Every person should be strong or extraordinary in at least one way.

We live in a society that constantly tells us to seek comfort, take the easy way out, treat ourselves, etc. Often this "acceptance" of weakness isn't really acceptance it's just a cop out and excuse to live a low quality life.

Its alot easier to accept yourself if you hold yourself to a certain standard.
 
Moderator Action: I would caution anyone in this thread who is giving psychological advice. Things from your own life experiences are fine, but don't start psychoanalyzing people. Leave that for the professionals, please.
 
I don't want much, I prefer the thought of a good afterlife in exchange for my lack of sin...

If I have to name wants: lot's of pleasurable sensory data, and certification.

I don't want to be kidnapped by a species that breaks the consciousness barrier so I expect life security, and I want fine, natural experience.
 
My takeaway from all the replies is that we all want to matter, whether to someone who loves us or to the world at large, but I guess the hardest thing for many is to matter to ourselves.
 
My takeaway from all the replies is that we all want to matter, whether to someone who loves us or to the world at large, but I guess the hardest thing for many is to matter to ourselves.

I don't want to matter so much...

I think how much I matter is as equally important as to how I expend my energy...

Matter to who anyway? Humans? Gods? Other?
 
Agreed. But one should be brave enough to walk the dangerous path.

People with a "balance" lives and "balanced" minds don't make history.
Okay, but I recommend to ask yourself why you want to "make history" and weather this truly is want to you want or need, or weather you are perhaps compensating for something and weather you are better off addressing that something directly.
Weak and ordinary is the default, you don't have to "let yourself".
Not true. You know studies have shown that no generation has been as confident as the millennials. Nor as narcissistic. Nor as unhappy. It is the Zeitgeist to want to be special. And while it is ok or even commendable to try to be more, to be better, indeed that growth never ends is a great rule of thumb, one should be careful weather that drive is intrinsic or extrinsic. Weather you are wanting to be better because this adds value to your life, or weather you want to be better because you don't want to truly face yourself and your life and who you are and what you actually want.
And the less stable you are, as a person, the more likely high aspirations can go down that counter-productive road, IMO.
Narcissistic ideals are in deed a great way to hide from yourself, to numb heart and cloud the mind, and to needlessly torture yourselves.
It's tricky IMO and really depends on the how and who.

There is an IMO really great concept in psychology where the human mind is differentiated into two dimensions.
Selfhood on the one end and Sobriety on the other. Both dimensions are part of any psyche, however, a lot of mental issues, basically all cases of neuroses for what I can see, are connected to a too strong weight of selfhood. That means that you aspire a or identify with a personal identity, which in some manner or the other is constantly at stake, needs to be constantly reaffirmed. Is ultimately unstable and a construct you try to replace yourself with. And the worst thing is that you may not even realize this, anymore. It is what I massively struggled with.
The antidote to that is more Sobriety. That means to see things not so much through the lens of who you want to be, through your ego and associated needs, emotions and compulsions, but for what they just are, free of judgement. It also means to see yourselves as one of many, from the birds perspective, and not that special one or something like that.
 
Okay, but I recommend to ask yourself why you want to "make history" and weather this truly is want to you want or need, or weather you are perhaps compensating for something and weather you are better off addressing that something directly.
Me personally I don't care about "making history" but I do want to live a great life and be able to provide a positive influence to others.

As for compensation. I'm 100% compensating. I had a really **** childhood/adolescence so my default of depression & hopelessness is even lower than the average schmuck's default (overweight, 50+% chance of divorce, high chance of being on a bunch of pharmacutics and getting a heart attack). When you have it bad you can either quit and accept that you're gonna have a **** life (RL example here in this thread) or you realize you're going to have to work harder just to hit baseline.

But baseline is not worth working hard towards so you may as well exceed it.

Not true.
100% true. Average American is weak, out of shape, in credit card debt, living paycheck to paycheck. Why would I aspire to be default?

You know studies have shown that no generation has been as confident as the millennials. Nor as narcissistic. Nor as unhappy. It is the Zeitgeist to want to be special. And while it is ok or even commendable to try to be more, to be better, indeed that growth never ends is a great rule of thumb, one should be careful weather that drive is intrinsic or extrinsic. Weather you are wanting to be better because this adds value to your life, or weather you want to be better because you don't want to truly face yourself and your life and who you are and what you actually want.
I'm 40 so not a millennial. I didn't grow up w anyone telling me I'm special, quite the reverse.

Everyone wants to be better. I agree w coming to terms w the amount of effort you are actually willing to put forth in life and not beating yourself up over it. But there should be the push for growth always.

Ok, I'm not willing to put forth enough effort to achieve goal X now. Maybe I don't have enough environmental support, maybe it's not a priority for me right now. But that doesn't mean I have to give up on it permanently. I just put focus on other aims & keep that in the back of my mind, waiting for the opportunity to tackle it when conditions are more favorable.

And the less stable you are, as a person, the more likely high aspirations can go down that counter-productive road, IMO.
Narcissistic ideals are in deed a great way to hide from yourself, to numb heart and cloud the mind, and to needlessly torture yourselves.
It's tricky IMO and really depends on the how and who.
How would you define a "Narcissistic ideal"?

There is an IMO really great concept in psychology where the human mind is differentiated into two dimensions.
Selfhood on the one end and Sobriety on the other. Both dimensions are part of any psyche, however, a lot of mental issues, basically all cases of neuroses for what I can see, are connected to a too strong weight of selfhood. That means that you aspire a or identify with a personal identity, which in some manner or the other is constantly at stake, needs to be constantly reaffirmed. Is ultimately unstable and a construct you try to replace yourself with. And the worst thing is that you may not even realize this, anymore. It is what I massively struggled with.
The antidote to that is more Sobriety. That means to see things not so much through the lens of who you want to be, through your ego and associated needs, emotions and compulsions, but for what they just are, free of judgement. It also means to see yourselves as one of many, from the birds perspective, and not that special one or something like that.
Man I hate the word soberity, makes me think of a bunch of boring AA meetups. :D

What you describe though is one of the goals of mediation. To see reality as it is, unclouded by desires & judgments. However, I don't buy the dichotomy that low-standards for self & awareness go hand in hand with delusion & egoic pursuits on the other.

Shoot, this more realistic awareness of self is in itself and extraordinary achievement (which I'd certainly be judged by some as being unrealistic in my hopes to achieve it).

We don't exist on Earth to sit around, be average & "accept a realistic view of ourselves". Reminds me alot of my mom, anytime I aspired to something as a kid she'd tell me I'm having "grandeous thoughts". The human spirit rebels against such restriction, as it should.

You accept where you are so you can measure the distance from there to where you want to be.

To accept the present while having a clear vision of my future seems like a good summery of what I want from life.
 
Okay I am not trying to discourage anyone to strive for more. I just think there is a healthy and unhealthy way to do that and I wanted to stress that,
I myself also am the kind of guy who strives for more, and I need that. Otherwise I find life quite a bit too tedious, to be honest. But I did it the wrong way for quite a while.
Also, I thought of your video again today and it hit me how genius it actually also is. This idea that each moment matters, in itself, and how valuing that moment as part of something greater can get you right into that moment. Which is what you usually want. I really like that.

Well a narcissistic ideal is IMO not so much about what the ideal itself is but what role it plays, but which in turn will shape the ideal itself. I.e. is it just about being a better person? Good, then it will tend to be grounded and humble where necessary. Is it more about pushing to the side other (in some way deserving) aspects of your authentic self? Is it more about giving yourself a more or less artificial image you can cling to? To illustrate: people with a clinical narcissistic personality disorder are trained/conditioned to basically replace their authentic (and vulnerable and fail-able) self with a narcissistic one in a misguided attempt to be stronger. A standard cause can be the lack of unconditional authentic love in childhood, ingraining the idea into the child that such a thing as authenticity does not really exist and that love needs to wrested from others through manipulative means. You don't want to go down that road.
 
If you don’t try, you will fail to get better. General you. The weight of elements might be different for some, there might be other elements as well. It will be harder for some and easier for others.

But if you don’t try, you will fail. So don’t fight the try.

Perhaps you are saying “I don’t want to try and then fail and have you hold that against me”. Ok deal.

Or maybe you try, and fail to get better because it's a permanent disability.

As to what I want out of life. I haven't really thought of that.
 
@Terxpahseyton

I take whatever motivation I can get.

I find to really succeed you need both "shallow" and "deep" motivation.

I work out for my health, mental well-being, so I can better protect myself and my family if need be.

I also do it for vanity, to be more attractive, because it feels good to listen to hip hop and push my limits, it fluffs my ego.

Stuff that's pure ego or pure "soul elevation" isn't compelling, you need both.
 
Or maybe you try, and fail to get better because it's a permanent disability.
It could be. Or the doctors could be wrong.

Major depressive disorder is considered a lifelong illness but in reality it has no tangible existence. Its ethereal, feels very real, the deep grooves and patterns it etched in the brain are real but its ultimately the disease is a thought construct. Now diabetes 1 or being paraplegic, I'm not gonna argue those can just be overcome.

In fact I'm not arguing anything can be overcome, most patterns persist, most people most of the time cannot change. But one should be stubborn to accept one's limitations in the chance that they can be overcome. I will never label myself w the myriad of "disorders" I have been given over the years.
 
Just because something isn't visible doesn't mean it isn't real. You can't "just get over" clinical depression.
 
Major depressive disorder is considered a lifelong illness but in reality it has no tangible existence. Its ethereal, feels very real, the deep grooves and patterns it etched in the brain are real but its ultimately the disease is a thought construct.

Uh, you do realize that there's physical differences in brain activity when you have depression?
 
Uh, you do realize that there's physical differences in brain activity when you have depression?
Yes of course I know that. I know a ton about depression having suffered from it for years & nearly lost my life to it.

What's your point?

Any psychological or physical thing one wants to change in life is going to have a chemical basic.

Being told you "have a condition" and it's "incurable" also creates chemical changes in your brain (if you buy in anyway)
 
It's weird that "cure" is being put into Hygro's posts particularly. It wasn't in his original one. It was implied in a response, and from there it has taken life. Judging harshly, the closest he came was "to escape," but that would be a poor reading because it was further moderated by the effective time being temporary, cyclical, and "partial." The closest he has come to "cure" is in negative terms. That if you don't attempt to "get better*" then you will fail to "get better." Getting better is not equivalent to "curing" no matter how often it's implied in. This is the creation of rhetorical ghosts into the conversation. Now, one could argue that no medication, no exercise, no health regime changes whatsoever are possible in a manner that lessens the pain of depression, that behavioral activities cannot impact the chemical and hormonal activities of the brain. These arguments would be incorrect. Possibly not for every single person, no. But in generalities, yes. Certainly enough that it is generally worth encouraging people that one cares for to consider the possibility.

*the actual words
 
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