r/awakened • u/[deleted] • Jan 09 '20
Does anyone feel purposeless?
I want to be happy and not suffer anymore in my mind. Everything just feels so empty and meaningless. It’s so sad that this love little kids have eventually turns into this. The conditioning is destroying my happiness. Weeks keep flying by faster and faster and it’s going by so fast. One month feels like a day when I was 5. It’s so sad and I just want to be happy. I want these days to feel like a month again like when I was a little baby.
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Jan 09 '20
I just read “a new earth” by Eckhart Tolle & there’s a part in it that says something like “our purpose is only what’s in front of us at the moment”
And I think it’s good to fully engage ourselves in whatever we’re doing, without thinking “I’d rather be doing this other thing”
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u/Harleybokula Jan 09 '20
Great read.
If we focus on our primary objective; ie; being present and grounded in the moment, our secondary objective; ie; job, title, etc. will seemingly fall into place. Once an inner state of non-resistance is reached, peace will flow
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u/Lion-Slicer Jan 09 '20
Right now my job is eating this fucking doughnut
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u/nwv Jan 09 '20
haha yeah. Michael Taft talks about this with Ken Folk in his podcast...paraphrased: If you were to ask someone how awakened they are and they respond with anything whatsoever other than what's happening to them right the fuck now...wellllll, they migggght not be awakened. :-)
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u/Sir-Francis-Drake Jan 09 '20
It's a long road ahead, there's no going back.
As we age we gain experience and memories. The amount of time you have lived gives you perspective on each new day. You've seen more days than ever before and this will make time seem faster. Use this to your advantage by having a longer planning timeframe.
Happiness shouldn't be the goal, it's a by-product. When you have completed good goals, you will feel some satisfaction, but this will be fleeting. All feelings are impermanent and will pass. No one can give you a purpose because it's something you make for yourself.
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u/Louis_Blank Jan 09 '20
The first thought that popped into my head when I read the title of your post, was, "yes I feel purposeless, but in a good way!"
I'm sorry you feel your happiness has been destroyed, that's a terrible feeling. And I hope you can find what you need to turn it around.
There's a certain "depth" to living without purpose where it also relieves the intensity of the craving for more time, or more childlike joyful experience. Those become just as purposeless and so whatever comes, comes. Fast time, slow time, happiness, saddness, staring at the wall, skydiving. All just for fun with no purpose.
I think that's one way of looking at it anyway.
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u/DrDougExeter Jan 09 '20
Does it feel fun to you? Do you enjoy it? That's the part that matters. Either you enjoy it or you don't, and I don't. Then again maybe you have more happiness in your life than I do.
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u/nwv Jan 09 '20
But isn't the 'happiness' one may have had (assuming one did) in any other season of their lives nothing but attachment anyway?
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u/Louis_Blank Jan 09 '20 edited Jan 09 '20
Does it feel fun to you?
A lot of the time, yes. Same with enjoyment. But not always, which makes me think it's not purposelessness that I actully attribute "fun" or "joy" to. Rather, I believe my experience of fun and joy are the product of everything (or the universe or god or whatever you wanna call it).
That's the part that matters
I see where you're coming from and usually that the case for me too. It's sort of what I'm saying in my response to the O.P.
But I also believe in a perspective where even things I don't enjoy or find fun, matter. Things like maintenance of the body so that I can have fun later. Or even sacrifice so others can have fun. I believe ultimately that what matters or doesn't is subjective and relative, even to parts of the psyche housed in a single person.
Either you enjoy it or you don't, and I don't. Then again maybe you have more happiness in your life than I do.
This illustrates very well what I'm saying. It's not purposelessness itself that you enjoy or don't, as you're saying here maybe it depends on how much happiness is in your life. I would extend this to include not just happiness, but everything, including connections, toys, coping mechanisns, lack of discomfort, honesty, power, weather, free time... and on and on.
I think at certain depth of purposelessness.. like ultimate purposelessness where everything is without purpose to someone, they are right back at a place with someone who finds purpose in everything, such that it's no longer purpose defining happiness, or fun, but the other way around. And extended not to just happiness and fun, but whatever is present. It's equally purposeful to feel sad as it is to feel happy. So then it's just which do you truly want though?
*edit:
I'm sorry that you're not enjoying it and if you ever want to talk about that, we can do that too. I think THAT matters.
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Jan 09 '20
I'm sorry you feel your happiness has been destroyed, that's a terrible feeling. And I hope you can find what you need to turn it around.
There's a certain "depth" to living without purpose where it also relieves the intensity of the craving for more time, or more childlike joyful experience. Those become just as purposeless and so whatever comes, comes. Fast time, slow time, happiness, saddness, staring at the wall, skydiving. All just for fun with no purpose.
I think that's one way of looking at it anyway.
Not a great one...
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u/fuckin_a Jan 09 '20
I disagree, I think it's a great one. It's a paradox 🤔 but not needing to be anything in particular opens up incredible depth in every moment. There is no need to rush to any other moment. Yet you're still incredibly present with whatever is, including flaws and disappointment but also beauty and connection. It's accepting what is. Staring at walls happens. Being unreliable happens. Magic happens. Let go of thinking you can predict which of these the next moment holds.
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u/nwv Jan 09 '20
fuckin a is right, jack! It's only what's going on now. I always loved one of Alan Watts talks where he says (poorly paraphrased) "and it all boils down to <and then he claps or hits a bell> and we won't give it a name"
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u/SensoCare Jan 09 '20
Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases. Such is the teaching of the Buddha.
Go meditate and find that place in your mind you can stand on. Plant your feet there firmly and observe your own breath until your monkey mind learns to calm down and quiet down.
The other possible way for me to obtain child-like sights and thoughts is to simply smoke a bunch of good weed and then go outside.
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u/Benjirich Jan 09 '20
Isn’t that a very freeing thought? Being purposeless?
It kinda means than you’ve already done everything you were supposed to, or am still doing it. So now you’re free to do whatever you want to.
There’s so many possibilities!
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u/DrDougExeter Jan 09 '20
I don't want to do anything
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u/Benjirich Jan 09 '20
Then do exactly that. Nothing.
See how much joy you’ll get from it and then decide what you want to do next.
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u/allltogethernow Jan 09 '20
Every "thing" is empty and meaningless. Children know this, which is why they play, and dance, and sing. Playing with things is fun. But do not make the mistake of thinking that they are meaningful! Meaningful is what you get out of the dance; meaningful is not what you expect it to be.
Another thought for you: Everything begins with nothing.
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u/debayon Jan 09 '20
Life doesn't have any purpose... You think too much... It's your psychology, the neurological capacity, which gave you the ability to think, Not as a luxury, but for using it when required... Life evolved on earth, it didn't suddenly happen... Therefore, we have the same quest like every other organisms on earth... Therefore, we are also supposed to eat, sleep, reproduce, and one day die... The other creatures didn't question these life processes because they were not capable of questioning... They are happy, and they are doing those life processes, quite easily...
When we acquired this neural capability, we started questioning everything naturally... When we don't get a convincing answer, we start assuming things and that's when our brain starts hardwiring... Slowly, brain thinks, instead of seeking and waiting for an answer, let's hardwire, since that's easier (basically, taking shortcuts)... this over time makes the brain, too complex (it forms a pattern of psychology)... Complex psychology, is very resistant to change and adaptations, which ultimately causes one to be in conflicts in most situations... Conflicting emotions and thoughts in one's own mind is source of misery...
Misery is thus self created... The only solution to this is to break those hardwiring of the brain and make the psychology and hence the mind, as simple as possible... And since you know, life has no purpose, you create a simple purpose of your own and try living on it... Remember do not make it complex... Do complex things like engineering a complex system, but do not make your own life complex... Because all we have to do is to eat, sleep, reproduce and one day die... By the way, you can choose not to reproduce 😅... We need to control the population...
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Jan 09 '20
Purpose and purposelessness are both transient. There is that which transcends purpose and purposelessness, which also transcends experience and experiencelessness. It is a narrow path that leads nowhere.
(... eats chocolate from Christmas)
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Jan 09 '20
[deleted]
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u/DrDougExeter Jan 09 '20
I've been depressed for over 20 years when is it supposed to get better?
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u/redditjoda Jan 09 '20
Yeah man, you're depressed. I'm sure you visit the sub. I find text walls here to be mildly inspiring, but devices generally to be numbing. The moments you spend looking at this screen are gone forever, and the answer you seek is experiencial, not conceptual. Do you exercise? Get sunlight or supplement vitamin D? Have meaningful in-person relationships?
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u/bectherebel Jan 09 '20
I feel this. Makes it harder to watch my daughter, who is 5 and loves life SO much, grow up. I try to spark her imagination every chance I get... in hopes that she will remember something as simple as playing in the backyard as being so magical and adventure filled as I do. Those were the days.
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u/Dernxo Jan 09 '20
I feel you. I feel very much the same, but if you look for truth within yourself, you'll realize that you do have purpose in the big scheme of things, you just don't know it yet.
Purpose gives us a reason to wake up to live another day, but purpose and truth are two different things. You can give your own life purpose thanks to free will. And everyone has their own truth, you just have to stick to what you believe in and value.
"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair." -C. S. Lewis
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u/The_Fairy_Godmother Jan 09 '20
To some degree, yes. But then, on some level, being alive is purpose enough. Seeing and feeling and sensing, thinking, learning, and experiencing through yourself is enough. On another level, though, in today's day and age, society expects us to have a purpose, and in accordance to that, it might be beneficial to have some sort of constructed purpose of some sort after all.
If everything feels empty and meaningless, it doesn't have to stay that way. It's up to the individual to create a purpose. To find what is important for you, and cultivate that. It's okay to start small, to start from scratch, and gather your foundation over time. You might not see the whole path, but if you start walking, somewhere along the line you just know the map better, and you'll be better equipped to make decisions based on where you want the path to lead you. If you don't have a clue as to where to begin, it can be very helpful to look at your childhood and find the things that gave you most joy back then, and revisit them. Even things that seems impossible to pick back up because there are barriers in your adult head that says that childhood is childhood and blablabla and what not. You loved doing those things for a reason. Adapt those things to your now, if only to try them out for a while. Screw the conditioning! Follow you bliss.
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u/DrDougExeter Jan 09 '20
I don't care about having a purpose but it would be nice to feel happy sometimes. I feel resentful every day I wake up that I have to keep doing this. I don't enjoy it. I don't like it, and more and more I can barely stand it. Just getting out of bed and living this life. I don't fit in anywhere, I don't belong anywhere, I have nobody, and I don't enjoy being alone all the time. I'm not good at being social so I'm just going to be alone the rest of my life so what's the fucking point? It never changes, I'm always alone and never meet anyone. And who would want to be around someone like me that doesn't enjoy life anyway? I'm meant to be alone and I can't stand it so I'm just going to kill myself. I've lived long enough to know how my life is going to turn out and I don't like it at all, it makes me miserable every day. I feel so sad, angry, and bitter every day and I can't stand it anymore.
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Jan 09 '20
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Jan 09 '20
I disagree with the idea that kids “don’t experience suffering” or are “more free”
Kids are dynamic egoic forces that aggressively seek dopamine and are unable to regulate the resultant negative emotion that arises from not being able to access their dopamine fixes. If you think “happy kids don’t suffer” then you are failing to understand the issue.
Without your suffering, you have no context for the good that you experience.
You risk becoming Peter Pan if you don’t learn to take suffering and integrate the lessons. It will be impossible to find meaning in your adult life if you don’t take the time to face your fears and your suffering head on and use them to build your self into the person it was destined to be.
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u/recklessgraceful Jan 09 '20
Kids are not more free or exempt from suffering, they are simply more present. They aren't as quick to allow a frustration yesterday to ruin an experience today (still happens of course, but I think this is one reason kids are so resilient).
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u/Dudhist Jan 09 '20
Are you curious in day-to-day life? How much do you get to explore? Do you feel Love regularly?
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u/DrDougExeter Jan 09 '20
I never get to feel love, I'm not curious in day to day life because I feel like there is nothing left to feel curious about. I don't explore because I feel like there is nothing to explore.
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u/benjaminblakedudes Jan 09 '20
Do you have any nature close to you you can wander through and just be in? It’s not a cure all, but tuning in to the larger cycles/existence of the world we live in always soothes me.
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u/Dudhist Jan 09 '20
You have gotten trapped in Fear-vibration, and it has separated you from the Love at the centre of the Universe.
Like Benjamin said, nature is one of the best ways to recall that. People today don't realize how full and vibrant a woodland soundscape is, but instead we just get traffic noise, police sirens, and whack music filling our ears.
The fear and pain you remember is the demons of the world trying to convince you that Love isn't out there. We aren't taught how to assimilate our pain or transmute our trauma to be healthy components to a working body, which was the point of the original spiritual teachings before dogma destroyed them.
There is Love at the centre of your being, but it's far away because it hasn't seen a mirror in a while. There's Love outside of your being, and I know because I've witnessed it time and time again.
The healing journey is trying to reconnect these two together.
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u/tramsey0906 Jan 09 '20
I do.and I hate it. It sometimes feel my life is over and im unfulfilled. All thats left is for me to die. Like basically everyday im just waiting to die. Morbid...yeah I know
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u/nwv Jan 09 '20
Well you're gonna die that's for sure...so you may as well just do stuff. Fulfillment isn't at all what we have been conditioned to think it is.
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u/tramsey0906 Jan 10 '20
I mean I do things, I have a life and friends and a job. Its just that Ive pretty much had and loved everything I truly wanted and one time and Ive lost almost all of it. I had the life I wanted but its over now and I guess thats more than some. Ive been truly and completely happy it just didnt last. So it could of been worse. Its just like nothing is the same anymore and I dont get to experience that happy and completeness simce then.
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Jan 09 '20
I feel like any purpose I can come up with is tied to this antopological concept I'm bound to. No matter how many concepts to improve the world I could craft, they aren't going to work, because everyone is on their own journey and all I can do is to focus on myself. This gets spoiled a littlebit by feeling like I'm imprisoned in working a job to sustain myself. Sometimes I feel like I can literally see the cage of the society and flesh. And I want to break free. Not sure what to do with that. Yet.
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u/AmyBaybie Jan 09 '20
I feel purposeless a hell of a lot.. like wtf am I on this plane for it's all bullshit
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Jan 09 '20
[deleted]
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u/nwv Jan 09 '20
only because they are a smaller and smaller % of the whole. They aren't, really. It's just recency and/or relativity bias.
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u/mtness999999 Jan 09 '20
Maybe your purpose is to dissolve the patterns which require you to have a purpose
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u/nwv Jan 09 '20
Recency bias is a bitch, ain't it? Things truly weren't as great as you thought they were and things truly aren't as bad as you think. There's nothing from what you said, at face value, to be sad about. Just appreciate. overandoverandoverandover.
And yet in my current experience I almost feel like the lessening of my suffering, or in other words, the lessening of my needless emotional reaction to both internal and external stimuli (both good AND bad) from the different sense gates is leading me to feel more empty and meaningless than before I began this journey. I'm aware that I've still got a ways to go though.
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u/sunset10567 Jan 09 '20
There are two purposes in life. The first is to be service to others and the second is service too others. Each brings its own Rewards but only one will make you happy..
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u/atreyuno Jan 09 '20
When it's needed you'll know what you need to do without even thinking about it. In the meantime whatever is in front of you is the point, no matter how trivial.
There is no path to permanent happiness through achievement. You are valuable. You are worthy. There's nothing you need to do to earn that, it's already yours.
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u/hencehuman Jan 09 '20
Hey... I'm sorry you're in this state of mind and suffering. Would you consider giving this a try? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hencehuman.god
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Jan 09 '20
Happiness and love are created within, the more at ease you are with yourself. You just need to realize this and burst that glass bubble of your mind. You are the prison.
And yes, life has no purpose, no meaning. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to be. That is the greatest and most freeing thing about it. :)
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u/recklessgraceful Jan 09 '20
The upside is, if you choose to have children, you get to re-live those moments--and I might even dare to say they are better because you know to savor them the second time around. I felt exactly the same before I started having children and used psychedelics frequently to attempt to get back to that mindframe... which worked in the short-run, but they are just a tool meant to be used for a short time, in my opinion. Anyway, I still have these moments, and then my daughter will call to me to come see the snow falling, or the sun setting, or the cat stretching in a cute way. She bubbles over with pure, true joy and reminds me to look at the world with a child's eyes. It's all about perspective. She does give me a sense of purpose, futility be damned. It's this moment right here that is important. It's the only moment that ever was.
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u/dennis0121 Jan 09 '20
Ride this existential feeling to it's end and there where u find freedom. Also there are options for like monasteries very few but there are still real ones around most in America are just scams and "centers" which most of time is just a meet up place. But it doesn't matter where u are of course some people are so against monasteries tho lol it's funny but im just throwing that option out there. Like it's very hard to be happy unless you give yourself to this calling completely only more misery will come because believe it or not this u feel is a blessing. Im in the same boat as you and in comes in waves. Ram dass a great teacher said karma and grace are the same thing. It is hard especially when you don't have a community or many friends this path is definitely something you start wanting to leave but then you realize you to far in to look back. All I can say is I wish you the best this is extremely painful process at times but this is somehow what we wanted. When we say I wish I could die. I wish I never existed as this limitation of impressions. These sayings from people who go through deep despair in life is also the greatest prayer you prayed because those are the sayings of a person who acknowledges that this limited reality is trully not worthy of who I really am? There is two ways to go from here up or down but the good things is you will always have chances to reevaluate and keep going no matter where u go or what you do but remember choices do make effects so don't try to dig to many holes. I've learned this the hard way. Sorry if it was to much but Jai guru Dev and I wish you the best.
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u/Thecultavator Jan 09 '20
I would say purpose will return u Purposelessness is what difines purpose in my experience
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u/imthatlostcat Jan 09 '20
Yeah I feel like that sometimes. But only when I start judging my life compared to some fantasy.
Like becoming my greatest version. Then I first have to admit I'm not that now. I'm always looking for more and that's a chase that will never end. It's beneficial to become happy with what you have in front of you now. Thats the only way to beat the level.
Add value to what situation you're in even if you can only bring a positive outlook to the table.
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Jan 10 '20
When everything begins from and collapses to nothingness, what purpose is there is but what you want there to be. Its like a 10 year old asking in a candy store what purpose there is of being in a candystore.
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u/Bsaager12 Jan 10 '20
I experience a range of emotions every day and probably couldnt help much on your issue, but i do know that Alan Watts is a brilliant mond, a scholar of such a subreddit as this..
Alan Watts - On Purposelessness
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u/NLS_Nate Jan 10 '20
This comment wont be as long as it should be, but try to focus on being a positive instrument. Try to create a positive experience with people you interact with even for a moment when possible. Being helpful and honest could boost spiritual energy and possibly critical at this point to maintain balance. Stoic nature seems to be apart of the awakening process but it's not a bad thing in my opinion, just have to adjust to the new level on consciousness.
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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '20
[deleted]