5 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Tuesday Check In: How's Everybody's Mental Health?
I was in a similar position when I was in the military and then once I joined the private sector and what I've come to learn from those days is that I was doing all of the same things you're doing with this mindset of "who and where's the sum of all of my efforts" and you end up hating the things you're doing because they're obviously not working.
What I would ask you to do is rather than focus on the end goal, focus on what makes you happy. Don't look to another person or partner to be your one and only source of joy and pride, find something outside of work that you can dump your creativity and expression into. As you make your own joy, doing your own things, you find people that are like-minded, who you can share with and vibe with, and potentially a partner emerges from those connections. Or maybe you're at a social, sharing your joy and you become a beacon for people to indulge more from you and from that a partner emerges.
Don't do hygiene and healthcare and good career choices for the sake of a partner, do these things for yourself, but find joy in what you want to do, and people will want to share their joy with you. Find a hobby and speak on it, be weird and love it, and people will fall in love with you for how you express yourself through the things you love.
Comment by World_Champion_Bro at 20/02/2025 at 06:29 UTC*
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Wow, it's crazy how much you're dead on the money. I do feel like I'm missing something from the sum of my efforts, and I think I have come to hate a lot of the "life improvement" things I do cause they clearly are not working.
I, sadly, have limited time outside of school and work to be creative or social, especially with the disciple I try to follow taking up a lot of that limited time. But I really appreciate your comment. I know that there's a better way to go about it all. A way to not live my life as a never-ending attempt to be or do what I believe or I have been told women want. I've just had a hard time finding that path. When I "focus on what makes you happy" as you said, the number 1 thing I've come back to every time since I was 18 years old over a decade ago is that what would make me the happiest and most fulfilled would be the companionship and love from a relationship with a woman.
So, sometimes I try to lie to myself for a while and pretend that there are other things that will make me just as happy. Which sometimes works. For a time. But inevitably I end up back where I am now. Knowing that the thing I want more than anything else seems to just not be in the cards from me, but also wanting it so deeply that I can't simply move on from it to other pursuits. I often wonder, if you could definitively know that you would not love or be loved for the remainder of your days, would it be reasonable to forgo such a life as no longer worth living?
Edit: I wanted to add, in case it didn't come across in what I wrote, I am genuinely grateful for what you wrote. Thank you for trying to reach out a hand to someone who has really needed that recently.