Hi mate,
Yeh I do, I have a hobby that I'm really passionate about, but I feel it should have been my career. I made the wrong choices in my late teens/early 20's based on what my parents wanted/expected from me, not wanting to 'disappoint' (which frankly, is impossible), which has lead me to now, where I've built a career in an industry I have no interest in, and in a job that I hate. The industry I work in is technical, I wanted to do something creative. I split up with a girl I lived with for a number of years, last year, and I don't know, there's seems to be no purpose to me being here. All my mates are getting married and having kids, and I'm still doing single stuff, with an increasingly shallower pool of mates. Not that I necessarily want to be married right now, but my life just stands still. Most days it's get up, go to work, go home, go to bed. I should feel lucky to live in this country at this time, but I'm just wasting the opportunity I've been given by being here, just slogging through doing nothing that matters to me, just because it's 'what you're supposed to do'. I feel guilty for feeling so bad, there's people out there in far worse positions than me. I'm not in debt, or ill, or anything else like that, but I'm fundamentally really unhappy with how my life has turned out. My family are at best, completely dis-interested in any aspect of my life, at worst, scatching and negative about me. Is it wrong/self involved of me to feel that way?
You say no purpose to being here, can I ask in what sense you mean that? Is it the country you are in or the just the area? Is it your homeland or are you thinking of moving abroad?
They are some pretty big issues mate but luckily you still have a sane mind and there isn't a single problem you have mentioned that most people haven't worked on before. I'm working on it myself. In fact if you took away the relationship troubles, I could have written that word for word about 3 months ago. I ended up packing the bags and went traveling for 2 months. I seen a lot of interesting stuff, and it opened my eyes to how bad life can be. Every country in the world has their problems. Some can barely put food on the table, our biggest problem seems to be worrying about everything else.
I was also in an industry that I wasn't happy with. I did blame the parents at first but the truth is I never knew exactly what I wanted to do, and without their advice, I'd probably would still be sitting around deciding without actually doing anything I wanted to. The truth is it was my choice to follow that career, I was the one who woke up day after day to put up with it. And since I quit my folks have been nothing but supportive. They knew it was affecting my mental health and they are happy they still have their son rather than an unhappy son in an unhappy career.
These are decisions you can make. By the sounds of what you have mentioned, you have no ties so why not change things? There's always scope to retrain and study again. Like I said plenty of normal people have done it before, are you really any different? That's what I think anyway, let me know how you get on, I'm still working on it myself!
As for the mates, I'm at that age too. I just tell myself they could well be stuck in relationships they hate so I don't envy them. You never know what goes on behind closed doors. You'll get back on the horse soon
