What are you doing with your life, exactly?

It recently occurred to me that my entire career and education were shaped by family pressure and societal expectations. I have a good job with a solid future and have no reason to feel unhappy about it, but there’s this nagging voice deep down in my mind constantly asking me why I’m doing this, why I’m doing what I’m doing with my time.<br><br>It recently occurred to me that my entire career and education were shaped by family pressure and societal expectations. I have a good job with a solid future and have no reason to feel unhappy about it, but there’s this nagging voice deep down in my mind constantly asking me why I’m doing this, why I’m doing what I’m doing with my time.<br><br>I was born, probably by coincidence. My parents brought me into this world, and it’s their mistake for not taking better care of me. I had a life planned out for me from a young age. Treated like a project that needed to be worked on. Where would I be in 10 years or 20 years? How much money would I make? My parents and grandparents were very proud of their “successes” when their grandchildren graduated with good grades, found a good job, married a good partner, etc. But I’ve recently started asking myself some questions. What is all this for? What is the point of my life? Is it just a never-ending cycle of work and eating and sleeping, just waiting until my body stops working and I die? Is this a never-ending cycle for most of us?<br><br>I recently started asking these questions about a month ago after a long night of drinking. I asked my family, but they just looked confused. My father asked me if I was okay, before sending me upstairs to sleep it off. It was clear that he just wanted me to stop talking nonsense. What was the purpose of my life, I asked. Where was I going? What were my goals? <br><br>“I don’t understand what you mean,” he answered, totally perplexed by my question. <br><br>But what I meant was this: What’s the point of all this? I wake up every day before 7, and by 7 am I’m sitting at my desk at work. I work for eight hours, when I come home, make dinner, and go to bed. I do this five days a week, and during those five days, I come home and watch TV or browse before going to sleep. I have no children. I have no one to give my time to, and in my end years when I can no longer work, I will be alone in some nursing home somewhere. How would anyone find meaning in a life like that?<br><br>How would anyone find meaning in a life like that? There certainly isn’t meaning, not in the way that I am living my life. And yet, there are millions of people with lives just like mine, living their own meaningless lives and wondering what the point of all this is.<br><br>I think we can all agree there’s no meaning to life. I’ve read Camus and Dostoevsky and Nietzsche – I know their arguments, their theories on absurdism and the death of God or the way their arguments convey the meaninglessness of life. But when I saw the library on campus, I saw thousands upon thousands of students – not including the thousands of people who took classes online – all working towards a goal of graduation and becoming a productive member of society. But to what end? Where are they going? What is their purpose? <br><br>I just graduated recently, and I have no idea what my purpose is. I just wanted to get a degree, not because I wanted to learn, but because that’s what I was told to do. I wanted to get a degree just so I could get a good job and live a comfortable life. I wanted to get a degree because that’s what everyone else was doing. I certainly didn’t want to get a degree because I wanted to learn something. I was forced into school at the age of 5, and I had to get “educated” for the next 15 or so years. Where did all this end? What was the purpose of all this? <br><br>It ends in some office cubicle with me staring at a desk computer, entering data into some system, answering calls, and looking at spreadsheets. It ends in some factory line with me doing some repetitive, simple task to earn money and have that money so I can continue to survive in this meaningless existence. The truth is, there’s no point to any of this. The truth is, we’re all just a bunch of apes wandering around in this world, wasting our time, wandering aimlessly in some meaningless existence. There’s no purpose to our lives, no inherent purpose or meaning to our lives.<br><br>There’s no purpose to our lives, no inherent purpose or meaning to our lives. We’re all just a bunch of apes wandering around in this meaningless existence.<br><br>So what are you doing with your life, exactly? Where are you going? Do you know what you’re working towards?<br><br>I recently started asking these questions about a month ago after a long night of drinking. I asked my family, but they just looked confused. My father asked me if I was okay, before sending me upstairs to sleep it off. It was clear that he just wanted me to stop talking nonsense. What was the purpose of my life, I asked. Where was I going? What were my goals? <br><br>“I don’t understand what you mean,” he answered, totally perplexed by my question. <br><br>But what I meant was this: What’s the point of all this? I wake up every day before 7, and by 7 am I’m sitting at my desk at work. I work for eight hours, when I come home, make dinner, and go to bed. I do this five days a week, and during those five days, I come home and watch TV or browse before going to sleep. I have no children. I have no one to give my time to, and in my end years when I can no longer work, I will be alone in some nursing home somewhere. How would anyone find meaning in a life like that?<br><br>I asked my friends at work to see if they’d ever pondered these questions. They all just looked at me and asked if I was okay. No one had ever asked themselves these questions. Where are you going? What’s the meaning of your life? I asked my friends at work to see if they’d ever pondered these questions. They all just looked at me and asked if I was okay. No one had ever asked themselves these questions.<br><br>I started reading books, looking for the meaning of life, but it’s clear that my search is futile. I started reading books, looking for the meaning of life, but it’s clear that my search is futile. There certainly isn’t meaning, not in the way that I am living my life. And yet, there are millions of people with lives just like mine, living their own meaningless lives and wondering what the point of all this is.<br><br>&#x200B;