How do you get out of being stuck in a loop that just keeps repeating itself? I've been trying to turn my life around since I was a kid. I'm 27 (pathetic I know) now, and it feels like everything is just part of a hopeless trap. I've just always been a failure. Even attempting self improvement contributes to failure. It's the ebb before a large wave of my own incompetence crashes down. I don't know what to do anymore. Please help. I don't want to die, but I honestly can't keep living if this is how life is.
Details, please...
>>16560972
What would you like details on?
>>16560983
On any repeated mistakes.
>>16560992
I guess it sort of started when I was young, but it's harder to tell because things are easier when you're a kid. I basically never did my homework and never bothered to fit in. After I failed out of university is when the real patterns of mediocrity that I recognize start, so I guess that's what I'll expound on. I don't have any career direction, no relationships, or any real reason to be alive. I keep rotating through various pathetic attempts at making my life better. I start new hobbies then quit them. I'll start exercising then quit that. I'll try making more friends or being more outgoing with the few that I have then terminate the attempt. I guess I'm just comfortable being a piece of shit. I'll try and analyze why I failed, and try again harder, or break things into smaller pieces so it's easier, or with a different mindset, but it doesn't matter. Eventually I realized that it's all the same. The words I'm using to rationalize whatever my behavior is at the moment don't matter. Even this thread is just more of the same.
>>16561022
Depression
>>16561022
You're depressed.
but to give some advice I would say to stop trying to do what you think is expected of you and start trying to find what YOU really want to do. It doesn't have to be grand and exciting all the time either. Just little everyday things. Like maybe you WANT to lay around all day, don't beat yourself up over this shit it just makes it worse.
You don't have to be happy you can be content. and if you do want to pursue happiness stop worrying about what you THINK you want or SHOULD want.
>>16561024
Sure I've considered that before. But when you read about treatment options, it seems like a colossal waste of time. Medication is no better than placebo in trials. They don't even have a method for testing the efficacy of therapy. I'd be paying someone to convince me to do the things I should be anyways, which means I'm convinced they're true but I enjoy having a medical excuse to fuck around. Even if I take away from this conversation that I need therapy tomorrow when I look a list of local practitioners I'm going to be overwhelmed with the options available and masturbate or play videogames instead, or even worse try to do something positive with my time to convince myself that I just need to get my shit together and I'll be fine, and the cycle will reboot again, and I'[ll be on /adv/ posting another self pity thread in two months.
>>16561033
I honestly don't know the difference between things I want, the things I think I'm supposed to want, and the things I do to escape.
>>16561049
the fact that you know there's all 3 in your head tells me otherwise.
>>16560967
Are you me? I'm 27 too. I'm completely hopeless. I am a fucking babysitter/(I call myself a "manny" but I'm a fucking babysitter) for 2 girls up the street. As a 6' 3", 290 lb man. Not a joke. Less than 24 hours ago, the 5 year old had a dance recital, my ticket was left for me at the door.
I give my name and who left the ticket. "well, they left a ticket, but it's for the babysitter."
"I'm the babysitter." "I've never seen a babysitter like you!" (snicker)
They could've left the ticket for Jeff, but they left it for "the babysitter". The parents know the 5 year old loves me like a 3rd parent, I swear thats why the dad called me, "man servant" 2 times, a few days ago and played it off like it was a joke.
He is a god damn painter, like he's a few credits shy of being a psychologist and he chooses to paint for his brother's company instead.
Maybe it's my shame for what I do, but why leave 2 tickets at the door and say, "these 2 tix are for Grandma and Babysitter."?
These people are 5 years removed from losing their house and only don't live with his mom because the mom's grandma bought their house. No mortgage=wasting money on me to babysit.
>>16560967
>>16561022
>>16561070
I ranted, but I feel the same way and am almost exactly the same, it's crazy.
>>16561065
I'm extremely good at temporary self deception, which mean I can't trust anything I'm thinking or feeling at any moment.
>>16561070
I'm not sure what to tell you. If I was you, I would just stop returning those peoples calls.
>>16561070
You ever played sudoku? Lol
>>16561076
I've watched the kids for 2 and a half years for 3 days a week and I consider them as my nieces now. It hasn't been like this all the time, it's just recently.
Regardless, my feelings are pretty much on par with OP's that it's uncanny.
>>16561084
Is that a joke about suicide, or are you asking about the game?
>>16561087
I think feelings like that are probably normal when you consider yourself an unremitting failure.
>>16561091
Yeah, probably, but as an agnostic, that makes this shit doubly hard, right?
At least, my sense of humor has been retained, I'm a sick puppy.
>>16561108
What does agnosticism have to do with it?
holy shit are you me? 27 also stuck in a loop here.
>>16560967
dude, are we the same person????
same anon as above im 30 next month though.
i just end up on my own on the internet. suffered from depression since 13 and ive been living a wank life for over 8 years now.
its just getting worse, next step is homelessness for me
>>16560967
What the fuck is the problem? Either you turn your life around now. And I do meen now. Not a new year resolution, not tomorrow, right fucking now. And to show that you commit your self to do it, you will trow away your shitty looking clothes, do a quick workout session, shower and start writing a list of where you want to be in one year and what you've got to do to get there.
Or you acknowledge right now that you haven't changed in 10 years and you never will change. You will have to accept how you are and move on with your life.
It's a dangerous thing to believe that all of us are destined for the upper eschelons of success OP.
You want to turn your life around, heres what you do.
>Accept that doing your best may sometimes end in mediocrity, but never EVER strive for mediocrity
>Accept that motivation is bullshit and discipline is the only thing that creates success
>Examine your beliefs and research them. Try to prove them wrong, and if they are proven wrong for reasons that you believe in then do your best to abandon them as beliefs
>Do just one thing, JUST ONE THING every day that would make you more productive. Spend at the very minimum 5 minutes on it. Look into the pomodoro technique if you must.
Most of all though, you're going to have to realize that people don't do what they don't want to do, and if you're "stuck in a loop" of going home and watching Netflix or whatever and "you can't seem to change" its because you don't want to and there is nothing wrong with that. You live in a society that supports that (if you didn't you wouldn't be able to do it). Stop getting so hyped up on "being the best me I can be" and trying to do all this fantastic shit that you're literally forcing yourself to do. The fact of the matter is you're average, and there's nothing wrong with that. Be grateful for the things that you do have in your life right now instead of saying that you're not good enough. You're perfectly good, and perfectly average. You are one of many cells in the organism that is society and while you may not believe your job is important, it very much is. Being a blood cell may not have the accolades of a brain cell but it's just as important if not more so. Be happy with yourself and where you are, only when you find gratitude in the person that you are can you look to make objective improvements. Instead of subjective arbitrary things.
>I wish I were smarter
>I wish I worked harder
>I wish I had talent
>blah blah blah
>>16561022
go see a therapist, you're depressed as anons said
>>16561287
that has nothing to do with OP's issue, I think.
This "You're mediocre" thing is cancer. I hav
cont.
>>16561287
e been told I had 130+ QI, won a lot of prizes as a child and everyone told me I was gifted, didn't prevent me from entering depression and feeling like shit everyday. People who told me your kind of speech were actually the insecure ones, trying to reassure themselves that the fact that their lifes was worthless was ok because mine was too. There's no destiny. Your life is only worthless if you think it is.
>>16560967
>>16561040
Realize that you should do what makes you happy, and not just follow some life plan you think is the right way to live. I am assuming you failed university because you did not care enough about what you were studying? you try new hobbies/exercising/making friends but do you truly enjoy spending your time doing these things? You can't force a hobby, you can't force a connection with friends or a partner, you just have to live for you and the rest should fall into place.
If you're able to enjoy life in any way possible, just live your life in that way. If you're unhappy with any aspect of your life you need to seriously think about an alternative that you would actually enjoy as opposed to one that you believe you should be doing.
You didn't mention you were depressed but i don't believe you are as you say you do muster up motivation and enthusiasm to try "better yourself"
>>16561440
I'm not that guy but i dont think he was projecting his insecurities onto OP, it's just a fact of life, not everyone is born to be successful, the majority live their life in mediocrity and thats fine.
>>16561270
That's happened before, and it doesn't work. I can't take my own attempts at self improvement seriously, and if the alternative is accepting it and living this way, I'd rather die.
>>16561478
I think doing what makes you happy is more of a complex idea than you either are or aren't. I have an uncle who's an alcoholic, he spent 20 years doing nothing but drinking and watching TV, and now his kidneys are failing. Was he doing what made him happy? I would imagine the answer is "sort of." When I try to say fuck it and sleep and play videogames all day, it makes me feel better until I feel worse, and when I try to say fuck it and become a better person the same thing happens. So doing what makes me happy seems to be struggling for something I can never have and feeling constant disappointment.