Anyone else struggling to find meaning in life and wondering what it's all about?

[Mumonceremoved]

Middle aged and generally just wondering what the point of it all is.

Why are we here?
What's the meaning of life?
What even is happiness?

Anyone else just feeling meh about the day to day drudgery and futility of it all?

Or if you did feel this way, how did you manage to snap out of it?

Is it normal?

I can find no spiritual relief. Having tried to believe in a higher power to no avail.

I don't want for much. I don't have a lot but I'm grateful for what I do have.

I just have had enough of this being it I think.

It’s the human condition innit? It is why humans invented all the gods.

I am generally very happy and content. Aligns with the stats about women being happiest in middle age.

Some very wise words here. Have inspired me to go on a walk today and enjoy the trees. Look up at the sky. Life is wonderful and also pointless.

I am (past) middle age and have contemplated this a lot.

The majority of my meaning most definitely comes from my dc. They are young adults now, living hundreds of miles from me but I have this deep connection, still, to their survival and thriving. I have an inarticulatable feeling deep inside that their survival is the only real thing that matters. It feels like something related to the survival of the species/ passing on your genes, I can’t describe it exactly, but I feel it. I am not a mollycoddler in any sense of the word but I still feel a deep connection to their lives. I understand the role I play as they have to navigate their lives, I’m like some sort of anchor for them, able to give some wisdom of life to them when they need it.

In the meantime, I don’t have the ‘not enough’ syndrome at all. I raise animals, garden, drink too much with friends, walk, exercise, travel, write, and I love all that, but mostly that’s the daily enjoyment part of life, and some days are better than others obviously, but overall, it’s my children who give me that deep satisfaction and meaning of my life.

The meaning of your life is what you decide it is.

It is always going to be different for each individual: it could be the love of family, friends, partner, kids, hobbies, work, sports, pets, travelling, gardening or being a complete loner just sitting in the sun doing nothing.

Basically don't expect fulfilment to just come to you. Decide what you want to do with your life.

I can say that the meaning of life is certainly not just owning more and more material goods and working all hours to put more money in a corporation's pocket. I think that has led to a deep unhappiness in many people.

I am happy working part-time, fixing my small, old house, gardening, looking after my pet , meditating and walking by the sea front. I have a passion for painting and that has given a real meaning to my life. I also make sure I cut toxic/negative people out and try to be a good, decent person myself.

You only have one, short life and the best thing is to try to enjoy and be grateful for every little thing each day rather than looking for a deep philosophical explanation for the meaning of human life. There isn't one.

Having reached the same point as you in middle age, I started searching for a way out. Forty more years of ‘finding joy in the little moments?’ No thanks.

So I started looking into spirituality. And found that many of the great sages from different religions were all pointing to a sense of ‘oneness’ underpinning life. Theres been research on it too - check out Susan Cook - Greuters levels of Consciousness if you have a spare evening.

Ive been on a search to reach this state ever since. Fully recommend it as a lifelong quest.. Buddhists and Hindus have been at it for years in different guises..

I always wonder what is the point.

One thing that keeps me going is humans are arrogant, self centred things and have placed themselves at the centre of life. Yet we are still awful things struggling to move beyond animalistic behaviour.

I am not religious but I also accept we do not know what else there is. We do not have the universe figured out. Not in the short amount of time we have been alive. We know nothing. Look at how large the universe is, how old it is. Its fascinating. I accept there could be more just as much as I accept this is it.

I don't know about the experiences on different kinds but I know that when I have taken them (either found in UK fields or magic truffles from Amsterdam) I have had some really profound experiences that have helped me comes to terms with my own existence and the meaning of my own life. I used to have a lot of anxiety around the idea of dying and trying to make sure that my life is meaningful and worthwhile but my experiences with magic mushrooms have put me into a different frame of mind and I no longer experience anxiety around it all.

The thing that made it even more pointless for me was watching my dads decline into dementia over the last three years and then watching him die in January. A life of struggle, just to pay the bills and try to build some security for me and my children. he worked and worked as he wanted to leave us something. Which was all lost to the care home in the end. Everything he’d worked for. never a holiday, never any fun.

I sat there watching him struggle to cling on to life just thinking what a fucking waste of time that was. Don’t enjoy a second to end up staring into space, being abused in two care homes and paying every penny he’d ended worked for.

I was religious too. I actually believed there was something after. But my dad cried as he died. I’ve never seen such a look of anguish and despair as he took his last breath. There is nothing. There is no god. Nothing after. It’s just something that people cling to for hope and others use as control.

I wish I’d known that before I had children.

I think trying to focus on “the meaning of life” will lead you nowhere happy. Better to think there is no fundamental meaning, there’s just things that make you happy. I love my husband, we make each other laugh every day. My Mum is about to go on a gorgeous holiday and I woke up this morning so happy for her and excited to hear about it. I’m starting a new excefcise class tonight which will make me happy. Yesterday we treated ourselves to a McDonalds in bed, that made me very happy! Every morning I cold plunge in my garden and that makes me extremely happy. I don’t worry about a grand plan or a meaning, if I'm
happy then things are okay. If I’m not, then I fix it and find more pockets of happiness. You do have to be proactive in finding happiness but it’s always possible even when the very worst things are happening.

I also don't think there's a meaning to life, I just view it as an interesting journey with good, bad, dull, ecstatic, terrifying bits etc. I like the Venerable Bede quotation (although personally I ignore the final reference)

"The present life of man upon earth, O king, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the house wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your ealdormen and thegns, while the fire blazes in the midst, and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter into winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all. If, therefore, this new doctrine tells us something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed."

I don't fear death. I've made my peace with this being all there is and the death being the end.

What's that quote?

If death is I am not.
If I am, death is not.

Once I accepted that there is no meaning to life I found it quite liberating. I live in the moment much more and don’t get worked up about many things.

I lost two dear friends in their 40s through cancer. I don’t know if there is ultimately a meaning to life, but I do know that it is a tremendous gift.
So many people do not get that gift.

I have suffered with this since my parents divorced when I was 9 years old.

I think that we are asking the wrong question really when we ask what is the point of life? It's beyond us to know isn't it. No one will ever know why.

I have spent my life chasing things to end this feeling. I've lived in big houses with lots of land, had lots of money, successful businesses but none of it fixed that feeling. (Still glad I did these things as I wouldn't have known that they can't fix this feeling if I hadn't tried.)

I now can see that the only thing that really helps is having truly meaningful relationships with others i.e for me that's my children and my husband. They are the reason that I keep on going. I enjoy other family and friends but I often find that they can actually make me feel lonelier and like I can't be myself sometimes. I've always been quite spiritual so that helps.

My kids and my husband are what I truly live for.

There's the feeling - I feel unmotivated. And the thought- life is meaningless etc.

Feelings exist and can't be changed but you can create the conditions for other feelings to flourish and the ones you don't like disappear or become more fleeting but it takes time.

Mindset is something to work on.

You are in a middle aged slump

The "happiness" or more accurately contentment graph is an inverted bell curve (statistically) and most people feel at their worse mid-ish 40s.

You are just at the bottom of the curve couple of years you are likely to start climbing back up the other side.

But why not? Think about what actually makes you happy? What do you get enjoyment from? What, given no money restraints would you look forward to?
What is making you so unhappy? Don’t just say drudge. Actually name it here.

Not long then. Only a couple of years.

If money and health were no issue, I would travel. I want to see the beauty in this world.

Not the chaos of touristy destinations with ALL the people trying to cram in the 'must see's' before they die but the real beauty, to look and wonder and maybe understand it all a bit more.

I used to feel this way OP, and had severe depression. I could only function if I kept looking ahead to the next big thing - graduating, marriage, holidays, babies, you name it. I had a lot of therapy and CBT and it really helped change my frame of mind.

Now I try my best to stay in the present and really enjoy each moment. Dinner in the evenings with my husband, the feeling I get when he slips his hand into mine on walks, the sunshine on my skin, my dog nudging me for a snuggle, running with my friends, belly laughing with my best friends, singing along to 80's songs in the car... these are the things I live for now.

Have you ever tried to find our creator? God our Heavenly Father. Read the Bible. Pray and ask. Seek and you will find. That's what I did in my 20s I started asking what's the meaning of it all. It led me to God. Jesus is coming back to end all the evil. These are my personal beliefs. All the best.

I've tried very hard.

science wins everytime

According to the bible for people who have s relationship with Heavenly father death is not the end. Why would it be ? We are such miracles and then we just die? Nobody can prove that anyway. I choose faith.

I feel exactly as you describe op, treading water with very fleeting moments of joy, not nearly enough to make up for the vast moments of no joy/drudgery. I don't know what the answer is, there isn't one really is there except go with the flow and wait for the inevitable.

I'm afraid that science is called deception, because it cant disprove God, God is spirit... Please follow your heart and not actions /words of humans who can prove nothing. It's clear we all and the world have a creator. It's not all by chance. How could it be.