To wonder what the point of life is?

[overthinker1000]

I think I might be just having a mid life crisis really but wondered if other people think like this. I'm 39.

My life is essentially really good. I have a family who I love, and a stable job that I like. Obviously covid has presented challenges but probably less so than for many other people. I'm not depressed.

I'm just finding myself thinking a lot about the meaning of life... what the point of it all is... I see adverts about 1/2 people getting cancer and I think ok so it's only a matter of time until I or someone I loves gets very ill and dies... it's just a waiting game for things to go wrong really. Add in the climate crisis and covid, it all just seems to be rubbish. I've basically got in my life everything I could want but I'm still restless and questioning the point of each day.

What's wrong with me?! Does everyone go through this at my age?

There is no point to life but we have to live as if there is a point to it. Only we and other humans can give life any meaning.

I feel this way often OP and I am only 28.
This past year it is like a switched and flipped in my brain and I have come to realise that I am going to die. I dont know what age i will be, I dont know how I will go.... but I am going to die.
So will my parents, my sisters, my children, my partner, my friends.... I dont know why I have thought about this so much or what triggered it but some days I really do find myself wondering what the point is.
My job means that I frequently nurse people who are dying. Some in their 50s, 60s, 70s.... some with life long illness, some who where diagnosed 5 days before and have now passed away. Perhaps it is through witnessing this that I have started to feel so vulnerable.
The news on Sarah Harding, and other celebrities really just makes you realise that it does not matter who you are or what you do, your age, gender, none of it matters. You can have a heart of gold or be a horrible prick all your life, we all die.

The only purpose I find in life is to be here for my children. And on bad days I cannot bare the thought that one day I will not be with them.

Existential crisis...I reckon lots of people have had them this year 🤔

Following with interest.

No point at all. We humans are parasites when you consider the catastrophic impact of our being on the planet.

I wasn’t asked to be born but I was so I have to go to school for years then go to work for more years but what if I wanted to be a duck

You could self-identify as a duck?

The "point" of life is whatever you make it. We are given the gift of life, for how long we don't know, and it is up to us to chose what to do with this gift. I've never done anything slightly exciting, and my day to day life is pretty much the same - but I enjoy it and can find joy in the smallest things. Constantly searching for the meaning of life means you are just wasting the precious time you have.

The thing about happiness is that it’s been hijacked by the masses. There is an expectation now of what “happiness” should look like and if you don’t fit that you’re viewed as weird, unhappy, miserable and/or you end up believing those things and actually becoming unhappy when you were happy doing what you originally did but it wasn’t ”socially accepted”

Today’s society is damaging to humankind.

Wow - that is so, so true. My life would be considered very dull by most people, but it makes me happy - thankfully I'm not influenced by the masses and continue on my merry way. Strangely though, the people who tell me I should do this that and the other seem less content than I am.

www.alpha.org/
You may have heard of Alpha - it is run by Christians but isn’t a “quick, let’s trap them and convert as many as we can” thing. It’s supposed to be a place where you can discuss all of these sorts of things with other people asking the same sorts of questions. Worth a look.

TBH there's no point to it really apart from generally being happy and productive.

Starry Night21 Thank You .I love that! Many thanks for sharing xx

I like Bill and Ted's philosophy.
"Be excellent to each other, and, party on, dudes!"

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

Existential crisis. I suspect we all have those. Usually they go in phases. Unless you're Sartre.

No idea. Please PM me if you find an answer.

@overthinker1000 I think maybe the reason you're thinking along these lines is that you're one of a very small minority who have got to a place of supposed contentment early. So lucky you.

But when you reach this (rare early) point you maybe start thinking about the point of it all, while the majority of people are still striving and dreaming of how great that point in their lives will be when they eventually get there (or not). So they keep striving while not questioning the whole point of it all.

I had two close old friends who went through this. They became a very successful couple by their mid-30s. They were doing better financially than any of us, had a huge house, two gorgeous children and, because of their success, were very popular and had great dinner parties regularly where all us less successful friends could admire their acquisitions etc.

Then they sort of destroyed everything. He decided he was bored with our city and friends and moved his family to Sydney. Within six months his wife had a nervous breakdown because she missed her friends and family so much. They then divorced and she moved back to the UK.

He's doing ok I think, but she's gone from being a beautiful and smart person to a now dangerous and overweight alcoholic, and both children have moved to Australia to be with him as she's too unreliable.

They are the last people I would have expected this to happen to.

Fundamentally it's reproduction on a purely biological level.
Given we have more wherewithal than a basic organism then it's about enjoying the brief span of your existence. Hand on something to the next generation or go for it and experience our rock in the universe. A shroud has no pockets.

I think life's shit and then you die. I don't agree with the point of life being to 'have fun and be happy'. It's so self indulgent to say that and would have been meaningless to the hundreds of generations who have gone before us, where poverty, disease and deprivation were often all they knew.

They would have had fun where they could.

I don't agree with the point of life being to 'have fun and be happy'. It's so self indulgent to say that and would have been meaningless to the hundreds of generations who have gone before us, where poverty, disease and deprivation were often all they knew.

I think you will find that many still managed to find happiness. People tend to make the most of the life they have. Not everyone has your attitude to life, fortunately. In several generations to come people may well look back at our lives and pity us.

I wasn't saying that people wouldn't find fun wherever they could. That's a natural human thing to do. This thread was about the POINT to life. The point to life isn't to have fun, but it's a worthwhile thing to seek whilst we are here. Don't skew what I meant and please don't make personal remarks on 'my attitude.'

Yes I suspect it will come in waves... am not Sartre AFAIK

Point about reaching contentment early is not a bad one. I suppose that's true and that I've not got enough else to think about. I am not planning to blow up my own life in that way though - but I can imagine how it happens. I guess I'm worried something catastrophic will happen to blow it up for me!

It sounds like you are looking for something else, something higher than ourselves?

I have definitely become more spiritual as I’ve got older and I am exploring my higher self more. Reading is a good place to start, meditation, connecting to a higher power.

It doesn’t have to be religious, I don’t apply a “god” to my explorations, I refer to more like connecting to the universe.

It’s all a bit wanky new age I guess - but I feel more at peace than I ever have before

I'm 39 and have been thinking about this lately too.
But I know it's because I'm at a point in my life where I'm single mum, no real friends, no social life and ill parents. Nearly every day I aks myself what the point of my life is.
On good days, I find the answer to it is: being a lovely mum, daughter, helping people with my job and revelling in my interests.

A meaning of life sort of thing?
Theree isn't really a point, beyond a species existing and having the instinct to reproduce, like all other species.