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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

How do you all do this?

54 replies

Someonemustknowtheanswer · 31/12/2021 09:01

I cannot cope with day to day life. Working full time year after year to survive, same shit different day. It is all so utterly pointless. How do you drag yourself through the days, weeks, years? I'm single, no DC, no significant money or health worries which I know makes me luckier than most. I have hobbies, I exercise, I have friends and family, I've travelled. But Jesus Christ, I'm done. When does it all end? Does anyone know what I mean?

OP posts:
Original poster
Someonemustknowtheanswer · 31/12/2021 09:46

Bump. Anyone?

OP posts:
cantbeforeal · 31/12/2021 09:49

I've got no advice on how to feel better but I agree and feel the same most of the time

Almost2022 · 31/12/2021 09:50

Could work be the reason for you feeling like this? Could you go down to part time? Take a career break?

ChristmasHost21 · 31/12/2021 09:50

Long term goals.
I have 1 dc, work full time. The day to day 'slog' is real.
But i have a good job which provides a good standard of living so i dont give up because i like the holidays the mini breaks the nice house.
It never ends there is no "end goal" for me its an achievement of short term goals and events that make the day to day slog bearable.

I have a 10 year plan and I am verh focused on hammering away at my mortgage- need to work in a stressful corporate job for that- and then sell up and buy a house in my ideal area when I am 41/42.

Dont see it about survival- see work and day to day life as the building blocks to getting the things you actually like!

icedcoffees · 31/12/2021 09:51

I felt this way when I was in a job I disliked.

I now work part-time running my own business and have never felt that way again.

EatAllDay · 31/12/2021 09:53

It’s all very tough. You need to inject some joy. Probably start with looking at a job move?

Original poster
Someonemustknowtheanswer · 31/12/2021 10:01

I've literally just moved jobs to try to make a positive change and yet, here I find myself again.

OP posts:
EatAllDay · 31/12/2021 10:15

Do you socialise much? Are you religious? I get small amounts of joy in various places. Life can be a boring shit fest. Try grab every opportunity in new job. Any social scene there? Of course Covid has pretty much destroyed every shred of fun from the world.
Have you a partner?

List things that you love and make a conscious decision to do them as often as you can. Maybe you’re mildly depressed and might benefit from a low dosage anti depressant. We all need a serotonin injection!!

EatAllDay · 31/12/2021 10:18

Sorry I see you’ve no current partner : well it’s a lot of fun finding one! Are there single people in new job? Do social stuff through work and it might open a few fun doors.

To be fair having no partner is quite liberating too

Shedmistress · 31/12/2021 10:21

I used to hate my job and felt like you, then I got a great job and thoroughly enjoyed it for years. Then I left and got a completely different job [teaching] and then realised that all the other jobs I'd ever done was but a bit part job as teaching sucks the life out of you. I lasted 7 years. Then I went back to the second job type, and did that for a few years until I got an estimation of my final salary pension drawdown amount and when I was made redundant, retired at 53.

It IS relentless. It is supposed to wear you down until you retire, too utterly exhausted to do anything apart from potter around.

Use your money to invest wisely in as many pensions as you can and get out as soon as you can. And try and find a job that fulfils you.

felulageller · 31/12/2021 10:21

Do a 5 year plan. Imagine how you want your life to be then- use a life wheel to plot the parts of your life- money/ career, home, relationships, family, friends, creativity, spirituality, health, purpose etc. Then work back what you need to do and when to get to your ideal life.

LawnFever · 31/12/2021 10:24

If you’ve no significant money worries could you go part time and spend more time doing something that injects more fun into your life?

Sounds like you need more balance in your life rather than just working to live.

Comtesse · 31/12/2021 10:37

Might you be depressed?

userisi2 · 31/12/2021 10:46

What do you want out of life OP? What is missing for you?

MatildaTheCat · 31/12/2021 10:49

Get a dog. Changed our lives so much for the better.

Also learn new skills, wear different clothes, try new books and discuss with friends.

Agree with having goals too. Engage with people in a meaningful way.

Original poster
Someonemustknowtheanswer · 31/12/2021 10:52

I have a dog. I take ADs. I want to feel like there's a point to all this and that I'm not just a hamster on a wheel waiting to die.

OP posts:
Original poster
Someonemustknowtheanswer · 31/12/2021 10:53

I do engage with people in a meaningful way. I volunteer.

OP posts:
seekingasimplelife · 31/12/2021 11:07

An existential crisis - what is needed is a slow down and a time for inner reflection. Cultivate idleness for a time, be still, take time to listen to your inner voice that is smothered in all the busyness.

teaandtoastwithmarmite · 31/12/2021 11:38

I sometimes feel like this. I think it's bizarre that we go through life sometimes and then just die.

freeandfierce · 31/12/2021 11:44

I am feeling exactly like this! I live alone and feel I just work and sleep, but for what? I've been promoted recently so my finances are more stable and I can now put the heating on without worry, is this it? My family emigrated to Australia 15 years ago, they desperately want me to go there to live but I'm too old now. Looking at other ways to make a complete change and start living. I'm craving a more simple life with meaning and to be able to contribute.

MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry · 31/12/2021 11:46

I totally get you OP. I have no answers.

icedcoffees · 31/12/2021 11:47

@Someonemustknowtheanswer

I have a dog. I take ADs. I want to feel like there's a point to all this and that I'm not just a hamster on a wheel waiting to die.
I think you need to go back to your GP and get your medication assessed.
Fidgetty · 31/12/2021 11:52

Have you always been prone to melancholy? I find some people (myself included!) are just this way inclined. How was your childhood? Any major trauma? I enjoy reading philosophy to get some perspective and embrace the absurdity of it all. Someone on here recently mentioned Stoicism too so I enjoyed going down that rabbit hole on YouTube/Instagram. Amor fati and all that jazz.

Creative pursuits also help. Drawing/writing/crafting revisit what you liked to do as a child. It's strangely soothing and can give a sense of achievement - it's distracting if nothing else!

teaandtoastwithmarmite · 31/12/2021 12:04

@freeandfierce I don't think you can be too old. Surely if you would enjoy the rest of your life?

80sMum · 31/12/2021 12:12

There is no "point" as such to being alive. Life just "is". It doesn't need a point.

When you think about it (and don't think too hard or your mind will explode!) what are the chances of each one of us ever making it this far and being alive today? The chances are so infinitesimally small!

Out of all the countless trillions of sperm produced by billions of men, just one man produced the one sperm (out of millions on that one occasion) that found your mother's ripe egg and penetrated it at exactly the right time in the cycle.
It survived the journey from tube to uterus, divide, implanted, grew and developed and eventually emerged as a new human being - you!

We are here on this amazing planet for such a short time. Our lives are like the strike of a match: the flame flares and shines brightly but then is gone.

Being alive is utterly astonishing. It shouldn't happen. But it did! Whatever you "do" with your life doesn't matter. Just revel in the incredible stroke of chance that brought you into the living world.

The world existed for countless millennia without you in it and will do so for countless millennia after you die. The bit in between is the opportunity to marvel at it all.