To feel like life is more hassle than it's worth

[OptimismvsRealism]

Up until now I suppose there have been adventures and new things to try to distract from the fundamental fact that being alive is a great big chore. Endless hoovering and bills.

Don't get me wrong, I'm here now and I'll just see where things go but if you asked me if I'd like to do it all again that would be a big fat non merci from me.

At this point in life it's either steam trains, garden centres or swinging.

I turn 42 in October and I'd say I'm mostly content with life's small pleasures. I've always been a huge believer in escapism, as a previous poster said, books, films, music, TV can all take me away to a better place with no Teams meetings or washing up.

Sometimes I do get that horrible feeling of shame over how I messed up my life (my life is actually fine but late at night my brain provides the highlights reel of all my worst decisions) and dread of what might go wrong in the future.

I really don't think your thoughts should be dismissed as hormonal or moodiness, the everyday suffering of life is a concept that philosophers and religions have attempted to wrestle with, so if you're a reader there is a lot to get stuck into. I'm agnostic, but I like reading about what Buddhism has to say about the topic of suffering (suffering doesn't have to be dramatic pain, it can be boredom and impatience as well). The stoics and Schopenhauer also have interesting ideas about how we can face suffering.

I think magic mushroom season is around the autumn but I never manage to find any!

Agree. It has always frustrated me that men get to be philosophers but women just get to have PMT and menopause. They struggle with the great issues of the human condition and we are just daft birds struggling with hormones.

See this is why people drink, do drugs. It's an escape from the tedium. I had a realisation last night that it would be utter madness for me to give up alcohol as it's such a pleasure and life is hard.

I'm with you OP. Had some amazing times but also a lot of pain. Won't be sad when it ends.

This. Re the rich man richer

We live we die we're reborn.
Just like trees they die in winter rebloom in spring.
Well that's how I like to think of it.
I hope in my next life I have a loving well off family that wants me.

Could you be perimenopausal? I’m 45 and have been feeling like this A LOT recently

It does feel like a bloody long hard slog sometimes and I wonder what is the point of it all.

I get these horrid feelings at night too

Agree completely. Don't get me wrong, my life is happy in general, and I have a DH, and a dog, and friends, and a job, and a social life, and things I love to do. Don't go on holiday much, and we are unable to be very spontaneous (elderly reactive dog with separation anxiety), which for me I think makes life quite samey, but not much we can do about it for now.

What I really, really miss, is the unpredictability of my 20s and 30s, the anticipation of what the weekend might bring, who I might meet and where I might go, and excitement about what life in general might bring in the future. I've definitely lost that as I've got older, and got married, and acquired more responsibilities and lost my "fuck it what's the worst that could happen" attitude. I'm 50, and I still feel like there is lots I want to do and places I want to go, but I can't ever imagine feeling the sheer joy and excitement of being young with big ideas and little responsibility again. I'd give anything to feel like that again.

Yes!!! This is exactly it. I mean I do suffer with depression anyway but I wish I could feel that same sense of joy that some people do over things like this.

All over all of this. I need to book a holiday, the one thing now I actually look forward to! That's the only thing though apart from the odd time I can see my mates without the kids. Work and money stress consume my life though, so every day is wading through treacle.

I didn't want to be the first to say this, but I certainly agree with you. I think what leaves a lot of people unfilfilled is the failure to cultivate their intellectual and/or spiritual side, and the appreciation of art is right at the intersection of the spiritual and the intellectual. I'm not saying that such people (i.e. most of us) have anything intrinsically wrong with them. It's just that we've been taught to look for happiness in the wrong place: basically, status seeking behaviour such as careers, consumerism, marriage to a man, etc. Some of these things might solve specific practical problems or make people treat us better, but they have absolutely nothing to do with meaning or happiness.

HAHAHAHA @Brexile I wish I had the luxury of time for that!

I truly hope there’s not a repeat of this shit.

Where is the sense of being born, having all the previous learning and experiences removed before you’re recycled, so you have to go through all the hell of making the same mistakes again? It’s all so hard and pointless.

I joined a church but got bullied so I'm not going near people again. If I can't manage to fit in at the dull, mundane activities then I'm not even bothering to try anything more adventurous. Everything I do goes wrong.

OP, kindly, if you see so little to live for, perhaps you might think about dedicating your life to someone who does?

Eg a social cause - go work for someone who wants to live well but needs help to do it? Or for slightly more impact, work to improve some issue that could help more than one person live happier lives?

This may in turn help you find a sense of purpose. Good luck.

I know what you mean, but it’s true!

The sad fact is that the Arts have become so marginalised and devalued in our society that no time is made to ‘stand and stare’ … but it is what we need. There is a mental health crisis and general malaise in this country - and I think this is part of the reason why.

I’m not religious but doing that is so much harder than people imagine. It really is. There is no just ‘going to sleep’, it’s unbearably painful whichever way one tries to do it, then there’s a high chance it won’t work and you end up hugely worse off than ever. Trapped, that’s how I feel.

We randomed in here and one day we"ll random out.

"Fremd bin ich eingezogen, fremd zieh' ich wieder aus" - that's the line your post reminded me of. Do you know Schubert's Winterreise, @OptimismvsRealism ? A pp mentioned Schopenhauer, but Schubert and Müller are my go-to when I need a good dose of German miserablism and existential despair to cheer me up. I must have about ten different CDs of it. I bought one in Norwegian once, and I don't even understand any Norwegian!

I've always liked that scene in Fawlty Towers where Polly loses her temper with Basil and yells "well what's the point of being alive," and Basil, who is stressed and fiddling around with something, mumbles "beats me...we're just stuck with it I suppose...can you pass the stapler" That pretty much sums up my conclusions.

Bertrand Russell said that the secret to happiness is to admit that life is horrible, horrible, horrible. Once you do that, every good thing is a bonus. I'm going to lay in a hot bath tonight and listen to Stephen Fry read P. G. Wodehouse. It's worth living just for that.

I know what you mean, but even a bit of lovely music played on your phone through cheap headphones on your daily commute is much better than nothing. It's not like you have to make time to write a novel or do the Grand Tour or go to the Bayreuth Festival or whatever. Start really small.