To cope and take comfort from the fact everything is pointless and in 100 years we’ll be dust

[Ramalam]

I have a very stressful job. My coping mechanism is to stop, consider that in the grand scheme of the world everything I’m doing is utterly pointless, and that in 100 years I’ll be dead and none of this will matter one jot?

I used to live opposite a graveyard and it was full of people who had lives full of hopes, fears, ambitious, happiness, sadness. And now none of it matters; it died with them. So best not to
worry.

I don’t know what I’m asking - is this unreasonable or weird?

It’s true.
I'll not bother doing the hoovering or worry about my high cholesterol level tomorrow.

Nihilist

Its so true @Ramalam

Sounds quite realistic to me.

True and none of us can take it with us.

I think this is quite a common soothing mechanism. YANBU.

No, because my legacy will remain. In 100 years I hope my grandchildren and great grandchildren will be smiling at and loving their grandchildren.

Totally agree

I often think that too, and find it a big comfort! Until it panics me and I think I’d better do something that matters in the time I have left 🤣 but then get lulled back into that sense of comfort. I do find it helpful as a way of calming me down when I’m overthinking things.

I was saying exactly this to someone today. Every time I go through something stressful, particularly at work I have to remind myself that in the huge scheme if things it doesn't matter.

I think I heard it take something like 3 generations for you to become nothing but a dot on someone's genealogy chart.

I am very much like this, it really makes me feel very cheerful 😂 but I do think it's a feature of being a teenager in the 80s. Cheerful nihilsm 🤷🏼‍♂️

Absolutely.
I also like that time passes - amazing day or shit. Its all gone one hour at a time.

I also think about the possibility that we are ants to God and God to ants and that there are many things that are unknowable so it's better if I just relax.

This is my philosophy. I find it very comforting.

None of it matters in the grand scheme of things.

Enjoy the ride.

I remember reading an article about a medic working in a warzone and how when a bomb blows up a vehicle they have to decide who to help - and it wasn't always the most severely injured as they could use up all the time but be beyond saving. So sometimes it meant leaving someone to die and concentrating on someone that could be saved.

At that time I could get stressed trying to get my work finished and all done properly. I work in care and this would be getting packed lunches ready, getting washing dry and ready for the morning etc. Reading about that medic put things into perspective and I used to think of them and try to remember "it's only washing".

I feel a bit differently about nothing mattering in 100 years and the idea that the things that the people in the graveyard worried about don't matter now because I think the lives they led and the actions they took will cause a ripple through time whether that is inventing something helpful, inventing something harmful, raising a child with the qualities to be a great parent or raising someone with trauma who in turn have their own children influenced by their parents. The legacy of their lives lives on.

YANBU I very often think the same as you that its all completely pointless! Im not even depressed, I'm actually quite cheerful in daily life. Life does feel really pointless. All the so called targets and achievements in life are merely human constructs such as qualifications, wealth, status, etc. Surely there must be more to life than all that crap. But I haven't found out what yet!

Life is a wonderful gift, so many people do not get the gift at all or have it ripped away from them prematurely. You should live every day as if you truly appreciate that gift, if nothing else, to honour those who do not have it!

I feel very much the same and like you see it as a positive thing. It's all just so silly isn't it, work, money, everyday stresses. This strange society we've built for ourselves. Enjoy life and do the things you love as you only get one go!

Not quite the same, but I remember being in my 20s, massively fucking up a job interview in my last year of uni and worrying about graduating. It felt like all these parts of my life were falling apart.

I was flying out of a city airport at night and I looked down over a major road and saw all these car headlights, and I thought "Look at how many thousands of people are down there. If everything in my life completely fucks up it won't change their life one bit" and it was so reassuring to be insignificant.

It's not Nihilism, it's Absurdism, and it's the only sane way to live.

I think you’d like this poem.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44413/a-shropshire-lad-31-on-wenlock-edge-the-woods-in-trouble

I've put YABU because I wonder if this is genuinely comforting you in the long run? I mean if it is great, whatever gets you through... but I'd worry it's a recipe for depression tbh.
I do think it's good to put things in perspective. But not because nothing matters at all. A lot of things DO matter.
However your job isn't really one of them when it comes down to it. Of course it matters a little but not to the extent you should be ruining your health with stress over it.
I think meaning in life is intensified by the fact we will die. It makes each moment more precious.
And even though we die some things that we do will live forever.. like the impact we make on other people.. who then make impact on others and so on
How we treat people, what we put out into the world..

Everyone in a graveyard has changed the world to a greater or lesser extent. Did they matter? Of course. And so do you.

Thanks all!

I should’ve added at the start that I’m not a depressed or sad person at all - I’m actually quite cheerful and laid back. I also only fall back on this when I start to feel overwhelmed - I don’t not wash, or not pay the mortgage because it’s all pointless. That would be a bit daft!

I think this is a common thought, especially when you get a bit older. You would die for your kids and yet when you get older you will in many cases become a burden to them. What’s it all about? Why sacrifice everything in life for this endless merry go round of just keeping humanity going?

The happiest couple I know didn’t have kids. Their relationship is still brilliant after 40 odd years and they both look 15 years younger than they are!

I look like some Haggered old toilet brush at the same age as them and get zero thanks from any of my kids for the years of sacrifice and what I do for them now.

Meh….