Sometimes, I Don’t Know What I Want In Life

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You know those days, when you have nothing else to do and you start thinking about life? Ponder on what your future looks like? Is it worth it in the end? What is the purpose of life? Your thoughts escalate so quickly and then it happens. That disgusting, recurring mild depression.

Due to the lack of distraction during a quiet, boring summer night, I ask myself, what do I want? I don’t want to go back to school when summer break is over. All that school work and early morning lectures. Yuck! At the same time, I don’t want to waste my time just laying around and pigging out on food during the holidays. Heck, I am so bored, even sleep sounds repulsive. So I decided, I don’t know what I want anymore.

I’m guessing it’s a common problem among youths in their early twenties because almost everybody I know have complained about being sad and confused about their future. For many of us, that feeling strikes more often during winter, which is coming very soon, everybody! When I found out seasonal affective disorder exists, my mind was blown.

I’ll usually tell myself stuff like, “It’ll turn out fine in the end. By the way dude, you’re in your twenties. Are you psychotic? You’re not suppose to have life all figured out, bro!” and you know those other cheesy motivational line. I call it solo therapy. Miraculously, it actually works for me after approximately a week or two of some intense inner screaming.

Unfortunately, for some, the problems arising from this can be severe. I have seen first-hand, friends who fell into depression, not wanting to leave their room and partially gave up on life. It’s a vicious cycle. With greasy food in both hands, they complain about everything and that, in turn, leads to their friends avoiding them. Then comes the bad grades and more miserable days. That mild depression that we were talking about, isn’t very mild anymore. Do seek help, if you need it. Never resort in irreversible decisions.

I might have experienced the above situation. Realising my friends are evading my presence, even I got annoyed by myself. It became contagious and started spreading to my flatmates. We became a bunch of sad people. The British winter nights creeping up at 4 in the evening didn’t help the situation. I needed to seek help. As a teen, I watched many documentaries. I watched people misusing their therapists, abusing antidepressants and saw various other problems associated with seeking help. Eventually, I didn’t seek help. I don’t know if I made the right decision but thankfully enough I got over that misery.

What works for me is knowing that I’m not the only one. Someone, somewhere in this Earth is in a worse condition than me right now. I can’t be selfish. A study shows us how relatively common depression is to young adults. It peaks at the age of 20 to 24 and starts declining after, only increasing slightly at the age of 80 and above. People say, you discover who you are, your identity, in your twenties. Could this statistic be the proof that life does get better? It’s vague but there’s a trend.

Something important to point out is there’s nothing wrong with being unsatisfied. Yes, we should be appreciative but is it wrong to want more in life? The only way to solve this is to push that greasy bowl of food aside, get up that comfy bed and cease the day. Strive for what you think you deserve.

It might be the universe speaking to me because good things starts happening to me when I’m happy. So back to that important question before you fell into depression – what is the purpose of life? Someone extremely wise said, “To give life a purpose.” Again, mind blown. We’re living in a short time frame of the entire existence of the universe. We’ve got to fill up that small slot with great events that keeps us happy because one day, we will inevitably be non-existent again.