There's a lot I am grateful for in life, I have it quite easy with almost everything imaginable. I have the most supportive and loving family, relatives and friends. My salary puts me in the top 3% in the country and my line of work is extremely flexible leaving me time for personal matters. I have a wide field of hobbies and no shortage of right circle of friends where I can indulge, such as playing music in a band, playing board games, video games, reading and discussing philosophy, hiking, camping and fishing, etc. Apart from the day job, I am a co-founder of a company with my friend where we build software. I invest in the stock market to accumulate wealth for an eventual retirement and financial freedom. All the difficulties that come up in life are manageable enough. Despite all that, I am miserable.
I remember enjoying and being excited about all of it, day after day. At some point this stopped and turned into a routine, a responsibility, rather than a vocation or leisure. Everything I do seems like a necessity rather than aspiration. I am growing, improving, gaining things but it feels like I am going nowhere. In my teens I had this sensation of unknown and exciting future ahead of me, where I was just waiting, incubating, learning and improving until that time would come when I would get to live. And here I am in my mid-twenties, still waiting, but for nothing. I know I can and most likely will be successful, that most of those things I daydreamed about as a kid will come true, but now I know that it will take a lot of effort and the fruits of my labour – as fine as they come – will not be what I expect. I used to find joy in pursuing things, hoping that fulfilling my aspirations would complete me. I was only happy during the pursuit, when wanting and hoping. Now I am expected to do the same until... What? Until I die? Until I get so wealthy that I can spend my remaining 10 to 20 years in luxury? Throughout the years I am realizing that I am preparing for nothing.
Every day I wake up looking forward to the in-between moments of work and leisure. Small times where I get to do absolutely nothing, just sitting in silence. I feel like all the life is being lived for me and I am just there watching it. As a child I felt like I was waiting and preparing for something. I still feel the same way today, but now it feels wrong, as the future is not so mysterious and exciting. I do not enjoy most of what I do, even though it sometimes brings me joy, it does not make me happy. Yet every day I go through with everything, feeling like I distract myself. Should there not be something greater? Something I could die for, even right at this instant, whereas living would happen to be a blessing to get to wake up and labour for something far more important.
I ask myself these questions and hardly take any time to look for the answers. I am distracting myself with work and leisure, postponing everything for the future that might not even come. Humans are creatures of repetition. This is how we get to live, experience and know things. Even the things we know and do well have to be repeated or else we lose them. The skills have to be practiced; Love has to be constantly expressed; The truth has to be reaffirmed. Yet what I am repeating is the indulgence in distractions that simply bring me closer to death. I am doing this willingly and consistently. I am actively dying.