Have you ever felt like there’s nothing to live for?
It’s probably safe to say that most humans, at some point in time, have experienced this feeling at least once in their lives.
Life is anything but simple.
As humans, we face many ups and downs as we journey through our existence.
Life isn’t fair.
Some people experience a lot more good than bad, and some experience far more bad than good.
But we all experienced some mixture of both.
We will all feel extremely happy at some points, and extremely sad at others.
We will all experience euphoric heights of positivity.
And we will all, at some point, crash to the lowest depths of depression.
Even the most positive people in the world sometimes feel sad, depressed, anxious, negative, just generally hopeless.
So here’s the big question.
What do you do when such feelings make you feel like there’s just nothing to live for anymore?
What can you do to turn back the tide of hopelessness we sometimes feel in our darkest moments?
In many ways, this is a difficult question to answer.
Every human experience is so different.
One person’s bad day may not seem so bad to someone who’s objectively a lot worse off.
But at the same time, that doesn’t mean that your bad day can’t make you feel objectively hopeless, either.
The truth of the matter is that feelings of this nature are very subjective.
Even your bad experiences are probably objectively a lot better, by objective comparison, than the experiences suffered every day by people who are forced to live in truly horrific situations.
But that also doesn’t mean that your suffering isn’t valid, either.
It’s obvious that comparing our suffering to the suffering of others as a means of trying to discredit it isn’t necessarily helpful.
Rather, it’s probably more useful to see suffering as suffering, to accept that it’s unpleasant, and to then move on to the question of how do we turn it around so that we don’t feel like we have nothing to live for?
Countless books all throughout history have been written about this topic, and many different answers could be given.
But in this post, I want to make a case for what I believe to be the root core of the issue.
A lack of meaning and purpose in life.
When your life lacks purpose or meaning, it can be easy to struggle in the darkest of times.
There are two reasons for this.
On one hand, we may not notice our lack of meaning or purpose during good times.
Why?
Because we’re distracted by all the good we’re experiencing.
But then, when things take a downward turn, we lose two things:
We lose the good feelings that were keeping us afloat; but we also lose our sense of purpose and meaning along with them.
For this reason, one of the best ways to deal with the feeling that you have nothing left to live for is to make an intentional choice about something to live for, and then to start living for it.
This could be the life of your child, your relationships, your favorite hobby, your favorite flavor of ice cream, your religious beliefs, or anything else that could bring a sense of significance into your life.
Of course, it’s also a good idea to reach out to someone for help if you feel this way.
Going to therapy can be a great way to get started on this journey. Talking to trusted loved ones and friends who care about you can also help you to rekindle your purpose and re-ignite your passion for life.
In any case, don’t give up.
Life isn’t easy.
But there’s so much good to experience.
You’ve got what it takes to figure it out.
Just put one foot in front of the other, breathe, and keep moving forward.
You can do it!
