What if you just want to be completely unremarkable?

Post Reply New Topic

When I think about what I want to do, I just want to live a simple life. I don't have a dream job. I don't have a big, lofty dream goal. I don't want to be the best at anything. The idea of searching for meaning or trying to find my "calling" just makes me groan.

I don't want to start a business, run a big blog, work a prestigious job, hold a prestigious degree, make a lot of money, be famous, or anything else. I just want to be healthy and happy, work a job that isn't too stressful and doesn't ask me to cause harm to anyone, make good friends, make food, tell jokes, and help people solve problems. Not like "how to cure cancer" or "how to be an entrepreneur", just basic things like how to get their PC working again or get all their stuff moved to a new house.

I'm not a savant, I'm not a specialist, I don't have any extraordinary talents and I don't want any. I don't even have special interests and I don't want those, either. I don't want to define myself and my self-worth by one or two things that I do or have done, by what I read about in books, build in my free time, play for video games, or do as a job.

And I don't want to feel like a loser for any of this.

That's OK. It's how most people are.

If you are content you have more than anyone who spends their life constantly chasing unattainable dreams

Not all dreams are unattainable.
I'm an artist, have had my work exhibited in public numerous times.
And guess what?
People get jealous.
That doesn't exactly help you when it comes to making friends,
or even, staying on good terms with your relatives.

But yeah, some of us do have a calling to chase ... and catch ... our dreams.

That said ...
No matter how golden the dream is,
all of us
continue to live
in an imperfect world.

...

Last edited by the_phoenix on 08 Jan 2017, 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hi Canary,

A simple life is a good life.

And you're right, you shouldn't compare yourself to anyone else.

That said, you do have a purpose in life,
and I for one hope you will share what you're best at
with the world ...
Take a look around ...
we can use all the help we can get.

What you say about making good friends, making food, telling jokes, and helping people solve problems?
Practical problems that actually make a difference in people's lives, like repairing a PC or helping them move to a new house?
Yes!
You show great wisdom here.
We need more like you.
You sound like a winner to me.

...

I agree, you don't sound like a loser at all to me.

The simple life is a good life. You sound like a very smart and perceptive person, not a loser at all.

I've been dealing with a migraine most of yesterday and today, so I'm just coming back. Thanks for the replies.

Having to find that "purpose" is so much pressure compared to just doing things that are good. Like everything else is just filler until I find "that thing" or never as good as "that thing", that's supposed to be more worthwhile than what I work for every day just to survive and communicate.

You might say that it's harder to make friends because of your accomplished art, but isn't there always something to point to when asked what you do? Always something to display as the result of your life's efforts when that's what people want to see or hear about.

Other have everything from leatherworking to programming to giving lectures. I do many things somewhat well, and read a lot.

Actually, the greatest people in history are those who simply wanted to be left alone to march to their own drummer. Most NT's can't seem to do that, and especially in our current Age of Narcissism where every kid has to be THE BEST and we can't hurt a kid's feelings by telling him he's not THE BEST so every kid gets a trophy.

Today, it's not enough that somebody wants to simply do something like tinkering, no every kid has to be a billionaire hedge fund manager. Parents crush their kid's dreams because the only thing that matters is that everybody have WEALTH and FAME and POWER. What about the kid who simply wants to tinker. Get cracking on that algebra, kid, you MUST be a Silicon Valley titan and billionaire by age 30!

I find it quite weird that the story of Christopher McCandless has sold millions of copies, but everybody seems to miss the point. The basic story dates back at least to Siddhartha Gautama, aka Buddha. A young man has wealthy parents who give him everything on a silver platter, but he's still unhappy and empty. So one day he simply takes off on his own to discover The Meaning Of Life. And he finds it.

In one version of the story, that of Yeshua ha Moshiach (Jesus Christ), the local despot doesn't like that this hermit is wandering the countryside telling people that wealth and fame are NOT the meaning of life, so the despot waits for the hermit to overstep his boundaries. When he does, he is dragged to the middle of town and publicly executed. Problem is, he's not dead. When the hermit "rises from the dead", his followers think he's a god. Of course, nobody realizes then that the undead hermit will be the founder of the greatest religion in world history.

History is littered with the ignored corpses of people whose genius is realized too late to save them. Auguste Rodin (who carved "The Thinker") froze to death during World War 1 because he couldn't afford to heat his apartment. Numerous painters who never sold a painting during their lives, authors who died before anybody realized what great writers they were. Anne Frank's diary was only discovered after the war, when the postwar owner of the house found paper scattered around the attic. Elie Wiesel was ignored for decades because nobody wanted to talk about the Holocaust. Kafka died before anybody bothered to read his works.

So, just do what you want to do, maybe someday you will be considered a genius by people who speak a language and follow a religion that doesn't yet exist.