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Is anyone else just faking it?

M

Moose Biscuits

It would be extreamly painful...
BriareosGAF said:
Sure, but that's sort of the point--that you can't predict what will actually excite you and break you out of the quiet ennui, or even how much work something is involved in. A stochastic approach is necessary where you try things until that thing clicks. It's also a general posture change--from 'everything is a hassle' to 'oh you can just do things' even if you have no idea what you should be doing. I suppose colloquially these are referred to as 'variety is the spice of life' and 'fake it till you make it'.

We build up these constructs in our heads of what we think we are, how people perceive us, what a process will be like, and then you just do it and it turns out you wasted all that time obsessing about it and when you do it it's not hard, people will help you, and unexpected things pop up that you could never anticipate, that make it all interesting and worthwhile.
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I've tried doing things before. Not just university, I used to draw a bunch for years, ever since I was a kid; but then when I started to make an effort to improve because I wasn't satisfied with my level of drawing, after a few weeks of attempting to practice the necessary tools I got frustrated and gave up. The practice was actively UN-fun, and drawing at the level I was at before was no longer good enough for what I wanted; so I gave up and haven't made any serious attempts at drawing since, for several years now.

Same with university, it put me off organised learning for good; or rather it put me off doing anything that had the significant chance of failure if I didn't put lots of effort in and wasn't guaranteed success. I still work, because that's necessary for money and life; but I keep myself amused with videogames because they're relatively low effort.

So I feel like a lot of things are a hassle.

jb1234 said:
Nah. You're paying them for a service and you can choose to either take advantage of what they offer or not.
Click to expand...

This ties in well, and is similarly why I'm not too interested in therapy. I'm not interesting in wasting time and money on something which doesn't have a high chance on improving me as a person; more so if there's also a non-zero chance that I could be committed. (I'm not saying it's likely, but it's still non-zero)
 
R

Ryaaan14

Banned
OP u might be an empath. Not drawing any attention to yourself in order to appease others. I'm assuming you're probably a selfless person by nature and enjoy seeing others succeed.

U just gotta find something that actually makes u truly happy and you'll be in a good place. Faking it is fine tho, there's nothing inherently wrong w it
 
S

Screaming Meat

Unconfirmed Member
xxmagiksxx said:
It's important to have something you're working towards. Simply being content is not a healthy stable mindset.
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tumblr_mbj92buLP81rpmo4ho1_500.gif
 
E

Elfotografoalocado

Banned
I second what other people are saying, pick up a hobby, and let it be a creative one that makes you proud. If I may suggest something, photography is very entertaining, it's a door to general culture and history and other forms of art (as well as people) and once you are very much into it you'll be much less bored because you'll see photos everywhere.
 
M

magnetic

Member
BriareosGAF said:
Sure, but that's sort of the point--that you can't predict what will actually excite you and break you out of the quiet ennui, or even how much work something is involved in. A stochastic approach is necessary where you try things until that thing clicks. It's also a general posture change--from 'everything is a hassle' to 'oh you can just do things' even if you have no idea what you should be doing. I suppose colloquially these are referred to as 'variety is the spice of life' and 'fake it till you make it'.

We build up these constructs in our heads of what we think we are, how people perceive us, what a process will be like, and then you just do it and it turns out you wasted all that time obsessing about it and when you do it it's not hard, people will help you, and unexpected things pop up that you could never anticipate, that make it all interesting and worthwhile.
Click to expand...

I like your mindset. It took me ages to really notice that I have been dragging this weird viewpoint that "everything is a hassle" along with me for decades. Everything is just an obligation I now have to bear. Even meeting with friends was sometimes yet another thing on my schedule I would have to get through.

I´m slowly realizing that watching the world through these glasses is causing me a ton of unnecessary friction. Since I´ve been dabbling with mindfulness meditation, I´ve been noticing more and more that I´ve been driving down the road of my life with the brakes still on - ineffective and with a ton of resistance that´s entirely coming from within.

The most easy example is very basic stuff like doing the dishes or doing my taxes. I don´t really WANT to do those things, but I now realize that I can choose whether or not I want to approach this with "oh man, yet another dumb chore standing between me and my perceived happiness at a future point" or "I could just not do it, but that would suck, so let´s just roll with it and don´t keep fighting it every step of the way".

And the "what we think we are" - that´s another point that has keeping me down. I´ve been constructing these weird ideas of who I think I am - my "persona". How I want to appear to others, how I am seeing myself... But then I realized that my idea of "who I am" is yet another thought, and that I had many other self concepts in the past that turned out not to be correct. So what proof do I have that my current self identitiy is the "right" one, either? Maybe I´m yet again viewing myself to distorted glasses?

So I decided to just forget figuring myself out, since so far that has not lead me in the right direction at all. Trying to cling to a certain self identity has only made me rigid and complacent. It´s way more fun to go "you know, this might not be what I usually do, but let´s just try it and see what happens".
 
J

jb1234

Member
Moose Biscuits said:
This ties in well, and is similarly why I'm not too interested in therapy. I'm not interesting in wasting time and money on something which doesn't have a high chance on improving me as a person; more so if there's also a non-zero chance that I could be committed. (I'm not saying it's likely, but it's still non-zero)
Click to expand...

Good therapists are there as a guide and can help give you some tools. But ultimately, the only person who can improve you is yourself.
 
B

BriareosGAF

Member
magnetic said:
Since I´ve been dabbling with mindfulness meditation, I´ve been noticing more and more that I´ve been driving down the road of my life with the brakes still on - ineffective and with a ton of resistance that´s entirely coming from within.
Click to expand...

I spent a bit of time in Soto Zen and still like returning to that tradition occasionally to refresh. Not that I believe Shunryu Suzuki was perfect or anything (David Chadwick's Crooked Cucumber is an interesting read) but I really like reading his lectures and essays for a different perspective. Namely that failure is a part of the process and expected, that our practice (living itself) plateaus and becomes difficult, that we get wrapped up in our own ego thoughts, and there is no quick fix, just the steady progress of each day, sitting itself as enlightenment. Not that I sat this morning, instead I've been watching Bisu vs. Shine Brood War matches :p.
 
P

PFD

Member
Choppasmith said:
I'm in the exact same boat OP. I have generalized anxiety. I saw a therapist a couple years and that helped but after a while sessions with her just felt like "Okay, you're not married, no girlfriend, can't drive so... yeah, your life kinda sucks *shrugs*" and I stopped seeing her.

It doesn't help that lately my young half-sister who's a little over half my age (I'm 33 and she's 20) is happily married and just had her first kid that makes me feel even worse about my own shortcomings.

I feel "stuck" right now more then anything else. Finding time to practice driving is difficult (and I've been told I can't date if I can't drive) and I REALLY have no social interaction outside of work. But like you, OP, I'm content with what I have and yet...I'm not.

Best advice that's helped new this past couple weeks is you have to do what's best for YOU. I've been playing more video games without worrying what my sister/roommate would want (thankfully she totally understand where I'm coming from and giving me space)
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First time I hear of driving being a requirement for dating. Do you live in a remote rural area far from everything or something? Is there no public transportation around you?

@OP give The War of Art a read. It's a very short book, and it can help you get out of this rut:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1936891026/?tag=neogaf0e-20
 
D

Dereck

Member
MastAndo said:
Yeah, I feel that way. I'm in my mid-30's, and the description someone used earlier is accurate - I am minimizing failure. I'm single, no desire for a wife and kids (I would worry too much and it would rattle my comfy world of complacency). Big decisions scare me to death, so I don't make any. I'm not depressed, nor do I even feel unhappy. I'm just kind of...sleepwalking. I have no burning passion for anything, though I dabble in most everything here and there. I get paid pretty well, do the minimum amount of work to sustain said job, and just save money living in an apartment I'm not exactly proud of, because the rent is low and the location is absolutely perfect when it comes to being near work transportation, friends and family. I go look at places all the time, but I know that's in vain - it will take the hand of God to move me out of here as rent is nearly double everywhere else I've looked. I'm faking the desire to better myself in this way, and I'm also scared to "stir the pot" by making a bad financial investment. I'm sitting on savings that I have no idea what to do with, nor any desire to do anything it.

My friendships are pretty genuine however, minus one of my close friends that I kind of have an on the surface relationship with that I believe he perceives to be deeper, but that's another story. I do have a handful of close friends that I hang out with a few times a week, and have a blast with. Their company and conversation is something I genuinely enjoy, albeit it is usually in a context I like (some dive bar playing darts/pool, or playing video games having a few beers).

My romantic life is bit of a farce. My looks are going to shit, and clearly I'm dying inside a bit, but I guess I have some appeal since I'm doing better than I ever have with women. Go figure. I'm in my ideal romantic situation at the moment- it's a pseudo-relationship that allows me to do what I want most of the time, since that's all I'm offering. There's a false sense of the possibility of developing something with substance. We both know it's going nowhere, but like each other, so we keep it going. It's all a lie, and I'm OK with it.

My past long term (i.e. meaningful) relationships had all lost their luster after a short time, so I faked interest in being there...years later, she will have caught on and wanted to end things, much to my relief. I'm not looking to repeat that. Quite frankly, I can't see myself in a full-time "meaningful" romantic relationship ever again. I can't fake that much any more.

Everyone who knows me (mostly) sees me as this happy-go-lucky guy with his shit together, but I do feel stuck in the mud about it all. I don't know what the end game is....I suppose I just feel like the mud isn't so bad.
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We're the same person.

No one's intruding into my life and is telling me what to do.

Lately I've realized that I safeguarded myself so much from failure that my life is relatively uneventful as a result.
 
C

Choppasmith

Member
PFD said:
First time I hear of driving being a requirement for dating. Do you live in a remote rural area far from everything or something? Is there no public transportation around you?
Click to expand...

I live in a small flat town (that actually DOES have good public transport) so learning to drive was never a huge priority when I moved here back in 2004. A couple years later well into my current job, I'm having a conversation with a couple of my female coworkers. One's an older mom, and the other was a young, recently married woman about my age. We were talking about the pros and cons of my situation of having no car and biking to work and then the subject of dating came up. The older woman said, "Now look -----, biking is a nice alternative, but if you want to find someone you NEED to learn how to drive so you can take a girl out." She turns to the other coworker, "What do you think?" and she says, "Yeah, I wouldn't date a guy who couldn't drive."

I was thinking about bringing this up in a thread, because i thought maybe in this day with the likes of Uber and Lyft, such a "requirement" wasn't necessary anymore. But I was fearful of embarrassment and people would be all, "A guy with an MLP avatar having dating problems? What a shock! Hyuck Hyuck!"
 
C

chronic_archaic

Member
Not really - I'm probably close to your age and I made it pretty clear how I felt about everything. I'm at the point though where my monetary situation is turning around and I might possibly be able to try and become a musician in some professional fashion if things go right. If I settled for faking I couldn't live with myself.
 
Necro900

Necro900

Member
We're all faking it, since we insist on convincing ourselves that what we do has any kind of importance in the grand scheme of things.

Just do your thing. The more you think about not being happy, the less likely it is you'll be happy eventually.
 
T

The Last Wizard

Member
Zen_Arcade said:
They're using it wrong. The biggest mistake people make when they get rich is thinking that the best part of being rich is the wealth and what it can get you. The real plus side of being rich is that you have more freedom because you don't have to do almost anything you don't want to do.

And I completely disagree with your last paragraph. I have enough to pay for bills and food and I don't like most of my life at all. I still live at home, and if I moved out I would essentially break even every month and not be saving anything for retirement. I have to go to a job I hate everyday and be surrounded by people I don't like.

As for your woods example, being rich would automatically make my life better, because instead of planning out when I could go to the woods to relax, I could do it literally whenever I wanted. I wouldn't have to worry about if I have to be at work, and I could even travel to new forests or other wilderness because my life isn't bogged down by a job that essentially eats up five out of every seven days.

Money doesn't solve every problem, and it can even create some new ones, but if you're rich and not considerably happier with your position in life you either have a deeper issue that needs to be taken care of (Which is easily affordable and higher quality if you're rich.) or you're using it in a way that makes your life hollow instead of more open. The value of being rich doesn't come from being able to buy things, it comes from being able to buy free time and the freedom that comes along with it. I don't think rich people approach it that way so a lot of them end up miserable.
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My motherfucking man. I hate when people say money don't buy you happiness or that it'll make you more miserable. Fuck that noise. Money grants you the most valuable currency in life, time. Like you said, it allows you to not have to worry about work all the damn time and helps your stress levels. You're not wondering how you gonna keep the light on, food on the table, a roof over your head, and you and your family's health. Either enough money you've got power to change the world for better and change other people's lives dramatically. You can open up scholarship programs, non profits, funds and donate on levels most people could never dream of.

It's a load of crock that's fed to us, sure many rich people may be miserable but once again like you said they're doing it wrong. They're focused on themselves and money only. Of course you're gonna be fucking miserable if that's all you're focused on.
 
S

SomTervo

Member
The "money doesn't buy you happiness" line is important hyperbole though, even if it's not exactly accurate. The point is to emphasise that it's not the money itself that makes you happy.

Regardless, having "all the money" isn't the answer, and having "all the time" isn't the answer either. The truer quality is balance. Good work/life balance, good money/time balance. It's different for everyone.

I'm making less than I did for the last three years month-by-month, but my income will grow, and I'm only working on average about 30 hours a week (some weeks 50-60, some weeks 20-25) while still saving some money. Finding this balance took years and is completely worth it - the work itself being fulfilling, too.
 
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