life help: I have nothing to live for. - Help.com

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What would make your life worth living?

I have a lot of those times. I spent years being too afraid to leave the house, feeling like my life had no meaning. I looked for answers but couldn’t find any because I was waiting for someone to rescue me. Eventually someone showed me that if I want my life to be more then it was then I need to make it what I want it to be. No one will rescue me, I need to rescue myself and let others help. Tell me some of your goals. What are things you would like to achieve in life?

i read a great book once, “the Chosen” by Chaim Potok. In it the main character’s father says at one point, “a man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.”

Actually, the whole passage is very insightful. Here’s an excerpt:

“Human beings do not live forever, Rueven, we live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So we may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye? I learned a long time ago, that the blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. The span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so that its quality is immeasurable, though its quantity may be insignificant. A man must fill his life with meaning , meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one’s life with meaning. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest……….I want to be worthy of rest, when I am no longer here……Few goals are worthy of greater dedication. ”

Well, the only way you are going to move forward and change your life is to decide that you’ve had enough of the way things are and fight back. Decide what your goals are, decide you are willing to fight to change your life. If you give in to this, then there is nothing anyone else can do to fix you. You have to fix you.

in the passage i cited you, Chaim Potok writes, “meaning isn’t automatically given to life” so my point is that you need to Chose what it is you want to devote your life and energies to. it is rare and unlikely that your ‘purpose’ so to speak, will simply one day land in your lap as you go about your everyday business. the choice then, is only the first step. then the work starts and you move forward from there.

i don’t really understand what you mean by giving up, since it doesn’t seem to me that you’ve decided yet what it is you want to do. what are you doing now? what are your options for the future?

So what are you up to? What are you going to do next to get to feeling better?

i guess the only thing i’d like to add is that you might like to figure out what it is you’re passionate about. it easiest to find a purpose in s/thing you’re passionate about - and then it doesn’t feel like work at all.

(for instance- part of my job required me to work with young offenders. it was only after doing that, i discovered i had a passion for working with at-risk youth).
good luck. you have time still.

never give up.

One of the best things I ever did when I felt I had nothing to live for was volunteer and get involved with things I cared about or enjoyed.

There is so much out there. My advise is to go find what gives life meaning for you. For some it is a true love, kids, friends, etc. For others it is knowledge, trills, adventure, etc.

For me, when I stood on top of a hill that we hiked up I realized just how much is out there that is yet to be discovered by me. It would be such a shame for me to stay still and not look for those things that make me happy in life.

i feel like you all the time im in the same boat, no job, new place with no friends, old friends are not the same, i stay home allday, no money. i dont know you just got to keep on livin. its hard but if you make it through this tough time and finnaly make something of your life, when everything looked like there was no way out. your gonna be proud of your self and find new reassurance and self confidence just to know you made it through this hell that your feeling now. forget everybody else focus on you, get up to the top and if you dont make it keep trying untill you do. once you hit rock bottom you still havent failed unless you dont get up you fail when you give up so right know the only way is up.

i really dont have alot of friends,and i feel theres more to me than just staying home and sleeping late.im homebound because of my belly.i have such a big dream and theres nothing i can do to achieve it.the last hour i have cried out i have nothing to live for.im 12 and i dont want to continue wasting my life

I understand - you all have a friend in me.

when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.
always keep on going, to show others your strenght, to prove to yourself that you are worth something. and mostly ALWAYS live for others.

if you have nothing to live for personally, then live for someone else.

keep faith and hope. as your happiness will soon come.
and never give up :)

x x x

I find that I get very down in the dumps, and yes because life is often meaningless. I spend a lot of time by myself and I have tried to enjoy being by myself but I don’t think it is good for me. On the other hand I can’t lean on others because they are infailable and they will sooner or later push me away if I try to draw on their energy all of the time. And I am bereft of positive energy to interject into relations with others. I can’t blame them for not wanting me around.

I look at the talents that I have and projects that I could be engaged in and often I am left with the overwhelming feeling like I don’t want to do anything except sleep and shut down. Often activities have a “feel good” element to them, but that usually sooner or later end when depression sets in and envelops my whole being. Some days it is painful just to push myself to get dressed and tie my shoes.

Society doesn’t give us any credit for at least trying to follow through on some of our activities of daily living. But these activities are important, and often my heroes are the people that can tie their own shoes each morning.

the last seven years i have been in and out of deffernt stages of hell, i say hell for lack of a better word. i have walked with death from motorcycle crashes to drug overdoses. i find little peace in the fact that im not disfigured from my past, atleast not on the outside…i am wrighting this because what iv read here tonight has helped me get through. life is hard to say the least. there are times that i live minute to minute. i have nothing to lose but my life,to top it off i feel as if i lost that a long time ago. i belive it counts that im here wrighting this now. a lot of things can happen in life, a lot of those things will be bad. no way around it but, its what you go through in life and what you make of it that makes you who you are. i hope with what has been said my hell is in good use. much love to all of you that need it. the world can be a small place i hope to get a chance to meet some of you in it one day