Ask Lemmy

So I think maybe you're not old enough to remember motivating giraffe or poem for your sprog on reddit, but when life took me down a notch after finally "figuring it out", I had these words to help me through.

Essentially, plans are great but life will take you all sorts of directions. You don't need to figure it all out now. Just put a couple of those pieces down and then some more down later.

Also, if you like cute motivating messages: https://motivatinggiraffe.com/gallery/ I miss her so much :(

What do you value in life? What do you want?

Figure out what you want, and then go for it.

• If you want to make money, then be determined to focus on a career white-collar that will make you money. Get the education that you need for your career, and then work on the career.
• If you want to focus on relationships, then spend quality time with people as much as you can, build friendships, find love, start a family, etc. Meet people and do things as often as you can.
• If you want to be an artist, musician, chef, or any other crafts-person, then find ways maximize the time and energy that you spend on your craft. Start making things now, start hanging out with others who share your passion.
• If you want to do something meaningful, try to build a life around the idea of helping people, animals, or generally leaving the world a better place than it is toady. Volunteer, get licensed for social work, etc.
• Only worry about things that you can act on tomorrow. Worrying about things far in the past or future is nothing more than anxiety, and it's not helpful.

I don't think we can really plan our lives, and even trying to do so is probably a fool's errand because things rarely, if ever, go as planned. (Of course we all need to work and take care of things on a daily basis to make ends meet, and such...) But I think the best thing you can do for yourself during early adulthood is determine what you value most in life and what you want to do with your time on this Earth.

Likewise, do yourself a favor and internalize the idea that you don't need to do what other people want you to do or live anyone else's dreams. Everyone is going to have their own values and opinions about what you should be chasing in life, but chances are they they are not compatible with your way of thinking.

I think life is really about attempting to do whatever you want. Think about the Greek philosopher Diogenes and consider that you don't have to do anything at all if you don't want to...

Once you know what you want to do, then you can simply focus on taking the steps to needed to do that thing.

Turns out the puzzle is blank too and you get to draw whatever you like on the pieces you've assembled (crayons not included in the puzzle box). You don't even have to finish the puzzle. Just put together some pieces and call it a good year. Few more next year.

By now you're probably thinking something like: yeah that sounds nice and all, how about you give me some practical advice you old fuck that knows nothing about me or my life or what I'm going through.

My answer is you're right. I don't know.

What do you think your most urgent issues are? What do you think are some reasonable aspirations and first steps to take?

Live in the moment and find a job that you like. Don't do it for the money, you'll become miserable.

Obviously that does not mean you should study philosofy or something even more useless. No, you've gotta earn a living after all.

It's good to learn a trade for something that's always in demand, like plumbing or trucking. Even if the cool sounding office jobs get taken over by AI, you'll be able to apply for jobs that do still exist.

Try finding a supportive and fulfilling community that helps you achieve your life goals. I've found this at my Unitarian Universalist (UU) church. UU's don't believe in a shared religious text, instead they have a core set of shared values. My church has people who identify as atheist, Christian, several types of pagan, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, etc. We celebrate religious holidays from all of them as well as secular holidays like Trans Day of Visibility and Earth day. The focus is on being together and trying to make the world a better place. There's active volunteer groups for hunger relief, housing support, the environment, and LGBTQ support. I also really like the music program. There's a handy website to find a congregation near you, many stream services on Zoom so you can test them out before going in person. They can vary a lot based on the members of each congregation.

Be kind to yourself.

As a fellow young adult who feels like they’re still figuring out wtf is going on I’ve found having outlets is good. It’s certainly not as easy to have free time where you have the mental energy to engage with something even if you want to but spending time and commiserating with others or doing a hobby very casually is good. I definitely struggle with letting some of my hobbies that I used to be extremely competitive/highly skilled at decrease in importance and having my ability reduced slightly. I don’t think there’s really a 1 size fits all answer.

Nobody was given a picture for their puzzle either. So don't feel like you're alone in that. Just take it one step at a time and remember that you don't have to solve or plan for everything at once.

Become a content-creator

Start with the easy bits. Find anchor points you can build off of. If your puzzle doesn't have any easy corners, pick any identifiable reference point, try to understand roughly where it might fit in the completed puzzle. It's OK if you have to make some very broad guesses early on, you can figure out exactly how it fits in as you complete more of the puzzle.

Then, see what you can build around the piece or pieces you've identified. Try to build bridges between the anchor points, but keep in mind this may not be possible with the pieces you have. just keep looking for the pieces you need, and when you find them, see how they fit into the pieces you have. Try to construct a stable skeleton of the puzzle you are trying to solve that holds together on its own. Once you have a stable structure it becomes much easier, you can start to choose to fill in whichever gap you prefer, or whichever one you find the pieces for. Take care not to ignore entirely pieces you find that don't belong to the area you're currently working on. If you can place one piece of the puzzle it may lead to other pieces falling into place that you have been holding onto for a while.

While you're solving, keep an eye out for pieces that don't belong to the puzzle you're trying to put together. They get mixed together all the time. It may be hard to tell at first because all puzzle pieces tend to look as though they might fit together somehow, but sometimes they just don't. They may be beautiful and interesting puzzles in their own right, but if they can't fit you can't make them, and you may spend a lot of time trying to make them fit in vain. On the other hand, it is entirely possible to find a way to make to distinct puzzles fit together. This is both rare and, counter-intuitively, much more common than you might expect. The decision to try to integrate two different puzzles is a complex one and completely unique to the two puzzles in question, and there is no general advice as to what the "correct" decision is, you must trust your instincts. Sometimes you might get it wrong, and not realize it for a while.

While solving, it is important to step back at regular intervals and appreciate your work. This is especially important when doing modular puzzles because the puzzle is never really finished, you can just keep adding pieces on where they fit. It's important to enjoy the process of solving the puzzle, rather than save all the enjoyment for when it's finished, because almost all of your time is spent in the process, and those momentary flashes of having "solved" a puzzle are always just ephemeral flashes before you see the next bit of the puzzle that opens up before you.

A lot of people do puzzles in groups, some people do them on their own. I find it's easier to put together my own puzzles when I can talk about them with other people who are doing their own puzzles. I like sharing pieces with other people when I can, and I highly recommend it, just be careful of people asking for pieces that you really need for your own puzzle.

Occasionally pieces come apart or get lost entirely, which can be very sad, because the puzzle may never feel complete without those pieces. You may remember some of them fondly, you may wish to forget some of them ever existed. Some of them you will forget whether you wish it or no. Just don't let those wishes stop you from appreciating what you've been able to build, what pieces you still have, and what you might be able to do with them.

My degree is in philosophy I planned on law school but by the time I graduated I was all done with school for a while. There is not a plethora of jobs for philosophy majors so I joined the Army. While I’m no longer in uniform I still work for the Army have lived all over the world and will have a decent retirement.

What I did is not for everybody but it worked for me.

Take a year "off" of "normal" life and commit to some charity work.

Life is what happens when you are planning. Pick a direction and start moving forward.

Life is all about planning and strategizing. If you're not thinking ahead, more importantly, not thinking through on some things, you'll always be struggling to figure it out.

The first mistake you're doing is asking for advice in general. Because you're not thinking deep in yourself in what matters to you and what you want to achieve from those things.