Replies

Life has exactly as much point as you chose to give it. You can be a balloon bobbing along the river of life or a speedboat chugging up stream at full tilt. Both have their good and bad points, the trick is to understand which way you are living it, figure out if you’re OK with that and either change it or learn to be happy. I became a lot happier in life when I adopted the theme of “know who you are”, which oddly enough was just for weight loss but turned out to be just plain handy across the board. Once you know who you are most of the problems in your life go away, all those internal unhappinesses vaporize because now you understand them and can either cope or change. 90% of everybody’s unhappiness comes from between their ears, you fix that and the other 10% is gravy.

I don't know. I guess I've always been a little bit of an old school romantic on the whole issue of destiny. I often think I was born either a few centuries late or possibly a few centuries early. I always thought I knew myself pretty well; in fact, it's kind of the problem. But maybe I really don't....

There’s layers of knowing yourself. You might know what you want in the world but do you know why, and have you figured out why you don’t have it. A lot of my grabbing happiness was realizing that at age 40 (now I’m 41) there’s a damn good reason I didn’t have the things I’d always wanted, that in fact I’d never even really tried to get them, and that must have some meaning. And the meaning I figured out was that I didn’t actually want them, I’d allowed myself to be suckered into what everybody “should” want without ever wondering if I did. Once I realized I didn’t it all got much easier.

You can be an old school romantic on destiny. Not everybody is destined to be James Watt, some folks are destined to be James Watt’s cab driver. And there’s nothing wrong with that, Watt might not have done what he did if nobody drove him there.

“I often think I was born either a few centuries late or possibly a few centuries early”

Wow, ok. I feel the *exact* same, and you feel that there’s no place for you in this world.

Sorry to keep chiming in, but I really relate to you. Things are better now.

I, too, was an old-school romantic (still am in many ways).

Again, we have to get out of self, keep expectations reasonable, put God above all else, be useful, and forget about all that Oprah “find yourself, know yourself, etc” crap.

Life is not like the movies or romance novels, and happiness is not the loftiest ideal.

Seek God, and you will know truth. And you will be content in your own skin, no matter what your present circumstances.