This decade was a waste

[Markness]

After this year passes, I will have lived through my third decade. How do I feel about it? Honestly, it was a complete waste of my life. I struggled to get a girlfriend, make solid friendships, work on my interests, and go to college but I am still single, friends leave my life because of their own circumstances or they grow to hate me, I still suck at everything I wish I was talented at, and I dropped out of college possibly for good. I have nothing to show for my efforts and what should've been my best years are forever gone.

 

[stewdog80]

"If you are going through hell, keep going." -Winston Churchill

 

[GadAbout]

After this year passes, I will have lived through my third decade. How do I feel about it? Honestly, it was a complete waste of my life. I struggled to get a girlfriend, make solid friendships, work on my interests, and go to college but I am still single, friends leave my life because of their own circumstances or they grow to hate me, I still suck at everything I wish I was talented at, and I dropped out of college possibly for good. I have nothing to show for my efforts and what should've been my best years are forever gone.

You feel really ripped-off, don't you? Life gave you a raw deal.

Life gave most of us a raw deal, but it's our choice how we want to react to it.

 

[Fino]

Our minds are wired to find patterns. You're currently seeking patterns of failure. It's not a reflection of reality but a reflection of the pattern-finding game your mind is playing.

 

[Mia]

So you learned nothing whatsoever at college? And it was a complete waste? If you want to be good at something, work harder, find something that interests you. Your best years are yet to come. My best years were from the age of six to eleven and after that it pretty much was working and going to school and then working. Friends leave and go on with their lives, they move, they go to school, they find jobs, they grow up. It's what happens in real life.

 

[Judge]

I've been around long enough to realize that life- and success are anything but linear processes. Your best years may still be in front of you. Not behind you. So hang in there.

It also helps to read about the struggles of personalities like Winston Churchill and even Richard Nixon who had incredible ups and downs in life, yet lived a long time. Gives one a real sense of perspective in terms of the unpredictability of both success and failure. And perhaps most of all, perseverance to keep going.

"Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain." -Richard M. Nixon

 

[Markness]

So you learned nothing whatsoever at college? And it was a complete waste? If you want to be good at something, work harder, find something that interests you. Your best years are yet to come. My best years were from the age of six to eleven and after that it pretty much was working and going to school and then working. Friends leave and go on with their lives, they move, they go to school, they find jobs, they grow up. It's what happens in real life.

What I did learn depression largely eroded away and I was disappointed by the social scene, especially after being told it was going to be better than high school. It was a junior college and I couldn't even graduate from there.

You also need to know that I live in the American Bible Belt and it is Autism/Aspergers Hell.

 

[Markness]

You feel really ripped-off, don't you? Life gave you a raw deal.

Life gave most of us a raw deal, but it's our choice how we want to react to it.

I do feel ripped off, especially when I see past bullies coupled up with girlfriends or wives while I can't even get a coffee date.

 

[Fino]

Did they at least get fat? Most of the people who were mean to me got fat. There seems to be a correlation.

 

[Gracey]

would the last decade serve as a reminder to do something different or risk feeling disappointed with the next 10,
if you're convinced the last ten were a waste of time?

if you got a do-over, what would you change?

 

[Autistamatic]

I still suck at everything I wish I was talented at

Many of us, on and off the spectrum, turn that around by finding the joy and the dividends of what talents we already have, rather than wishing for talents we lack.
If you're autistic it means you have an uneven skillset. You have a natural disadvantage in some skills but a distinct advantage in others. Find those stronger skills, develop them, enjoy the successes (even small personal achievements count) and your confidence will build. It will give you something to talk about and might even open up some social avenues too.

 

[shysnail]

I hope you don't find the above insensitive. I do honestly know how awful it is to feel this way. But I personally have found it useful to see life as a perspective thing. Am I doing well objectively, compared with the standards society says a human being needs to meet? Not even close! I have so many failures, so many limitations, so much I want to have been different but nothing I can do to change it.

I've not achieved a whole lot and I'm getting older, too. The years of my life that were meant to be filled with experiencing new things, meeting new people, having a great time have largely been a void of anxiety, loneliness and staying indoors. Is my life then a waste? No, it isn't. I'm doing what I can. I'm not happy a LOT of the time. Sometimes I'm thoroughly miserable. But I still have joy and things I like doing. When my favourite show has a new episode, or my cat does something funny. When it's a nice day out and I can go to the park. All those little things do actually matter, you know? You're not being fair on your life to only judge it by the big things.

 

[DuckRabbit]

After this year passes, I will have lived through my third decade. How do I feel about it? Honestly, it was a complete waste of my life. I struggled to get a girlfriend, make solid friendships, work on my interests, and go to college but I am still single, friends leave my life because of their own circumstances or they grow to hate me, I still suck at everything I wish I was talented at, and I dropped out of college possibly for good. I have nothing to show for my efforts and what should've been my best years are forever gone.

I don't believe the outcome you're feeling now should be blamed on what you should or shouldn't have done. I think it's more adaptive to accept that you did everything you possibly could at the time, and the outcomes were still not in your favour. You did everything right; it is the 'try' that counts. You could use this to deepen your understanding of life, such as understanding that 1+1 doesn't always equal 2, that effort doesn't always lead to reward.

The real failure would have been if you hadn't tried - if you'd been like those people who crop up on 'Dr Phil' every so often who've unplugged from life and just sit couch-potato-like in their room or parents' basement escaping on a permanent basis into video games or smoking weed. Keep being active in small, positive ways, even if it's making your bed, cleaning your space, washing your hair, watering a plant, going to the shops, reading a book, looking up something online to think about or interest you.

"Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day." ― Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Moore's book 'Dark Nights of the Soul' is brilliant for dealing with dashed hopes while keeping going, putting one foot in front of the other even if you can't see any path. Alain de Botton's 'The Consolations of Philosophy' is another good book for such feelings. It can also be a great comfort to read biographies. As C.S. Lewis said, 'We read to know we are not alone.'

"When we read the biographies of even the most successful (to the world’s eye) men, we always find that behind the scenes there was a steady grind going on all the time, with any number of hard, very hard things to bear, and quantities of private discouragement."
― Constance Fenimore Woolson.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

Add on another couple of decades it's more about how joyful it is to go to the toilet without pain.

You can pass every day happy with the right attitude.
It doesn't appear by itself.
Sometimes you need a mood softener.
Attilax perhaps

 

[Pats]

Thirties are actually difficult years, I think. 40's and 50's are better because you stop trying to compare yourself with other peoples successes and find your own.

 

[Mary Terry]

Thirties are actually difficult years, I think. 40's and 50's are better because you stop trying to compare yourself with other peoples successes and find your own.

I'm liking my 60's because I really no longer care very much what others think of me. I'm sure my attitude will continue till I croak.

 

[stewdog80]

Thirties are actually difficult years, I think. 40's and 50's are better because you stop trying to compare yourself with other peoples successes and find your own.

I'm the same age as him and a decade from now, when we reach our 40's, the world isn't gonna be a place you want to live in.

 

[GadAbout]

I do feel ripped off, especially when I see past bullies coupled up with girlfriends or wives while I can't even get a coffee date.

Did you even READ my second sentence? (Life gave most of us a raw deal, but it's our choice how we want to react to it.)

You seem very stuck on "poor me" statements and utterly uninterested in useful suggestions. You're an empathy sponge - can soak it up endlessly - until the well runs dry, that is.

I thought the readings suggested above on philosophical approaches to disappointment were very useful, but I didn't see you thanking anybody.

 

[Judge]

I'm liking my 60's because I really no longer care very much what others think of me. I'm sure my attitude will continue till I croak.

"Ain't it cool?"

-John Travolta, "Broken Arrow".

Age can indeed be liberating at times. But it usually comes with a boatload of perspective to draw upon.

 

[Pats]

I'm liking my 60's because I really no longer care very much what others think of me. I'm sure my attitude will continue till I croak.

Yes, I'd be enjoying my 60's more if I felt better physically. lol That's why I left it out. Other than that - it's great!