Why is it so hard to change your life, even if you know your life isn’t the life you should live?
Lately I get overwhelmed from time to time by the oceans of thoughts and questions that attack me. Nothing new though; I always had them and they will probably stay in my life as long as it will last.
In my outdoor trip in the Czech Republic, someone recommended me the book “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed. I’m reading it now and it brings back melancholic feelings. It brings back the feelings of wanting to go back outdoors. The uncertain. The unsure. The outside.
Scary, but one of the best things I ever did. Usually I care because I want to know I have a safe place, a place where I can withdraw from this crazy world. A place that is mine, where no one can chase me away. Where I can be me.
Its kind of strange, because the outdoors is not mine. It’s not safe. Everyone can chase you away. But yet, it feels different. Life changes, in the outdoors.
I’m thinking about my life. I finally have a job, but did it actually add something to my life?
Well, it did add money for sure, and some safety, some luxury, that I’ve been able to buy new clothes, eat the things I wish for, learn some new things, be more confident (though this still doesn’t mean I am confident). It’s a job that I can handle. I can save up, and as long as the job stays (that is insecure and uncertain), things are safe and well.
Yet I don’t think I’m happy.
I miss the mountains.
I miss the outdoors.
I miss my love.
I did not see a future here. I still do not see a future here.
Things need to change. I, need to change.
sharktoothsweater 
As ever, I have no solutions, no magic words – but I do understand your pain. The situation, of a job and some money/security (albeit short term), and none of it translating to feeling any better. I am interested in how you are drawn to the outdoors, being unsafe and yet comforting. Maybe I should spend more time outdoors.
Thanks. Its a bit weird, because when I didn’t have those things, I thought they would make me feel better, and change my life for good. But now I have them, in the end it doesn’t change the core of things. I could have known I think,maybe I was too wishful for the ultimate change I might wanted deep inside.
I don’t know what it exactly is of the outdoors that has this huge attraction on me. Its definitely the feelings it gives me. I think it’s the ultimate freedom, the peace, the being yourself and being away from the crazy crazy world without feeling all this pressure, guilt, shame, and so on and on. Even if its unsafe, it seems safer than the world I live in now. Safer and better than society, even if it can be very lonely too. The uncertainties are different ones.
Everything just changes and becomes different – in different perspectives. It’s hard to explain. I’m lucky that I will go in 3 weeks and spend some outdoor time again. (But it’s not enough. I want to have it regularly in my life instead of one or two weeks a year).
Stay inside your home for a day and by the end of the day everything is the same, nothing has changed unless you physically moved it. Now go outside for a day. Things change ever so subtlely but they do change; nature is constantly adjusting itself and you are drawn to the place that is always evolving which seems like a contradiction to what your feeling. But it’s not, change is inevitable and you are drawn to it like a moth to a flame. So the outdoors looks so alluring because you know deep inside it represents the change you want and need. As the Romans said, “change… you can go hand and hand with it or it will drag you by the hair.”
I’m not sure how to reply exactly, but thanks so much for these words!
I feel you
You’d think a job would add more to your self-worth, but really it does little. Self-worth is shaped by your whole external environment, as well as our own perceptions. Finding purpose is what makes life worth living – I think you know the answer, but you may have to look just a little deeper.