The future seems so bleak and meaningless...

So I'm a high school Sophomore and a college Freshman, and I guess I have some sort of future in store. The problem is, I don't even want that future anymore. I don't know what changed, but I don't want to go to college and end up in some dead end job for the rest of my life. It doesn't sound worth it to me, especially since I'll be dead in seventy years or less. I'd go after something I love, but I don't know what I want and I don't see a point in anything anymore... It's like, in the end, that's all it's gonna be; the end. I'm losing my mind...

Well, CaptainKirk, you might not believe it. But currently I'm going through exactly those same feelings you're going through...

I finished college, in a specialty that I love (political science), & I currently work in a job that I'm supposed to like (a political researcher). But a coupla weeks before, I started feeling very depressed, that I took a vacation from my job, & instead of spending it traveling or on the beach, I'm spending alone in my house trying to find any single drop of hope & attachment to life to get me on my legs continuing my dull life till I die...

I feel exactly like you... There's no point in doing anything, that all the dreams I had when I was young, I couldn't achieve 'cause of my OCD. I can't have healthy relationships with friends & family & I can't have a family of my own. I can't find a good therapist to treat me with proper psychotherapy instead of just pumping with useless drugs. I can't finish my Master's... My whole life is a failure, & all my dreams, hope, & potential changes I always wished to make, are crashing along with age & the oppressive reality of the dull non-changing "like you said, dead end" everyday life...

I'd really like to think out a solution with you, 'cause I'm going exactly through the same like you

I'm starting to think that maybe the solution for this is that I make a change, even if tiny change, in my life, by starting a new course, activity, sport, or something...

But then again I think, maybe even when I start this new thing, after a month or so, my everyday life would turn dull again, 'cause this is the inescapable destiny of everyday life... Or maybe with my OCD, I would fail to continue this new thing, exactly like I failed before to continue many things that I started...

But again, maybe all these are just doubts from my obsessions that are hindering me from starting a new change... But those doubts are so powerful & overwhelming, that they really paralyze me from moving on...

To sum up life; you might say that when you're a child you get all those great dreams that you plan to pursue after graduation, to change the world around you. But then, after graduation, everyday reality kills all your dreams & potentials & skills slowly turning you into a meager tiny instrument that works along the dull dead running machine of the city, doing the same everyday till you die, just doing your tiny dull part in running this city machine, just like every other instruments-individuals framed by the society-system to do each their dull part the same everyday running the machine! This everyday running dead machine of the society-system kills human potential to live in happiness & make some real change in the world, through his/her own willful choices & natural skills...

Very few people manage to break through this dead society-system machine, & become influential in the world, & change the world as they change themselves... But how they manage to break through?! This is what I'm dying to find out an answer for before I perish from life as a mere useless & tiny unknown machine instrument...

Ahhh! We have a philosopher in our midst. Living is indeed a conundrum. How to make it meaningful---right? I think a lot of the answer is existential or what I understand as existential, which is basically we have to make life meaningful. The way you do it is according to your temperament. I find my meaning in the spiritual and trying to help people. There is a huge number of options on both these areas. I'd try a couple of these activities to see if they are a match for you. There are the arts as well. Some people can lose themselves in the bliss of creativity. I'm a bit prosaic so I can't do that very well.
I'll be very interested to hear what you choose or even if you choose.
Good luck

Yes, indeed, bharani...

I think we have to keep searching all throughout our life for the activity, art, or action that we feel gives meaning to our life by changing the world around us with our own free choice & willful skills, beyond sufficing to do only what the society requires from us (job & college)

What we need is to get over our constant doubts, obsessions, & frustrations over failing to find our own life-unique-meaning activity... And this is really hard, & only few strong-willed people manage to get over it...

Hang in there Kirk. I am in my 40's and going through a career change and have the same fears as you. I would suggest if you are not already talking to a psychologist to go. It will do wonders to vent.

I always end up venting to myself. Haven't got money for a therapist.

I guess that's it then... Maybe we could get by on the little changes, just making something different and new every now and then. I've never gotten close to a goal, but people tell me I need goals while I don't see the point in them. I feel lost.

Oh wow, I can so relate to this! I'm stuck in a job I hate but it pays the bills. Try to do what you love to do if you can figure out what that is. I'm in my 40's and look at my life and how I feel I am a failure, paranoid at any time I'll get fired at the job I hate anyway. What keeps me going is my 13 year old son. He makes me want to find a reason to live.

I wish I knew what I love... Thank you.

Hang in there. I know you are good at writing, I read your awesome poem. Do you journal how you feel? I'm like you though, don't know what I want and feel so lost.

Thank you. I do keep journals, yeah.