[MatBell]

How do you think about all the time - maybe years - you’ve been sad, and not a lot has happened besides just staying alive. How do you deal with this sense of “time wasted”?

Do you have a good way of thinking about this you can tell me?

[Candy1955]

Along time ago I decided only one person could really help me. Me. It took a long time, but I began focusing on things that change and/or produce. I grow things that either bloom or produce fruit. I care for two pets and I interact with them and find amusement and peace in watching them learn, play, even sleep. I write stories (see the correlation: things with a beginning, a middle and an end) that no one will ever read. I do these things for me alone and in them I find worth and often tranquility in what I consider a rather brutal world that lacks compassion for people with MI.

[SeekerSeeking]

I think your belief that you’ve wasted a lot of time could be holing you back. When ever you start investing in yourself and your vision is a good day, but it doesn’t mean all the preceding days were bad. Maybe they prepared you for now…I think we have three choices in our lives—stay where we are, in our comfort level. Or stretch a little bit out, and take a tiny risk, or DIVE right out and take a huge risk. It’s at the stretch and dive that we learn the most.

Whatever you think you’ve missed is gone—but you have right now, and it is never too late to live the most meaningful and best parts of your life. The good thing is—it is never to late to start!

I don’t waste time. Sometimes I have been inactive. Sometimes inactive is all I could do, and I congratulated myself for it. I don’t regret…if I’m sorry about something, I apologize and go on—and I don’t carry it around with me after a sincere apology. So if you really think you’ve wasted time, apologize to yourself, set it aside, and begin!

[Shazerac]

I went through a bout off that recently. I was going through some rough depression. I was also beating myself up in general. Not only was I convinced that I had wasted my life but I was also wasting space on the planet. Using oxygen that others needed. Depression is such it wicked mean beotch! It tells us so many lies.

All I can say was that it did pass. What I did was go in the bathroom,shut the door and literally had an argument between myself and the depressed self.

Me: (looking in the mirror) I LOVE you
Depressed self: no you don’t! Nobody does!
Me: I don’t care I love you.
DS: how could you? I am a worthless wart on the earth
Me: you don’t have to be worth anything, I still love you.
DS: f@ck off go away!
Me: nope not going away, and I still love you.

And so on. This went on for about 20 minutes. I not saying I had any miraculous immediate result. But I did start to feel better.

[MatBell]

Originally Posted by Candy1955

Along time ago I decided only one person could really help me. Me. It took a long time, but I began focusing on things that change and/or produce. I grow things that either bloom or produce fruit. I care for two pets and I interact with them and find amusement and peace in watching them learn, play, even sleep. I write stories (see the correlation: things with a beginning, a middle and an end) that no one will ever read. I do these things for me alone and in them I find worth and often tranquility in what I consider a rather brutal world that lacks compassion for people with MI.

That sounds good

[MatBell]

Originally Posted by Shazerac

I went through a bout off that recently. I was going through some rough depression. I was also beating myself up in general. Not only was I convinced that I had wasted my life but I was also wasting space on the planet. Using oxygen that others needed. Depression is such it wicked mean beotch! It tells us so many lies.


All I can say was that it did pass. What I did was go in the bathroom,shut the door and literally had an argument between myself and the depressed self.


Me: (looking in the mirror) I LOVE you

Depressed self: no you don’t! Nobody does!

Me: I don’t care I love you.

DS: how could you? I am a worthless wart on the earth

Me: you don’t have to be worth anything, I still love you.

DS: f@ck off go away!

Me: nope not going away, and I still love you.


And so on. This went on for about 20 minutes. I not saying I had any miraculous immediate result. But I did start to feel better.

I like that. The mind can really turn on tself it’s scary. Then when we are alone and no one is there to contradict us, it gets scary.

[MatBell]

Originally Posted by SeekerSeeking

I think your belief that you’ve wasted a lot of time could be holing you back. When ever you start investing in yourself and your vision is a good day, but it doesn’t mean all the preceding days were bad. Maybe they prepared you for now…I think we have three choices in our lives—stay where we are, in our comfort level. Or stretch a little bit out, and take a tiny risk, or DIVE right out and take a huge risk. It’s at the stretch and dive that we learn the most.

Whatever you think you’ve missed is gone—but you have right now, and it is never too late to live the most meaningful and best parts of your life. The good thing is—it is never to late to start!

I don’t waste time. Sometimes I have been inactive. Sometimes inactive is all I could do, and I congratulated myself for it. I don’t regret…if I’m sorry about something, I apologize and go on—and I don’t carry it around with me after a sincere apology. So if you really think you’ve wasted time, apologize to yourself, set it aside, and begin!

Yes it’s never too late. But still so hard to tell yourself. Most times I simply don’t know what to do to get better in the long term.

[marvin_pa]

I try to view my collective experiences (even the ones that I'd prefer to lock away in a dark vault, never to be seen again) as that which makes me, me. Nothing is wasted in that respect, as even the screeching dead-ends probably taught me something vaguely useful. It's all part of the journey & has given me insight into things that have possibly made me a better person.

[MtnTime2896]

I always feel as though my life is a waste. It never really goes away. I've been out of work for going on two years, I contribute nothing to society and I'm kind of a waste pf space because of it.

Recently, I've started combating how I feel. I figure I'm spending all of this time to work on myself and make myself mentally healthy (at the very least stable). In doing this, I'm strengthening myself so that once I get through all of this (if I ever do) I can help people through their own pain. Instead of doing what I do now, which is encourage people to keep fighting as I'm on the verge of giving up myself; I will be able to show people that it's possible to get better. I'm not "wasting time", I'm buying time 'til I reach the ocean's surface, swim to shore, get a boat, go back and start pulling people aboard who are still out their.

[feeshee]

Your posts are always encouraging to me. Thank you.

[YoucancallmeFlower]

What an interesting question!

I have a disorder that statistically wipes out between 17 to 33% of
my memory over my lifetime.
Was that time wasted? I'm sure the ones who were in charge during those years didn't think so.

And those times I withdrew into a cocoon of fear and depression and pain? I consider them journeys I had to take in order to arrive at my
current destination. So I can't consider them wasted.

All of the people who have loved me and those I have loved, the ones
I've shown kindness to without thought of reward and the seven I pulled back from the edge--these things were made possible by all that had
gone before and all that has transpired since.

The decades I spent writing novels that will probably never be published
could never be considered wasted, for those hours spent writing were
the happiest of my life.

And the time I spent with my sons before God took them from me were a blessing that will always sooth my heart.

Wasted? Not one minute, not one second. I have had sixty six years of
being gloriously, splendidly alive. And I am grateful.

[tonstwo]

I love music. I've longed to be able to play music for a living, but I've never in the past disciplined myself enough to really master all the instruments I've wanted, or hone my composition/songwriting.

I have however started writing songs and recording roughly some two years ago. They're not much and I haven't recorded most of the ones I've written but I'm pretty proud of them.

So with that I guess all I can say is you try your best to pick yourself up, even just a little bit, and do what you can with what you have. You might end up surprising yourself.

On a more general note, a gratitude practice has also helped me. Writing down things I'm grateful of everyday. Even if it's just that song that helped you through last night.