Adapted from an online discussion.
Dear Carolyn: I was sitting with my mild unhappiness and what I really wanted. It dawned on me I couldn’t even figure out what my ideal life looked like. I have some issues with my spouse (who doesn’t?) but ultimately know he’s the best partner for me, I’m meh on my job situation but make decent money and it’s fine, I love my kid and growing in being a mom but don’t wish for anything MORE from that. I have some new hobbies I’d like to try but no passions.
I just feel like I lost sight of what goals should be when life is “good,” per se, and I have no complaints but still feel so blasé and untethered. Looking for some inspiration, maybe a good self-help book or podcast? Anything to help me reframe how to set goals when life has basically given me what I want and I do my best to share it well with others, but it feels … pointless? I don’t know. Is this depression?
— I Don’t Know
I Don’t Know: Could be. Or inertia. Or fatigue. Or boredom. Or a domestic-rut trail mix of them all.
So here’s the way I’m going to perversely under-advise you: long walks. Start fitting them in (any) where you can. If you have access to nature, vistas, environmental eye candy, even better. If you have limited exercise options, then do whatever is available — anything beats nothing. That’s because there is a proven link between physical motion and both mood enhancement and dislodging stuck thoughts.
It’s also really hard to get emotionally unstuck from a cold start, but you just need 10, 20 minutes to get physically unstuck. Why not do the easier one? Jump-start your emotional car.
It won’t deliver instant miracles, but getting into a regular motion habit can nudge you toward clarity — or maybe just a better frame of mind about the things in your life you already know and love.
And that does seem to be the issue here, that nothing is wrong while also not feeling right. The nothing-wrong part is a good thing worth leaving intact, at least as you work to figure out the feelings part. I love a good blow-things-up approach as much as the next voyeur, but not when there’d be casualties.
Re: Ideal life: Also consider that nothing is wrong, and your life is great. Capitalism is invested in telling us we need more or different or better. That creates a drive to work harder than we have to, to buy and consume and get things we don’t really need. You don’t have to listen to that! In all of human history, so few people have been given access to a life that is content and peaceful. That’s okay!
— Anonymous
Anonymous: You know, I was going to say — but for once, I passed on the opportunity — there is no such thing as an “ideal” life. There is just life. Like, is it my “ideal” to be sitting all alone at a fake-wood-grain institutional desk in a spare room, typing into the void? But I feel pretty lucky a high percentage of the time, and not because I’ve rigged up some comparisons that work in my favor (“Well, at least I don’t have to _____”), though those do have their place.
There’s a lot to be said for the power of recognizing that a painful or disenfranchised life is worth the hard work to change. An imperfect one, though, may just need us to commit to being a little more creative about putting it to good use.
