I find joy in being a good person to my loved ones, caring for animals, volunteering, and being patient and empathetic for those who need it even at the expense of my own stress and needs. I promise this isn’t a self destructive habit, but it’s genuinely the only way I can find purpose and fulfillment in this life.
I’m 18, I work part time and i’m in school full time, and I spend as much time as possible doing what I can to help others. As I start the climb on the career ladder, I find that I lose myself more and more as the days go by. I know this is a common experience and I’m grateful nonetheless, and school is really important and valuable to me, but I feel like my busy schedule is preventing me from devoting my life to what truly matters to me.
I just feel more and more disconnected from the world every day that I follow the path that’s been shoved down my throat. I become a version of myself that i’m not proud of, and I feel like it’s a selfish life to live, when MY “best interests” is all that’s being prioritized.
The haunting state of the world clouds over my head like a cold that I can’t quite heal from. I guess i’m just curious, what are bigger things and more large scale and community oriented things that I could consider devoting time to? Even if I had to travel sometimes, or if I was living way below my means, i’m open to a lot. I’m also interested heavily in climate activism, political activism, and anything human rights related.
I know I am young, but the more I live and the more I wonder, the more I can only see a life of selflessness being what allows me to be happy. I just don’t want to waste time to get started.
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You can succeed, generate wealth and put yourself in a position to help.
At 18, giving of yourself and taking away from your future is not ideal for being able to maximize how helpful you can be with property and resources.
Buy property. Then, buy another property. Then, or concurrently, start a business, use it as a tax sink. When the properties and the business are no longer a tax sink, start a non-profit and use that to zero out your tax liability.
Then, once you have a property renting out to pay for the property you’re living in and a business that is making money and donating to your non-profit, your non-profit will thrive and you can help people with it.
Or not… at least you won’t pay taxes.
Realistically speaking, making a lot of money and donating it will do more good than anything else – but it will probably not scratch your altruistic itch in the same way.
This reminds me of the story about a man walking along the beach and there’s thousands of starfish washed up on the shore. A little boy picks one up and throws it back in the water. The man asks “why are you doing that? It won’t make a difference. There’s so many of them.” And the boy replied “it made a difference for that one”.
Dont try to change the world. You cant. But you can make a difference for the individuals you interact with.
If you’re interested in real, meaningful social change, you can’t do it alone, you need a mass movement.
We’re trained from birth to value individual exceptionalism and personal accomplishments, but the truth is that change doesn’t happen because of singular heroes or exceptional individuals. In the history of the United States, every single lasting meaningful advance in human rights has been the result of organized mass movements that are big and powerful enough to demand concessions from the ruling class. We don’t win by convincing those in power to change their minds and be nicer, we do it by growing powerful and organized enough to demand that change even when the powerful don’t want it. Reconstruction after the Civil War, the New Deal, and the Civil Rights Movement are prime examples.
Find something you believe in and commit yourself to organized, collective, long term work. Join an organization. Don’t think about what you, personally, can do, because the answer is “nothing that really moves the needle.” Figure out how you can be part of something bigger than yourself that actually matters.
I think even doing small things for others (including strangers) on a day to day, will encourage those people to have a positive impact too and create a chain of goodness
Sorry if this comment is useless, but specializing in your thing contributes a lot. Concerned, involved citizens are vital too, but civilization is held together by people who are good at their jobs. So make a career in a field that helps some people a lot
pick a cause that you personally really empathize with. i personally like donating food. i don’t care who gets it. in a modern society, not going hungry should be an assumption people are allowed to make while living their lives. i work in the food industry and have helped my company go from donating rather little to exceeding our target of converting 25% of our potential waste into donations. now that might not sound like much “why not 100%???” well food goes from good to bad real quick. much of things like meat waste are products projected to last until x date but actually go bad sooner, packaging that is damaged, refrigeration failures, received bad when arriving at the store, etc. until we develop precognition we can’t ‘just donate it all instead of throwing it away.’
it helps to just do it. set something like you volunteer at x thing for two hours a week, rain or shine, hands on, literally helping people.
another thing to contribute to the world is to just look at what YOU can do. some people look down on those who will do things like participate in a charity fundraising for disease research for a disease they have. ‘wow now that it affects them they care huh.’ they probably always cared about people in general, but now they have a specific cause they understand more than most people, have dealt with it, and can now help others in dealing with it better than most people who haven’t.
another thing that’s important is to be sure to take care of yourself. for a while i was the sort of person who neglected themselves and thought it was okay since i was so dedicated to helping others. but in a way it was just a way to avoid my own issues. keep yourself sorted so you have the extra time and energy to help others. it’s like on an airplane, you gotta put your own mask on before putting someone else’s on, or you might pass out first and not be able to help anyone.
You are way too young to know what it takes to die happy. Or what it really means. Life is about living not preparing for death. My advice is to give yourself the best chance to do whatever you figure out to be the right thing later on. Yes, school.
You can accomplish anything if you have your mate agree or go along with you. This is what I’ve found: this world is extremely resistant to admitting guilt or wrong-doing with it’s lifestyles and addictions and no matter how much virtue I have, I don’t have the power to make a different without a partner.
A tactical suggestion: go vegan. It is incredibly empowering to know your actions can make a difference at an individual level. Become a voice for the voiceless and the most oppressed beings on this planet: non-human animals bred into existence for human taste, culture and convenience.
Some advice I can think of:
Pick one cause to work towards and focus fully on that. If you try to do multiple things at once you won’t get far in any of them.
Look up what kinds of places and groups exist where you live, check during which days of the week you can help them, and make a weekly schedule.
Set other goals and projects in your life (beyond basic stability – work and errands) aside for several months, and focus your energy on just attending those places during all the scheduled days. Be really consistent.
Don’t expect any big results in less than a couple of years. You can make small impacts, like just helping an already existing organization out, in the span of months, but if you want to have some kind of big impact, you will need to attend consistently for years and make use of opportunities to start your own projects.
Don’t expect it to be pleasurable or entertaining, most of it will be drudgery. If you are unfulfilled in your private life, you will have to set your altruistic work aside for a few months at a time once in a while, to focus on whatever needs to be worked on in your private life. Once that has been fixed, you can go back to focusing fully on altruistic work. Multitasking is hard, it’s almost always better to focus on one (1!) project at a time.
Having a big positive impact on the world requires you to have a stable life. Take good care of work and education, stay away from addictive substances of any kind, including legal ones, only spend money when you need to. Create good habits regarding sleep, health, etc. and quit bad ones that waste time and distract you.
Don’t try to do so all at once. Pick one (1!) habit at a time and focus all your available willpower on that habit for several months until it’s stable. You can make that easier by not having any other goals or desires that you stress over during that time. Just basic stability and the one habit or project that you are working on, once that has been taken care of during any given day, call it a day and use your free time to get the rest and entertainment that is neccessary to balance yourself out afterwards. Don’t spread your attention/energy/willpower out over multiple things at the same time if you can avoid it.
You don’t achieve things by brute forcing them. Slow, consistent, habitual work on your projects is what pays off, focusing on one thing at a time. You need to be content with where you are at any point down the line, and just focus on moving forward a bit each day. Patience and consistency pay off more than haste and force.
Educate yourself on psychology, diplomacy, history, and activism. Make it a habit, read well written professional books about those topics, ideally a little every day in a consistent manner.
Everything will take 10 times more time and effort than you think, maybe even more. Again, patience and consistency and focusing on one thing at a time pay off, haste and trying to brute force things usually don’t pay off.
I have no idea if any of this is going to be actually helpful at all, because I have very little experience with activism, or life in general, but it seems wise to me so try using it if you want lol.
Your world hurt is a faulty way of looking at the world and its state of affairs.
I know because I know. Please change your premises.
New premises:
* people are only kind one on one, not in droves and certainly not on global scale. Fit your self expectations accordingly: satisfying results will be had in your circle of influence.
* today is not different from 50 years ago nor from 500 years ago. Always the same shit, political power douches and popular delusions. Don’t give more gravitas to todays world just because you live in this era.
* life is not fair. Hard work or good intentions do not guarantee results. Work hard and have good intentions for other reasons than obtaining a measurable result.
* success is not measured in results. Process can be just as valuable. Have you ever thoroughly enjoyed a process or time flowing without measurable results?
* be cognizant of the fact that naming a thing restricts a thing. Often measures it too, which is a restrictive approach. Living moments without words is just as human and important as using language to think.
TL;DR go help in your local library
If I could go back to 18 — I’d stay on the supernatural path — that I could not really comprehend at that time. The supernatural path is for those wise enough to see that they can’t really make-it on their own — and that is the plan.
The rest of us suffer needlessly — by our own ignorance — until we “hit-bottom” (divorce, health etc)
The wandering and suffering does build character — after you return to the supernatural path. I just wish I had done that earlier. I did recover nicely — after I was led to Altruism as the basic path. Religion is nothing without a spirit of Altruism.
Study the NDE reports — it’s the only current info we have from “the other side” and it really helps to understand why we are here.
It sounds like you want a job that is hands-on caring eg medicine, nursing, teaching. Anything where you help people face-to-face in order to get that warm feeling.
Volunteer at anything! If that builds to bigger enterprises great- if not you are still doing a service to human kind helping even one person. The ripple effect of kindness is enormous.
I fully recommend joining a local volunteer fire department (if available in your area) or something similar. Take what you learn from responding to calls and spread yhe word to your friends and family. I always looked at it as if I saved just one life, it made my life worth living.
One, join the local chamber of commerce. Maybe several. Attend the meetings. Speak. Ask questions. See what they need.
This is an exercise in generating connections. You will not accomplish those other goals of yours without building connections. Start with this.
Go to small town and city council meetings. They’re boring as hell. Realize you’re likely smarter and more capable of generating original ideas and solving problems, as a bewildered 18 year old with some non-zero level of intellectual curiosity, than half the council, as is.
This shows you the holes in local civics. If you intend to do mission work, you will understand a huge number of things YOU find to be a problem, only you find to be a problem. Citizens in small cities often do NOT care about things you think they should. They might bawl and whine and never spend 10k to upgrade equipment at the park, but didn’t hesitate for a single second to spend 12k to fix a tractor that a farmer at the meeting told them to their face he could fix for 300$ in parts if they’d just fuckin buy them.
Which, when you run off to build wells, or homes, in some far flung place–will help you realize when you follow up 6 months later and they’ve cannibalized the entire system and destroyed it–its meant to be that way.
Pick a political office. Don’t give a shit what it is. Some tiny pathetic thing with an odd registration deadlinen and no pay. There’s some shitty office somewhere you’ll be able to register for running in, in the next 12 months. Do it. Shit, even a city council seat, but, ANYTHING. Don’t even bother to take it terribly seriously, but DO the tax agency/IRS filing and try to make a business account Incase you spend money running, or raise money.
Experience the hell of it. The bullshit of having to track 17 damned due dates and 10 forms you have to file in 16 weeks, just to not go to jail, or pay big ass fines. They’ll never ACTUALLY fine you, dont worry, they just send scary letters. Now, if you do this right, you can call the local person in charge of elections and ask them, Friday, if there are any upcoming special registration periods coming for offices no one filed for earlier. There will be a few. Pick one. You might win, flat out.
Do that. I don’t care if you end up as sheriff, coronor, mayor, or on the environmental control board or something. Do it.
Now, your life is set up to teach you all the crap that you’re going to need.
Either you’re going to thrive, and all of this will make you a powerhouse of action, or, you’re going to realize –people fuckin suck, and that the whole system is just horseshit driven by green, and insurance company mandates, and not right, or wrong, and people don’t WANT the help you want to give, they need help to keep being fucked up…
Chances are, you’ll be some where in the middle, and end up happy.
God speed, youngin.
Instead of seeing work as a time where you “don’t make a difference,” realize you can make a difference all day long. If you are a light to someone—just a warm smile in the hall can impact that person more than you think.
We all get so preoccupied with our lives that the world seems cold and lonely. Just taking a moment and really being present with people is huge. We madly run on the hamster wheel and forget to stop, take a breath, acknowledge each other and our humanity. Thats a second of consciously (silently,) connecting with people when you see them. It isn’t in words. It is in your energy and intentions.
Having warmth in your interactions is such a simple thing—but terrifically powerful. It may the most warmth they feel all day.
It’s not easy when stressed and rushed. It’s especially not easy when someone else is openly antagonistic. You can be the calm in the storm. You can recognize the angry negative person as just an angry negative person and quietly maintain your peace in the midst of that.
You are, no doubt, already “making a difference” in small ways without even knowing it. If you become more mindful of acknowledging each person you’re encountering the impact can be huge.
Be a light in the darkness. You’ll bring out that light in others and the light spreads.
Genuine kindness like asking the grocery store clerk how their day has been and listening to the answer. It seriously makes a big difference to people who already get treated like Customer Service Machines
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If you’re going to school for something fulfilling that will allow you to help people like maybe social work or law or medicine, then stick with it.
If not,then consider a change in your major.
If that doesn’t sound great either, then I suggest dropping school tbh. I didn’t go to college and I make plenty. You don’t need a degree anymore to make good money. You could even get into a trade like massage which also fulfills your desire to help others, is only a year of schooling, allows you to make your own schedule, and makes good money.
You might consider doing some work with kids or young people (younger than yourself!) in any capacity. It is very heartening for kids to have someone young and vibrant take an interest in them, teach a sport, tutor some subject, etc. Just an idea. You might like it and feel inspired or you might not. If you find that helping kids is your thing, you can get a credential in your best subject. There are many overseas opportunities for teachers. Also, later on in life your experience abroad would assist you in more world-changing type work. Good luck because you sound terrific!
You’re just starting out, so just focus on making intentional decisions of things to do to gain experience and exposure in for things that you enjoy. You will learn as much about life and about yourself if not more than in school. The key is to do the experiences in real life and don’t base your outlook on life on what you read online. You will see the majority of people in real life are good, cool people, not like what you see online. The world is not as bad as it’s portrayed online.