Entirely lost.

nghia91 · ‎08-08-2013

Hi, I'm a 21 year old male. I dropped out of school half way through year 12 from the most prestigious school in the state. I've never finished anything in my life. Things have gone badly, I don't know where i stand anymore. When I sit down, I relive all the moments that brought me where I am today, as a failure and incompetent fool. I've recently broken up with my girlfriend who I loved more than anything I've ever known. She was too good to me, I didn't deserve her so I left her. I impregnated my ex, 2 years ago. We got an abortion. She never thought anything of it. To this very minute I can't stop thinking of how selfish I had been and the potential life that I took. My parents smile at me, but I know my father loathes me. I'm not suicidal or anything. I have trouble keeping friends. I keep telling myself, that I just need to deal with it, and that's the bottom line, but there must be something I'm missing, because I'm stuck in one spot as the rest of the world flies by me. I don't need any pity or sympathy. I just need somebody to be harshly honest with me because right now I feel like a coward.

The_Real_David_Charles · ‎08-08-2013

Dear nghia,

One of my nephews got his 16 yr old girlfriend pregnant - I've worked out you were 19 when this situation happened with you. What do you do ? Favour abortion, have the baby and let him/her become a Ward of State ? Introduce adoption agencies ? Check out fostering ? Have a vasectomy ? Learn from the problem ? Dwell on the tragedy for the next 10 years and feel constantly dislocated from the world ? Have this guilty feeling with you day or night ? Try and seek counselling ? Try another counsellor if the first one didn't fit right ? Take up some exercise or hobbies that don't involve intimacy ? Ask your dad (who loathes you) to forgive your error and stop blaming you for embarassing the family ? Accept that sometimes we can't control ourselves ? Get back together with that recent girlfriend that was so good to you and accept that you pushed her away because you were fearful of another unexpected pregnancy ? What to do ? What to do ?

What is the most important thing for you to do ? When we are lost we have to find our way back. You are probably only 1/4 of the way through your life. Does it really matter that you dropped out of school ? Plenty do. The problem with you might be that you emphasis that you dropped out of "the most expensive school in the State". But you didn't. You just dropped out of A SCHOOL. And you had ELEVEN years of school education. That's more than most. It was your parents choice to spend money on education. You gotta shed that guilt.

Can you see the similarity ? Good school / drop out. Pregnancy / abortion. You're not lost, you're consistent. Time to pucker up and bring in the goodwill.

Adios, David.

vip · ‎08-08-2013

Hi nghia91 I was exactly the same with not finishing what I started. I would suggest you go on a holiday either backpacking or contiki tour ect with your own age group and see the world a little bit. I really think you deserve it as you seam like you are stuck in a rut. Sometimes a nice break makes you reassess your life and see what you truly want in life. I am 39 right now and have started to travel a bit wish I would of done it when I was younger , Try this and see if it helps. Take care

geoff · ‎09-08-2013

dear Nghia, I gather that your father loathes you because of your religion, meaning that it's taboo by having an abortion?

Your still a young man and to be pinned down with a child and a relationship would restrict your future years.

How times have changed I was married at 21, madly in love, but if I only knew what was lying ahead for me I would be shocked and saddened, never believing that it could be true.

You can continue year 12 at any stage, when you feel as though you can.

I also went to one of the most prestigious schools in Melbourne and look what it has done for me, and it was an all boys school which I regretted later on in life, and by going to this school does it make you a better person, absolutely not, but one thing I can tell you is that there has been so much water pass under the bridge, and this experience has been a big training curve for me.

In your situation you are burnt out, just like I was, so I had to change my direction, get off the rail track that leads you straight into more misery, and head the other way, change your thinking, and block your present thoughts, nothing can change what's happened. Geoff.

Rachmaninoff28 · ‎09-08-2013

Hi nghia91

I think your one and only problem is that you judge yourself too harshly, and you're doing it using other people's opinions and expectations, not your own.

Do you really believe deep down that it matters that you went to the "most prestigious school in the state"? To me, that sounds like an opinion about the school you've inherited from your parents and/or society (or even a parent-induced guilt trip to make you "appreciate all that we've done for you"! 🙂 ). It doesn't sound like your own belief based on what's really important or meaningful to you.

Have you considered the possibility that you've never finished anything in your life (which I don't actually believe, and you shouldn't either) because you haven't found anything that you believe is worth finishing? Maybe, again, you've been doing things that other people believe you should be doing.

At 21, very few people know themselves well enough to know what they really want in life. The ones who seem to are very often so completely brainwashed into living according to other people's opinions and expectations that they have no alternative. (They're the ones, BTW, who often have a mid-life crisis when they start to feel that their life has no meaning. Of course it doesn’t! They've been living someone else's life for them! 🙂 ) You're obviously not one of them, and that is truly a great thing for you!

I think you should try to accept that it's perfectly OK to feel lost and that there's a good chance you feel that way because the "guidance" of other people's opinions and expectations just isn't serving you. Get to know yourself better by questioning all the judgements, beliefs and ideas that make you feel bad -- who do they really belong to? Just because other people, or even all of society, believe them, doesn't make them right for you. Get to know yourself better by moving towards the things that genuinely excite you, that make you passionate, that make you happy, and moving away from the things that you don’t like, that you do out of habit, or you do simply because you're expected to do them.

I genuinely believe you're doing fine and that moments in life like the one you're having are actually tremendous wake-up calls from yourself to let you know you need to make some changes in your life.

Good luck to you!

Chris

Rachmaninoff28 · ‎11-08-2013

Hi again, nghia91!

I forgot to mention something in my last message about you judging yourself over the abortion.

I think one of the greatest insanities of human beings is the following process:

We make the best decision we can based on the information we have to hand in the moment.
We take action based on that decision and, in the process, gain new information that we couldn't possibly have had without having taken the action.
We then use this new information to judge ourselves, put ourselves down and, possibly, torture ourselves for years. In other words, we blame ourselves for not knowing what we couldn't have known before we did the thing that taught us the thing we now know...

There is obviously NO logic (or sanity) in this process. It's entirely and grossly unjust. Yet people do it to themselves all the time. And the black hole you can open for yourself with this kind of self-judgment is very real and very dangerous. Self-judgment, self-loathing, self-torture, etc. are all massively energy sapping and can actually leave you in a much worse position for making your next decision.

I think we should take it for granted that we will take actions (maybe dozens and dozens of them) in our lives that we will later "learn" to regret. It absolutely will happen. The only logical and just thing to do is to use the new information for our own growth and learning. We'll then be in a much better position for making our next decision.

Take care,

Chris

geoff · ‎12-08-2013

dear Chris, well said. Geoff.

The_Real_David_Charles · ‎13-08-2013

Dear nghia,

Re: "right now I feel like a coward"

Then you're human. Then you're able to grow from there. Then you're related to Noel Coward (English playwright/artist/musician). Lol.

Adios, David.