ennui ? [Satified with your life? - Ed. Title]

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
1

i realize the title of my post is non-discriptive.
what i want to know is : has your life turned out to be what you thought it would be, or if not how close, or far from center has it gotten?
are you where you want to be when the journey started? what changes would you like to make? do you feel that you really don’t have as much contol over you life as you may have thought? :smack:

                                                nadahappycamper

please,mod,if this isn’t the correct forum,move.ty

2

I’m sort of just starting on following my career path as a teacher, and I’d say it’s going well so far, despite only the bachelor’s degree thus far. Have to go get that teaching cert or MA or whatever eventually, but for right now, a program that lets you teach in Japan with no certification seems to be working great for me. :slight_smile:

Am I right in assuming that innui is ennui, or did you mean something else?

3

Even that’s not working out for him.

4

Modified title. I also assumed that “ennui” was meant.

5

I feel a little slow, but yeah things are going pretty well. I’ve always been a late bloomer.

24 years old and fresh college grad, living back at home and working on renovating my family’s home in exchange for room and board and a small hourly wage. At the same time I’m trying to figure out a way to get over to Japan and teach English. I speak Japanese pretty well already, so after a year or so studying reading and writing I wish to go into international business. That and/or become a music sensation.

Other than that, got a nice girlfriend, in good health, happy, and not missing any limbs.

So yeah, I feel slow in achieving my life goals, but I have no complaints.

6

Sometimes, the trick is to be content with what you have. Carpe Diem and all that…easier said than done, I know.

I didn’t grow up and marry the girl of my dreams or become a photographer for National Geographic. I don’t “love what I do”, but I have a well-paying job working with people I like. I’m physically and financially able to spend a bunch of time in the natural world, and I’ve dodged the cancer bullet 3 times.

So, yeah, I’m satisfied. I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth. And it’s not by design, either…that’s just the way things have turned out. It could all change tomorrow.

7

Has your life turned out to be what you thought it would be, or if not how close, or far from center has it gotten?
Not even close to what I thought when I was a child. I thought I’d be a wife and mother and be married for 50 years to my best friend. It’s not like that. Far off center.

**Are you where you want to be when the journey started? **
No

What changes would you like to make?

I’d have chosen more wisely and not married so young.
**Do you feel that you really don’t have as much contol over you life as you may have thought? **
No. When I was 20, I couldn’t imagine not controlling my life.

What wasn’t asked: My life is wonderful. Happy and crazy and lazy and satisfying and sad and busy and wonderful. It’s varied and interesting. I have a career that I love, gorgeous, healthy children and lots of friends. No husband right now—I’ve had two, but lots of other really great things that I want.

8

blondebear, I like how you think.

I’m 54, & have been through a few changes in the past 10 years or so. If anyone had told me when I was 18 that I would be where I am today, I would have laughed at them.

This said, yep, I’m content. I feel that I’m where God wants me to be, doing what God wants me to do. It’s a good place to be.

The world says I’m in a recession, I’m unfulfilled, I’m dissatisified. My answer is this: pssfffttt!

Love, Phil

9

It hasn’t turned out how I expected it.

I can’t say ‘how I planned’, because I’ve never really planned anything, just kinda stumbled from one thing to the next, generally finding an interesting path.

On the ‘better than I expected’ side:

[ul]
[li]Marriage. I never expected to get married.[/li][li]My job. Ask me ten years ago, I’d never have said I’d be doing this gig - or enjoying it so much.[/li][li]General level of organisation. I’m usually kind of chaotic; my life seems to have attained a certain degree of orderliness[/li][/ul]

On the ‘worse than I expected’ side:
[ul]
[li]While I never expected to get married, I hadn’t expected marriage to turn out like this. I’d never thought that I’d be the type of spouse to be contemplating, however vaguely, infidelity[/li][li]I’ve had more run-ins with the mental health system than I’d have thought likely.[/li][li]I have peculiar gaps in my skills at work that I never thought I’d have.[/li][/ul]

10

Well, let’s just say when I was younger I planned on not living this long. Of course, this (thankfully) eventually got me diagnosed with depression, which turned into some other things as time went by.

Did it go as I’d planned? Sorta. I’m a published writer, I spent time working in both the video game and RPG industries (and I’d some day love to get back into them), and I’m as alone (romantically) as I expected to be. I didn’t expect to be disabled via my psychological problems, but I am. Am I upset about it? A little. I have good days and bad days, and I’m slowly coming to grips with the fact that I’m never going to be ‘normal’, as much as I trully want to be.
It makes every day an adventure, though. I struggle with things a lot of people take for granted, and that’s annoying, but the victories over even small things tend to be sweet. I have a family who, while it took them a long time to, understands what I’m going through. I have friends. I’d like certain things out of my life that I don’t think I’ll likely ever get, but I keep striving for them anyway.

Years ago, I had a friend who had to have some rather major surgery, and it wiped out her college savings. Afterwords, she said to me, “So many people say, ‘You’re so brave for going on!’ What was my other option? Lay down and die?”
While I’ve since lost touch with that friend, her words ring true to me a lot. I know life isn’t the way I want it, and I know it might not become the way I want it, but what’s my other option? Lay down and die?

11

I’m going to approach this from my understanding of ennui. (Isn’t that a bored, world-weariness?)

Ennui? Yes. quite often. It doesn’t make life not worthwhile, but is a motivator to seek out something else. I go from project to project. Pretty consistently it’s excitement, planning, execution, planning, boredom, drop this project for a while. Wash, rinse, repeat. Eventually each project gets completed (or abandoned as not worthwhile). Variety being the spice and all.

I am currently in that in-between state of what do I want to do next? It’s not pleasant, but it won’t last forever.

As for do I feel in control of my life? I feel that I can affect some parameters. Most of it I did not choose, but I’m gonna tweak those parameters that I can.

12

I’m 17, and already cannot imagine ennui more powerful than that which weighs me down now. Of course I thought the exact same thing when I was 16 and those ‘troubles’ wouldn’t even get a dismissive snort from me now. Has my life turned out the way I thought? Well my life hasn’t quite finished ‘turning out’ yet, but I’ve sure been smacked upside the head by it once or twice. This time last year I thought I was on the fast track to suckin’ down mai tais on a private island and getting shuttled around the world on a private jet (I’m only half joking). It’s amazing how much one tiny mistake can change everything. It’s easy for me to say exactly what I would change, I wouldn’t make that one mistake–I have no doubt I will carry the regret of that to my grave.

Oh, and my little high school band never took off…that was quite a blow to to my optimistic world view.

13

[QUOTE=fervour]

Ennui? Yes. quite often. It doesn’t make life not worthwhile, but is a motivator to seek out something else. I go from project to project. Pretty consistently it’s excitement, planning, execution, planning, boredom, drop this project for a while. Wash, rinse, repeat. Eventually each project gets completed (or abandoned as not worthwhile). Variety being the spice and all.
To a certain extent I do the same as you. I recently suffered a bout of ill health that prompted me to change direction in life.

I am now doing a job that a few years ago I would have regarded as ideal, but am bored stiff. No idea what to do next. I’m not exceptionally old (only 38), but I am incredibly jaded and feel a tremendous amount of ennui, with most aspects of life at present and have no idea how to snap out of it. Plus I feel a certain amount of bitterness about my illness.

14

I’m 28. I have a Ph.D., I make tons of money, I own a new house and a new car. I have an adorable cat and lots of interesting friends who I love a lot. I even have a f*** buddy. I have a couple of long-term relationships in my background.

But, weekend after next, I have to go to my cousin’s wedding. She took five years to get a degree in photography from a community college. She lived at home with her mom the whole time. She graduated in December… and her boyfriend proposed. She’s spent the months since then with her aunt in Hawaii, planning the wedding from afar. She didn’t even TRY to get a job, she knew the chump was going to propose. End of story. She’ll never get a job. She’ll never have to live on her own. She’ll just be a happily, legally-recognized kept woman her whole life. And because she’s the bride, everyone thinks she’s wonderful.

So I’m feeling sort of single and lonely and disgusting and like nobody wants me. I hope it’s temporary.

15

Yes, I made a 15 year plan when I was 14 and updated it into a 50 year plan when I was 18. I’m 23 now and so far, life has been going pretty much according to the plan. So much so that it’s scary.

16

Running a little bit behind, but mostly on track. Mostly trying to figure out how my husband and I are going to be able to fit kids into our current working lives. I’m hoping that once things settle down (we bought a house in February, and I finished grad school and started a new job in March), I’ll be able to sort things out. But I’m 29; I expected to at least be pregnant right now, but I don’t think things are stable enough for that yet.

17

My life is happier since I discovered capital letters.

18

My life has not at all gone the way I expected.

I’m poorer than I expected. That’s not surprising now; because of world changes, I think most of us are in North America. At my age, my father could support a family of five, a house, and a car on one salary. I make an equivalent wage and there’s no way I can afford any sort of mortgage for any sort of house, let alone do it with enough left over to operate a car and feed and clothe all those family members.

I’ve had far more struggle than I expected socially. I knew something was wrong when I was in public and high school–I never had a girlfriend–but I had no idea of the complexity of the problem. I had never heard of ‘face blindness’ or Asperger’s Syndrome’ or any of those things. I have had to learn painfully and by hand many social things that most people pick up automatically, and even then, it takes an act of will to use the knowledge. Not just the mechanics of how to be social, but there are entire realms of connection that were unknown to me and beyond my horizon.

Largely because of that effort, I’m far, far behind others socially. Most of my friends are married. My best friends are grandparents, for Pete’s sake. There are no real prospects for marriage in my future, and I do not expect this to change.

There has been a lot more death in my life than I expected. Family members dying; the family was destroyed as an emotional grouping, and I am now alone.

When I had to make the decision between following my art and following the money, I chose the money, and ended up poorer as a result. Partly this is because I could not imagine how to live off my art; that was one of those social skills I knew nothing of.

But it’s not all negative things.

I did find an old dream to be alive: the solar power that excited me in high school has proven to be far more alive than I ever expected. And it looks like world events are making it relevant again.

I did meet a woman a few months ago who thought I was ‘cute’. It’s very rare, but it has happened. Shame that we aren’t all that compatible.