Cool. First thing you should do when you get the book is take the Burns Stress Indicator and Burns Anxiety Indicator tests, which are fairly early on in the book. Those will give you a concrete idea of how serious your problem is.
Lobsang, you mentioned that religion and philosophy aren’t really going to help you. I think you’re in a good place to realize that there is absolutely nothing you can do to fill the void. No idea, person, or event is going to do it.
If you believe we are all essentially accidents, and that there should be no ‘‘reward’’ for being human, there must also not be some kind of requirement to be miserable either. If good and evil don’t exist, if life is inherently meaningless, then life is what we choose to make out of it, and it means what we want it to mean.
The most helpful thing for me, in finding my way, was rejecting every possible solution that appeared – and you seem to be doing that just fine. Once you reject all the apparent answers, you are left only with yourself and your misery, and you ultimately learn to take responsibility for your own personal happiness because it beats hating existence. (I do not suggest this is an easy process.)
If there are no rules to follow, no God to hand it down to you, then it is up to you. Not even the loveliest SO is going to fill that void, not the most insightful spiritual teacher is going to teach you a damn thing to make you happier until you assume responsibility for the satisfaction you get out of life. I suggest you approach this in the manner of a scientist, being that most of us Dopers are so passionate about the scientific method. Fight your own ignorance. Pay attention to what makes you feel like shit, and what makes you feel like life is worth living. You don’t really have to DO anything – just notice, and the seeking out of positive experiences will come naturally.
And the other part, which you maybe don’t like – is acceptance. Everything has to be okay right now, because right now is all you’ve got. The way you think things should be is a phantasm. The only thing that’s real is what you’ve got in front of you right this instant. Everything else is complete delusion. When you’re faced with a reality you don’t like, you’ve got two choices: 1) change it, or 2) accept it.
Personally, I love the absolute liberation that comes from tearing down everything and building up from scratch. Start with nothing, and you will find that the reality that you build for yourself is a complete reflection of you and what you want, without all that extranneous junk thrown in.
YMMV as always.
Seconded. I tell all my friends this, that the best way to fight the blues, whether superficial or serious, is to get your mind off yourself and your own problems and figure out a way to help others.
Also, while indeed religion is not an answer in itself, I do believe that having a religion which gives a sense of innate purpose in this life can do wonders against the existential blues. I realize this probably isn’t an option for you, but I felt I had to say something about the anti-religion cloud hanging in this thread. I’m afraid that when people say ‘religion’s not the answer,’ that it’s just one part of a long process that ends in ‘you alone are the answer,’ which I personally believe is futile. I dont think I can go any further without borderline witnessing though…
olivesmarch4th, I’m going to disagree with you on a couple of points. It’s already apparent that Lobsang is willing to accept responsibility for his own life and happiness, but he first needs to find whether or not he actually is in any way at fault for feeling so unenthusiastic at the moment.
If he were running a high fever and breaking out in blue carbuncles, we wouldn’t say to Lobsang that he should accept responsibility for having the plague, tear himself down and build himself back up. Nonsense!
This may be something which he did not cause to happen at all.
So, without tearing himself down and starting over, please…
Lobsang, based on what you have said:
Do start walking more. A brisk walk in early morning is invigorating, but whatever suits your schedule is fine. Start out with a mile perhaps walked briskly. Keep at it until you can do a mile in fifteen minutes. Then walk two miles. Keep adding miles as you like. Do whatever makes you feel good.
Shower after exercise. When you’re feeling down, there is a natural tendency not to.
Please do see a cognitive-behavioral therapist. Take it from the Queen of the Therapy Sofa for 45 years and counting, CBT is the best thing I’ve seen. It is practical and down to earth. It isn’t hokey. It solves problems.
If the therapist thinks you should try medication, don’t be afraid of it. If the first one isn’t right, don’t be afraid to try another. (Okay, you didn’t say anything about this. I snuck it in because it has worked so well for me.) It’s possible meds won’t work or they can give you a chance to breath and think naturally again and care about things again.
Do something for somebody else. Work in a soup kitchen. Even just going in and sitting down and talking with people while they eat means something. Or Amazon some children’s books to a school on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Talk to an old man. Give flowers to a girl to wear in her hair.
Be kind to yourself. Cut yourself some slack. Give things a chance to fall into place again. It takes time. Then if you have trouble finding the right SO, buy a ticket to the States while the exchange rate is so good. America girls really do go for the accent, you know. It still turns heads in the South.
You will get through this.
It’s funny how we approach the problem from completely opposite angles and end up in more or less exactly the same place. I suppose it’s a “whatever works for you best” kind of thing.
It’s fantastic that you find answers in your faith. That’s simply not an option for me personally, so I have to seek it elsewhere, and ultimately the only place I have to go is inward.
But isn’t religion sort of the same thing? I mean, on the surface, you’re looking for a greater good outside of yourself for peace, but doesn’t it really start with a journey inward? Having never been truly religious, I don’t know.
Wow, this is a whole topic on its own. 
I think maybe you’re a bit too introspective, and that trying to get to the root of why you’re inherently dissatisfied is actually part of the reason you’re inherently dissatisfied. Find something else - something useful or fun - to be busy about.
Hard to say, and when it all comes out in the wash, only Lobsang can answer the question. We can only provide suggestions.
Personally, I thought olives’ post was brilliant, and I don’t know that simply going for a walk is the answer to all of life’s problems. Yes, getting a bit of exercise is a true mood elevator, and yes, getting out to see new sights is a great way to break old thought patterns. Brilliant, really. But sometimes you have to tear down every single old structure and challenge every assumption you’ve ever made.
One thing I used to do was live a small part of my life backwards. If my morning routine was to shave, shower, then eat breakfast, I might start with breakfast and end with shaving. I might enter every room backwards. Yes, it looks terribly silly and I don’t recommend you do that if you have roommates, but it’s an effective way to show yourself that it’s OK to break routines.
It’s an old Native American trick.
That was what I’d actually realized when I decided to create the OP. See the first sentence. So I guess I already know what that’s the problem.
And then I went off describing why I’ve failed so far. Obviously instantly forgetting that I’d already identified the problem.
I might print this thread out.
Some sort of working out is almost always helpful, though. I just started doing yoga again and it feels great, although it seems I can scarcely keep up with the teacher sometimes.
Hmm, I think you might have mistaken my post for something the equivalent of ‘‘Depression is all in your head! Get over it!’’ It wasn’t intended that way at all. I’m aware of how devastating and helpless being depressed can feel – and I think it’s pretty clear that the OP is at least somewhat depressed.
I’m more talking about some kind of great existential quest – something to be done in the spirit of adventure… as Nietzsche would put it, saying ‘‘Yes!’’ to everything. One of the most life-altering experiences I had, personally, was receiving the privilege of being able to start over, to tear down the old conditioning and make of life what I wanted of it. I would like to think I still get to do this on a daily basis. That is a part of my life that brings me continual joy and I think it’s worth consideration.
And it’s not really all that controversial to state that a part of learning to be happy in spite of depression is to accept its presence. A lot of our suffering does come from rejecting what’s in the present moment–and then rejecting ourselves for rejecting it… all the shoulds and '‘I oughtta’'s – which Ellis delightfully calls ‘‘musterbation.’’ That’s not helpful for anybody.
And the biggest red flashy Warning Sign O’ Doom in the OP is the ‘‘I need an SO.’’ Nobody needs an SO. That’s one of the greatest lies our culture has ever produced.
So yeah, definitely not trying to imply that depression is some sort of character flaw – I just saw fit, for whatever reason, to use the existential approach, considering how much it helped me and how disposed the OP seems to attack those larger questions of meaning.