i don’t think fulfillment exists

Okay..okay. I know I just made that needlessly long blog post about the inevitable doom we’re all careening towards, but as much as I appear to be the epitome of pessimism and negativity, I also do HAVE some semblance of happiness in my life, although rare and uncommon.

Here’s how I cope up with societal pressure, the mental strain of existing and the inherent need for validation.

Fulfillment

There are so many ways as there are people when it comes to defining something that means a whole lot of different things depending on who you are or where you’re from or what your personality is or what values you try to live by. There is no right or wrong way to define fulfillment. It could be a number of things from your desired state of being, clearly defined goals you want to achieve, challenges you want to conquer, places you want to go to, honed skills you want to excel at, or simply just the mellowed existence you want to maintain.

I am currently at the point in my life where I have (or at least attempt with much futility) to be fully in-charge of what I want to do moving forward. I am no longer bogged down by the need to excel at things but rather I’ve found myself a new conundrum to occupy my waking hours with. Instead of trying to impress other people with shallow stats or achievements, I’ve become more concerned with finding ways on how to live my life the way I want to (and with little to no stress if I could help it).

I want to live a life of fulfillment rather than a life dictated by the unattainable standards of society.

Over the years, I’ve somewhat mellowed down on my own expectations, both in life and in myself. I’ve stopped trying to be the over-achiever or the insufferable know-it-all (Although, I don’t think I’ve ever been any of these at any given point in time, feel free to argue); a certain aspect of life that I had to struggle with while growing up. I couldn’t be less than the best because where will that type of mediocrity land me in the future? This was what I believed in with much futility because it was the only way I could feel like I was doing anything significant with my life. Trying to excel at things served as some sort of validation for the conundrum of my own existence.

But that’s not all there is to life, is it?

The stark contrast between my imagined reality and the actual reality I was presented with after breaking out from the confines of my coddled life of ignorance and naivety sucker-punched me in the gut. There was no “right” way to live your life. We were all just preconditioined to act a certain way, choose a certain path and follow the rules set by our capitalist overlords like the good, obedient uniformed cogs of capitalism that we are. It’s been all a set-up from the start.

We were constantly fed with lies and with fantasies that are not real.

It is all a big scam.

When you get radicalized, where do you go from here on out?

I am starting to veer off on a completely different tangent so let’s steer it back to the supposed main point of conversation in this post.

I simply just want to enjoy the little things that make me happy and live in relative comfort where I do not have to worry over the most inconsequential non-issues in life anymore.

(Well, that was the naive ‘dream’, if you can call it one, I had prior to being slapped in the face by the relentlessly heartless and cruel reality of the world we live in.)

Maybe finding fulfillment isn’t life’s ultimate pleasure but instead by simply just existing we can live in fulfillment.

Okay, hold up! That sounds like such a terrible life guru advice and I am in no way qualified to throw around pseudo-philosophical bullshit like that.

And that eerily sounds like something your bourgeoisie instagram influencer would definitely use as a fake woke caption on a post where they flaunt their stay in a 5-star hotel in the middle of a fuckin pandemic #grateful #blessed with added tone-deafness dialed up to the maximum!

But one thing is for sure, the obvious impediment preventing a lot of us from getting closer to the feeling of fulfillment would be the numerous “problems” we have to solve in our day to day living.

Deal with it

The best way to deal with a “problem” is to know exactly what kind of problem you are dealing with. Life is a series of unfortunate circumstances you have to continuously face head on over a period of time or you can simply just ignore whatever circumstance you are in and live through your years unbothered.

But I digress, this type of thinking is coming from a very privileged point of view.

A good portion of the world’s population is living in abject poverty and they are doing their damnedest to survive. There are so many problems your every day person is hustling and breaking their backs to overcome and I think as a species, we should get our shit together first, before we worship the rich and powerful while turning a blind eye to the oppressed and marginalized.

I know we can’t just simple “deal with it” when we are in a disadvantaged position with very few means of actually getting out of the current shit hole we are in.

We are deprived of the opportunities and privileges that other well-off individuals have had since birth. I started writing this very out-of-touch blog post several months ago when I was laughably very ignorant and tone-deaf of the actual lived realities that many people have to “deal with” in their everyday lives.

So, nope.

Changing your perspective does not address the root cause of many people’s struggles and “discontent”.

There is so much that is wrong with how this world supposedly “works” and instead of fundamentally changing the systems that oppress us, we are conditioned to think that the problem lies within our own perspective as an indvidual and hence the burden of changing our current predicament is placed on our shoulders instead of first questioning why the current predicament exists in the first place.

We are led to believe that this is how things “are” and we should just work our way around it or find a means to make the burden easier to carry. However, this is a luxury not everyone can afford.

We are so intently focused on our own problems and circumstances that oftentimes we forget that the universal struggle the working class (that’s you and me, bud) is burdened with is, at its root, caused and abetted by the rich and powerful few who control most, if not all, of our means of living.

This is not going the way I thought it would

I am going to scrap the remaining half of this post previously saved in my drafts because it no longer reflects my current thoughts and opinions on this matter.

If you’ve reached this point and are flabbergasted by the sudden change of tone in this blog post which only started with some random mumbo-jumbo about “changing your perspective to be happy and content with your life(?)” to outright claiming (and rightfully so) that rich people are leeches draining us of resources and basically being the root cause of the struggles of the working class, then I offer you this empty apology because I probably should have known better and been more aware of the actual ailments that plague our lives.

I really do wish I had the intellectual capacity and academic skill to present my stance better but, alas, I am simply of feeble mind and laughably lack the nuance and apt ability to do so.

I wish I could’ve ended this on a more positive note that inspires and encourages the reader to go out there and seize the day but instead I’ve ended up digging myself in a dark hole of pessimism and unadulterated despair.

Maybe there will be better days ahead of us or maybe there won’t be.

Just do your best to live the life you want to and don’t let other people dictate what an ideal life for you should be because they will not be the ones who will bear the crux of your own demoralizing existence.

I honestly just wanted to get this out of my drafts with no concrete idea of what this is supposed to be. So, I will simply just end this post very unceremoniously and pretend that there was something of note that I did here, even though there wasn’t any.