At a point in my life where I don’t know what to do with it. I quit my job for another job, I’m not sure if I want this job so I’m currently unemployed. I have no motivation and am constantly looking for “the meaning of life” in an existential OCD type of way. I wake up, I skate, I eat, I sleep. I don’t understand the meaning of that? Life is 12 hours awake & doing stuff until you just have to go to sleep again how do I get my mind out of this loop?

Hey, well the comforting thing is you’re asking a question that people have been asking themselves for thousands of years. We’ve conjured up many theories—think of all the religious and philosophical traditions over millennia—and haven’t arrived at a conclusive answer. Truth is, none of us know. There may very well not be a reason in a conventional sense. For me, conscious experience is a good enough reason unto itself. I should explain that like anyone else, I struggle with the entire range of human emotions. Including the negative ones like fear, anxiety, jealousy, anger. Also like many of us, I tried to fill this need for meaning in many of the superficial ways our culture seems to reinforce. I liked attention from women. I got a high paying job that put me in the 1%. I tried to have experiences to share on social media so other people could also see my curated existence and I could feel like I had status. I found, like many do, that it’s just a vacuum of nothing on the other side of that journey. So what matters now? My friendships. My children. The conversations I have. The times I share a laugh. Or when I cry. Just noticing small things. Think of how rarely you ever notice the things around you, like the sky or a nice sunset. We spend time with this chatter in our heads, this yelling/obnoxious “self” that craves to be answered and validated. When in reality, it’s the surrender of that struggle—of the conscious and unconscious response to that voice running in your mind—that really liberates you into the present. Mindfulness is a great tool for this. I recommend researching it!

I answered the “meaning of life” in a way my OCD can’t argue, so when it pipes up I tell it the same thing about this particular topic. You are what gives ur life meaning, and your friends and family that are in it. For you in this moment life may feel meaningless, but the amount it would effect other people is larger than u could imagine. I tell myself “life does have meaning, I can do something small that I dont think means much and it can make someone’s entire world”

Another thing I’ve told myself is (because for a very long time I feared death) that death gives life meaning. Without death there’s no time constraint to make living fulfilling. It’s up to you do live in the moment and feel fulfilled by the things you have going on. Especially with OCD we get stuck thinking about a day from now, a week, a month, a year. When in those moments you can bring yourself back to experience NOW, it helps stops the circle of thoughts.