Do you ever feel like you need a major change in your life?

There really is nothing to change. You are a perfect being just as you are and you are neither right or wrong. What happens with us is we create a view of ourselves and that view (from past history) defines us and we automatically live in that view. If you can look at yourself and pinpoint what it is that makes you feel unhappy in your current situation. For instance maybe you don’t feel good enough or a list of many things that you have made yourself be (your view of yourself). We create all others including ourselves for ourselves. In other words your boyfriend will be for you who you create him to be. Now if you can pinpoint the view then you can set it aside and create a view that makes you happy. You cannot change the view because it is within you but you can set it aside and create a new view of yourself. Our happiness is only within us and it is our responsibility. NO ONE can or will make you happy it is up to you and you alone. Good Luck

If you can’t change your life, change your perspective on it.

Try counting your blessings every morning when you get up. What are you thankful for? Your family? Your friends?

Make sure that you get exercise.

Consider volunteering.

“Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted.”

To begin with, It doesn’t sound like you’re being honest with yourself.

You realize that you’re the problem. You understand that you’re unhappy about yourself, which is preventing you from having success in relationships with men, and probably the source of a lot of other unhappiness in your life. But you haven’t told us why, and from the way you wrote the question, it doesn’t sound like you’ve been honest with yourself why.

What is it about yourself you don’t like?

When I was in college, I knew my biggest challenge was the arrogance I had inherited from my father. From the time I got there until I graduated 4.5 years later, I worked on a major attitude adjustment so I’d be less arrogant, less stiff, and a nicer and, well, better guy to be around. And it worked. By the time I was a junior and senior, I was a very happy, content Neurotic_David, and enjoyed my time at college immensely as a result. And I made lifelong friends who are with me 20 years later.

Secondly, you need to break your life into smaller buckets so you can tackle some of the problems. For example, do you like the room/apartment/house you’re living in this semester? If not, why not? Are there small things you can do to make it better? A potted plant here, a flower there, maybe a different color wall, etc.

Why don’t you like the classes you’re taking? Can you do a better job picking classes for next semester which might better fit with your goals? Or is your problem with pharmacy school altogether? If so, maybe you need to get out now before you waste 4 years of your life and untold thousands pursuing an education you ultimately don’t want.

What about your non-school, non-home life do you like or not like? What can you do to have more fun, or cut out the non-fun things, when you’re not studying?

Examine each part of your life, figure out what makes you happy, cut out what doesn’t make you happy, and then enjoy each and every day to its fullest.

So those are my thoughts. I wish you the best!

Personally, i feel like you should always feel like you need a major change in your life – or at least always investigate if you do.

@Neurotic_David My major problem, is that I’m not content. I think I’m pretty honest with myself. I see recurring patterns in my life and relationships where I want something, and once I get it, I’m no longer satisfied. It scares me because I can’t seem to stop it.

I can handle the other little things like roommate issues and hours spent in organic lab. But the worry that I will never actually be satisfied with myself or with someone else is tough to handle.

So I have two reactions to that:

1) You’re what, 20? 22? 23? You’re not supposed to be content, I think. You’re supposed to be looking to the future while doing what you can to enjoy the present. College is supposed to be fun! You don’t have to find the man you’re going to marry. Some do, and they’re lucky (although most end in divorce, remember!). Most don’t (these days, anyway).

2) Like others wrote, you gotta stop worrying about it. Just go live your life. Concentrate on your scholarship. Concentrate on making and maintaining friendships. If a hot guy comes along, have the best time you can but don’t set high expectations – take it one day a time and be thankful for each day which you enjoy with him.

[Quick edit in case it helps put things in perspective: I had a great time in college. I had a fun time in my 20s. I didn’t achieve “contentedness” until I was in my 30s.]

@nir17 I often feel the same. We probably have some similar personality traits (I am studying Chemistry, not really sure why).

I often feel like I am incredibly bored and ask myself, “what the hell am I doing with my life?”, because, like you say, when you get the things you think you need to feel content, they suddenly feel hollow and meaningless. I have an extremely powerful urge to explore experiences at the highest rate possible. I want to try and see and experience everything in the world, and when I’m on the road, with new things to see and people to meet every day, I couldn’t be happier, and when I’m stuck inside doing stats for my lab reports (like now) I feel like all the things I’ve achieved and all the things ive seen haven’t satisfied me, because right now my life seems boring and slow and directionless.

I just know its the wanderlust though, and that it’s not true. The things I do and see have helped me grow and define who I am. It seems hopeless when youve got weeks at a time without new experiences, because you feel like your living without really living… but you cant spend your whole life in the fast lane… I’m just looking forward to my 3rd year, when I’ll be on exchange in Japan…

It’s really hard, at this age, to be doing a long course like this (mine’s four years), you feel like your life is going so slowly, but at the same time passing you by at an alarming rate…

That’s me, anyway… I’m sure these things are just part of becoming an adult, I don’t think they go away, I think you just have to brush them aside and get on with what you need to be doing, and when you get the opportunity to do something new, you take it, and then happiness comes to you naturally… worrying about it doesn’t make these opportunities come any quicker.

I think the major change needs to come in how you look at the world and your experiences, and the expectations you have, rather than anything explicit and physical, like your place of living, or your course.

That said, I may well be wrong, about myself as well as you… maybe we picked the wrong course, the wrong accommodation, wanted the wrong things in other people, but if that’s the case, I don’t trust myself to do it any better next time, so I’m going to live with my choices and try to make the best of them, using the knowledge that they may not have been very well justified to help me make sense of the problems I will inevitably have with them.

Yes.

There are times when I seriously consider running away and joining the French Foreign Legion, or moving to the Czech Republic, or becoming a safari guide. I want to live a life worth reading about.

I went through a major upheaval of my life in the last 2 years. I experienced a depression so deep I didn’t know how I was going to go on. Anyway, I guess my point in that was, I was always searching for some thing or some one to make me happy. I didn’t realize it at the time, but no thing and no one was ever going to be able to make me completely happy. Contribute to it, maybe, but to find ultimate contentment, no.

I went from having an amazing, well-paying job to being unemployed and losing my house. At my lowest point, one day, I decided to finally just stay at home and read a book instead of sulking about how lonely I was and how I felt like I had no friends. The book I chose to read was Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

I don’t know if it was the book, or something else, or a combination, but it’s like a light bulb went off in my head. Like a fog lifted. I finally realized that, even though my life was going to pieces and I was in deep shit, I didn’t have to FEEL like shit. I just had to ACCEPT it. But here’s the major thing. ACCEPTING circumstances, even if bad, doesn’t mean that you just lay down flat and let it roll over you. Accept, but also think about how you’re going to face it and change it.

Acceptance and changing don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

I hope this helps, and I hope that you can find your way. Good luck.

I do and when I feel like this, I try to identify what it is I am not happy with. I hate stagnating. I hate feeling like I am treading water. I have never been afraid of change so if I feel I need to change something in my life I do. I think though, and you have experienced this, you do need to be careful that the thing you go about changing is actually the problem. Not always easy when we are in the midst of that frustrated, edgy, discontented place. Sometimes we need to try to get a little space between us and the trees so we can actually see the wood. Don’t be afraid of change and do be honest about what you are feeling and where YOU want your life to go. And @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Yes Indeed. A life worth reading about. I wonder how many of us have one of those but just don’t recognise it?

Yes….and it takes time and doesn’t happen over night. Figure out what you want, and if you can’t pack up and leave tomorrow morning then at least start planning for it and saving your money and yada yada yada. If you want to do something aside from what you’re doing, just DO IT. I know this is cliche but it applies, so, you only live once and life is too short to be unhappy. So unless you have some crazy unrealistic off the wall dream life you want to be living, really what you want is probably within reach, so find a way to make it happen. Move….before you get older and acquire a million things that hold you back and you end up living in the same place all your life just because it’s easy, which I think a lot of people do, and at least some of them must regret, right?

I think the thing you should do… is go talk to someone professional.

(and also, get back with your X, because he is clearly super-amazing in every way and likely very well endowed)