Anyone else truly lost in life?

Not sure why your commute is so long, For a basic pay job, might as well find one near where you live, at least get five hours a day back.

Consider starting to get aggressive looking for graphic arts jobs. Might as well do something you enjoy!

And then consider different ways to gain a social life. One way is through meetup.com, where you can find a group for just about every and any interest, from hiking to museum going to boating to playing sports.

Good luck!

No but I have been. My advice FWIW is to pick one thread – like the long commute – or the living in NYC and focus on changing that one thing. Making one change enables others and gets you unstuck.

I feel I am reaching a crossroads. Not sure where it will go from here.

Always have been and always will be.

I have been there. And I have also ran to a new place a few times thinking that some new surroundings would get me back on track. It didn’t work.

Good luck.

I have, and recently.
What amuses me is your thoughts on leaving NYC. Millions have gone there to find their future. NYC has so many, many neighborhoods and niches, you absolutely needn’t leave to find newness.
Rather changing your surroundings; change the way you view what surrounds you now. That is key. That is nearly always the answer, unless you are entering the witness protection program.
I don’t know what your schedule is like, but get some time off, at least two days consecutively.
Do some things you ordinarily never would. Shop for a tux. Go to a toy store, and play. Buy a toy, some goofy little thing. Go to a park and sing for the pigeons. Buy a rose and walk down a busy street. Give the rose to some anonymous woman, and leave, not skulking, or apologetic, just on your way, as if you do such things every day.
Sometimes, a cook needs to scrap a meal, and quit using hamburger, and sometimes they simply need to try a new arrangement of spices.
Do find work closer to home. Do the same with that. Take a job you normally would not. Don’t expect to keep it. Just plan on earning paychecks while you work through other ideas.
Find a new recipe, and tweak the seasonings a few different ways.

This is going to sound glib, but I really believe it: everyone is truly lost in life; some of us are just better at pretending or improvising or whatever. And part of the problem is that no one admits we’re pretending and improvising. The human condition is essentially terrifying, and we spend a lot of time and effort just trying to keep up appearances, so it’s easy to think we’re the only ones in this situation.

I mean, think about it: we are giant talking monkeys who wear clothes and play on computers, which is equal parts comforting and unsettling. On the one hand, it’s a good reason not to take ourselves too seriously. “Hey, we’re just fucking monkeys in shoes!” On the other hand, we’re monkeys with a lot of responsibilities. Some of us are raising children. Some of us handle nuclear launch codes. So maybe it’s more like, “Oh shit, we’re just fucking monkeys in shoes!”

So here’s some advice from someone who has just admitted that she doesn’t really know anything more than you do: I think you are being stymied by your own expectations. You had a picture of what happiness would look like, and it’s not what you got. But you know what? People are disappointed whether they get what they want or not because pictures are static, whereas life is not. If you don’t reach the goal, you feel like failure. But if you do reach your goal, you feel like your life is over.

So don’t go find another picture. Focus on what will make you happy now instead of what will make you happy in 10 years. Yeah, you have to keep 10 years from now in the back of your head. You don’t want to be completely irresponsible. But you won’t make it to 36 if you hate every step of the way.

So let’s start small. Where are there people your age? You are in the world’s largest college town, and plenty of those colleges have graduate schools. There have to be bars, clubs, and coffeehouses nearby. So try one of those. Just be prepared to meet a lot of people before anyone sticks around. And remember that someone has to be an acquaintance before they can be a friend and a new friend before they can be an old friend.

@Uberwench :: The was the best answer ever written on this website.

No, i’m fine thanks.

@th3vision: To clarify, you live in NYC and commute from outside NYC?

To start, can you not get a job closer to home? That will give you more free time.

Welcome to Fluther.

For another glib answer: I just searched for happiness, and I found 369,000,000 results in 0.45 seconds. It’s on Google. I’ll post a link for you if you need that.

While I don’t want to criticize you while you’re feeling so badly about life right now, you seem to have defined happiness in terms of things you might / should have attained by now. We all want that great job, nice car, home of our own and beautiful girlfriend. (In fact, it seems like half of the women I meet also want that beautiful girlfriend; there’s a lot of competition for beautiful girlfriends, I guess.) But does that mean that we can’t be happy without those things?

You’re currently defining your failure to achieve happiness by your failure to have those nice things that you want. And it’s clear that a 5-hour daily commute to a dead-end job (as you have defined it) is a burden that would weigh on anyone. That, more than anything else, would make me unhappy, to be sure! Not to be trite (on top of glib? that would be unforgivable), but surely you can find another dead-end job closer to home, can’t you? At least that would give you an additional five hours a day to do something that gives you more enjoyment … or prepare you for a better career, find a girlfriend, etc.

You remind me of a very old joke about a cobbler whose shoes were too tight. Every day he would complain about his tight shoes as he made and repaired shoes for others. He would also complain about his unlovely and unloving wife, his ungrateful children, his evil landlord, and the bus driver who carried him back and forth between home and work. At the end of all his complaining he would mention that the only thing that ever brought him any joy or satisfaction at all was to get home and take his shoes off.

One day one of his co-workers had had enough and reminded him, “You have a lot of things that you can’t do anything about, and it’s easy to see why those things make you unhappy. But you make shoes for a living! You fix shoes every day! You know everything there is to know about shoes! Why don’t you just fix your shoes so that they don’t pinch your feet? At least that’s something you can fix in your life.”

The reply was immediate. “What!? And lose my only enjoyment in life? Never!”

If you have talent in graphic design, there has to be decent job available. Have you done any work designing Web pages? If not, take a course in the basics. 5 hours a day commuting? That would make anyone miserable. Your first priority should be to find a job that lines up with your talents and be prepared to move, if necessary, to cut down the commuting time. If you are doing work you love surrounded by workers who share your interests, that will go a long way towards making you feel better about life.

I can’t stress it enough that you have to and should set goals for yourself. Start small and make them short term and attainable. Do consider your long term goals in life but make sure your smaller goals are stepping stones towards your bigger goals in life.

I went through a similar funk my first few years out of college there was no clear path for me and then something struck me in that I had stopped doing the things I as a person liked to do. I was caught up in doing things other people wanted to do. So first thing I did was go back to working out at the gym and playing my guitar. You love soccer so go out and find a club to play in or coach little kids the game. See if you can find a graphics art group to hang out with.

Sounds like your commute sucks more than anything, if that could be changed maybe your life would be a little better.
Am I truly lost in life? Sometimes I worry about my future and I live in a place that’s pretty much the opposite of NYC. I like the freedom and open space where I am but I’m surrounded by Conservatives so I constantly have to bite my tongue and sometimes I find it easier just to avoid people all together and there’s days I’d love to hear a variety of opinions on issues so I guess that’s why here.

In answer to your question, you have received a lot of feedback about your own. Most all filled with positives, suggested possibilities, etc. I hope that is what you needed.
By making those sparkling plans early on, you shouldn’t feel bad. Most people do while on this journey. Then they get out where reality dwells. Things change. People change. Life changes. Achievable changes. And so does the world.
You probably are in a funk because at various points in life, some stop and say- “Is this all there is?” How you handle it is your own decision.
It’s interesting that if people fall ill, or are under diminishing circumstances, they react in largely two groups, and branch off from there.
1— I may not be around much longer, so… Bucket List! Created to try to experience everything before they are unable.
2— Well, hells bells. This sucks. I’m as good as dead now. What’s the use. Accept and endure.
My point? Some people have limitations(time, pain, death, disability, etc) and reach for more.
Others plod along like Walter Mitty in his dreams. Never quite waking,
How are you going to handle it?
Most of those above wrote of How.
I’m writing about When?
Time we cannot control.
Look at the can-do’s.
Imagine the what if’s.
Figure out how to mix them together.
Realize what is and then the “Are you crazy?” things.
Time waits for no one.
Where are you now?
Where are you tomorrow?
A week from now?
Month?
Year?
Learn what you need to -and then get on with it.
Do well.

@janbb had what amounts to the best idea.

You have too many things all going on at once. You have too many ideas all competing for attention. You have too many desires.

Pick one.

Do something about that one which will bring you some joy.

Concentrate on just one.

When that one is beginning to bring you some joy, move on to another one.

How does a journey of a thousand miles start? With one step.

It’s one step at a time.

My son was in the very same place you are in now. He lived at home and
worked a petty job because we live in a small town with few jobs and those
jobs went to the bosses relatives…..He was smart as he aced his ACT test
and did go to college but it wasn’t for him. I wanted him to get away from
this small town and see the world but that is kinda hard with no money.
Two friends of his from this small town joined the Coast Guard. My son
knew he was much smarter than both of them and they were stationed
in Florida! That got him to thinking and he joined the CG and in no time
his file was full of written letters from those higher up on all his accomplishments.
My son looks at this job as an adventure that he is getting paid for!
When he found his “place” he was unstoppable. Many don’t even think of the
Coast Guard as a military unit and actually they are a part of Homeland Security.
Two years ago you couldn’t have gotten my son near a recruitment office.
I guess he matured and made a life decision that is perfect for him.
Something to think about.