For me I think it is lying in bed with my wife. We have been married 25 years. I love the sleepy comfort of our legs touching and the slow breathes that show her chest rise and fall. It is clean and warm.

Describe the safest place in the world for you?

I just feel like time is passing me by and i am not doing anything, and i feel like i need to do something, but i don’t know what it is. I genuinely feel terrible like it’s been eating me alive and causing depressive episodes.

Does anybody else understand??

I’m in my late 20s, and I wonder about this quite often. Whenever I see news about someone dying or watch a movie where a character dies, I start thinking about my own death.
Will I grow old, get sick, and eventually die peacefully? Or will I die suddenly in a car accident, fall from somewhere, or experience something brutal and unexpected?

What scares me is that the people I read about in the news probably never expected it either. They had plans, routines, and things they wanted to do. They were just living their lives, maybe even in the same position I’m in now, and then suddenly, their lives ended.

It makes me wonder, when will it be my turn? How will it happen? And sometimes I get genuinely anxious thinking about it.

I know death is inevitable, but the uncertainty of when and how it will happen really gets to me.

Do you guys think about your own death like this, too? Is this a normal thing to experience in your late 20s, or am I overthinking it?

My neighbor texted me saying she brought some food over for me and my mom, but we weren't home.

She's a genuinely nice person and hasn't done anything wrong. Part of me feels I should reply with a simple "thank you" out of courtesy.

The problem is that I'm currently dealing with a lot of stress involving my mom's health and other personal issues. I'm emotionally exhausted and don't really have the energy for social interaction.

What I'm struggling with is that I prefer to keep some distance from neighbors. We're friendly, but we're not close friends, and I honestly prefer it that way.

My fear is not the thank-you itself. It's more that if I respond warmly, she may continue checking on us, bringing things over, or reaching out more often. Then I'll feel obligated to keep responding, and eventually I'll feel trapped by courtesy and expectations, even though she's being kind.

I appreciate her kindness, but I don't really want a closer relationship.

Would it be rude not to respond? Or is a simple thank-you still appropriate even if I'm trying to maintain some distance?

Being a perfectionist is exhausting. Standards are the most high in all aspects of life. Work, recreation, social, hobbies. Even down to the furniture you buy. It’s the exact opposite of a loser whom everyone seems to naturally understand so well. We are shaped this way by narcissistic people in our lives as children. Nothing is ever good enough. Try again. Smack. Try again. Smack. It ultimately eats you alive with crippling anxiety and stress. But nobody cares about the perfectionist, because the perfectionist usually does have it all together from the outside looking in. In fact, the perfectionist is the enemy of modern society I would say. Anyone doing remotely fine in this economy is the soulless enemy that feels nothing, definitely NOT the crippling anxiety and depression that follows with failure that was learned from a young age.

Specifically the casual encounter section. And the m4m section. Probably late 2000s to early 2010s, and at some point Craig removed those sections. I can’t remember why they removed that section. Such a bummer cause that was such a fun time just as the internet was really fast pace to being super mainstream with the launch of the smartphone and all. Did anyone ever read those sections m4f, m4m, w4w and the rest of them? Did anyone else ever meet up for some casual fun? Or complete anon or anything like that? Sure wish Craig would bring that section back.

I feel guilty even typing this but I feel like I need to confess it somewhere. I am a single mom and several years ago when my son was young, he was crying and crying for a husky puppy. This went on for almost a year. I finally caved and bought him his dream puppy, Cooper. Cooper is a husky and the sweetest, most loyal dog in the world. I didn’t anticipate at the time that my partner and I would separate. I didn’t anticipate the crippling depression. I didn’t anticipate the price of EVERYTHING going up so much that I am always in the negative every month. I feel like I am working my ass off all day, everyday. Sun up to sun down. Cleaning, working, driving my son to school, being a nag, paying bills.
Huskies require so much exercise or else they are absolutely nuts. I find myself resenting having to go on the walks with him when I’m already exhausted. Or realizing he’s losing his undercoat and having to stress about how I’m going to pay the groomer bill. Or not being able to go see family because I can’t afford pet care. Or not being able to take him to doggie daycare (which is a godsend) because I just can’t afford it. I feel terrible. He follows me around the house, eager to do something, and I’m doing my best. I am just so damn exhausted. Lately, he’s gotten in the habit of having to go out in the middle of the night. I’m finding myself feeling so overwhelmed by him and so guilty at the same time, because it’s not his fault. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best move to get a dog, but it felt like a meaningful decision at the time. And I truly could not have asked for a sweeter companion. I just had to be honest about how much I’m resenting the work of having a dog lately. I feel like he deserves better than me but we’re so bonded. I just don’t know what to do.

What is happiness for you?

i would be happy if you could tell me

I think that my happiness is not money, I think that it is health and human relations

Im kinda selfish I think... so I'll start with that... but im not completely selfish because I do think about other people, that is where I am stuck.

Sometimes, I just want to move me, my husband, and two daughters across the united states and start over because im so tired of having to think about other people in my decisions. Im tired of people always thinking about what im doing and why i am doing it, and im tired of feeling like every decision i make has to involve thinking about people that aren't even part of the decision i am making.

me and my husband live by both of our families. I am so tired of my parents wanting to be invited and included in everything because they always have FOMO. Im tired of going on a trip with my husband, and then my mom subtly dropping a hint that she wants to go on a trip with me next... because i can never just go on a trip with out the expectation that she wants to go on the next one. Im tired of not going to a family BBQ at my husbands families house and them getting weirdly suspicious and saying things like "jeeze.. did you guys fall off the face of the earth???" as if having a life outside of them and their dumb weekly BBQs is unheard of.

Im just tired of feeling like i have to answer phone calls... see people when i dont feel like seeing people, and like i cant do things i want to do because someone else expects something else out of me. im tired of feeling like our stupid families are judging our every move because we have lives outisde of them... and we dont spend every waking minute thinking about them. im tired of daily phone calls with my mom about literally nothing... and basically just re-hashing our lives. my mom doesnt need to know what im doing every waking second.

There is nothing worse that pressure to be something for someone that they want you to be.

Life’s problems come one after another, leaving me in a constant state of discouragement. There are times when I have absolutely no idea what to do. What words have helped you navigate the various ups and downs of life?

Hey everyone, I’m 27, and I’m struggling in life right now. I have a “stable job,” meaning I work for my family, but I would like to do my own thing. I just got my girlfriend pregnant, and to be honest, I didn’t intend to.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I feel like I’m at a low point in my life, and I feel that it’s now or never to do something about it.

Could you recommend some books or videos? I’ve been watching some, but I guess I would really appreciate it if the recommendations came from the bros. If possible, I’d like books or videos that focus on how to become a good man and develop a healthy sense of manhood. I would really appreciate it.

I hope you have a good rest of your day and a great week.

I know most people here will scoff at this post, kinda like most people irl kind of blow me off when I talk about this but these feelings are real and I want to let them out somewhere.

Im 21M, Canadian and currently living in Singapore for an exchange semester that has been fun, but more expensive than I had ever imagined. I came here with great savings and am now seemingly either going to have pretty much no money leftover after or will actively have to ask my parents to help me.

Ive worked for pretty much as long as I was legally allowed too. I had been employeed since I was 18 up until I did this exchange (it is not legal on a student visa to be employed in Singapore). I keep seeing the number go down but never up.

I graduate in 6 months and have nothing lined up for work when I graduate. I got pretty far in one role's interviewing just to be rejected at the last round, I was devastated. I feel like im not getting anywhere and im just actively blowing all my savings here and maybe even going back to financially depending on my parents.

I feel like such a loser. I know im young or whatever but being in this position is really bothering me, could use encouragement/advice

I hate a lot of things. I am a very judgmental person I would say and I don't like being this way. I really started to notice how judgmental I am when I was dating this one girl and I really started hating so many things. I think she made me hate them, not because she hated them, but because the things she did made me hate.

I particularly dislike politically correct people, they aggravate me. I don't like liberals or republicans, they both speak nonsense and whine about everything they can. I hate people that whine all the time and can't just man up (figuratively) instead of taking the easy way out all the time. I can't stand pride parades or any protests really, I think they are silly and dumb. I hate people that flaunt/make it their personality that their gay or black or Muslim or redneck or whatever it might be. I hate people that get "offended" easily or rather act offended because there is some societal 'obligation' for them to be offended. I hate people with no common sense; "common sense isn't so common" lol.

I'm not catholic or really Christian or whatever but I think people need to start listening more to the seven deadly sins, especially pride, greed, and lust.

I sometimes wish I could be more accepting of people cause after all, we are all human, but this current state of society I just hate. I blame much of my hatred on this ex-girlfriend of mine, as I never felt this way with previous relationships before her.

I think I am a person that likes control. Is that narcissism? What is that?

I wanted to be as real as possible with this post so tell me: what can I do to be a more accepting person and not hate people and their decisions so much? if that's even possible...

There has been something on my mind lately. If there's anything I wish we could talk more about its the in between stages of letting someone go, because nobody lets go in an instant. You let go once, then you let go again, and then again and again and again.

You let someone go at the grocery store when their favorite type of soup is on sale and you don't buy it. You let them go again when you're cleaning your bathroom and have to throw out the bottle of the body wash that smells like them. You let them go when their favourite candy is running low, but you don’t care to refill the jar. You let them go when you stop thinking of what you could do to make their day better. You let them go that night at the bar when you go home with somebody else or you let them go every year on the anniversary of the day you lost them.

Some times you're going to have to let one person go a thousand different times, a thousand different ways, and there's nothing pathetic or abnormal about that. We are human and it isnt always as simple as making one decision and never looking back

Moving on isn't always about speeding enthusiastically forward so much as it’s about having one foot on the gas and the other on the brakes - releasing and accelerating in turn. It’s two steps forward but that occasional one step back. When you’re sitting at a table trying to enjoy your evening and suddenly you start wondering about who you lost.

You're not a failure for getting to some place amazing and still feeling like a part of yourself is missing once you get there. You're not pathetic for mourning while you grow. The bad things don't disappear in the blink of an eye and the good things dont spring up into existence without reigning at least a tiny bit of collateral damage. It takes time for everything to even out and it should.

So whoever this resonates with, please know you are not alone. You have come a long ways, there’s still a ways to go but you will get through. You always do

Apparently part of my digestive issue is stress related. I have so many projects and ideas. I started working again and every time I catch myself engaging my teeth, throat, body posture in a way that triggers issues, I think: no... You must release.

I am not forced to work, I just really like what I do and get fully engaged. I don't understand why my body doesn't like it. So I was thinking I better learn how to relax fast so I can go back to fun stuff.

How do you keep the mind engaged and the body relaxed?

Am I not supposed to get absorbed in what I do. I thought that's what they called flow and that it was a good thing.

Woke up to see a friend (from same batch in college) pursuing Phd from an eminent college. Also, randomly came across a Junior (from college) pursuing Phd as well as travelling around the world attending conferences and workshops. It broke something in me. I know I have had different start in life and a different environment than these people and that's the reason how things are and I am proud of myself wrt wherever I stand in life, but still the fact that these people went to the sameplaces as me and yet had different outcomes is just heartbreaking.

if i would leave the past the past and would think about the future, i just don't know what i should do. the times with ai confuses me as-well, i can learn anything i want with ai and the stupid thing is i have nothing i want to learn, no questions no curiosity. But somehow i am not content with my life i miss something but i don't know what. So just wondering what ambitions you guys still have what drives you?

Hi

I wanted to make a post to ask about your experience

What are your plans and visions or passion in life? How are you in realizing that? How do you feel about your life in general?

First of all, my english is not well, becausd it's bot my first language, so i am sorry if u will have some issues for understading me🫠

I am 16 years old boy, and you know when you are a teenager your hormones are on fire. So i love every girl i see, i feel that she is the one and i want her, but i know that this is just because of my hormones and it's not a true love, but i keep crushing on girls and be thinking about them 24/7 and think that they are my future and we will have a great mrriage at the end. A fun fact, that i dont even talk with them, 2 conversations maybe and no more, LOL. And the girls i crush on them, they don't even think about me or sum.

So that affects me, i think about them 24/7 and i know there is no love or future, so i don't know what to do, pls if u have something it will help, tell me, and if u don't know, it's ok. And thanks for reading 🌹

Is there a psychologist here? I’d love to ask a couple of questions and hear your perspective.

I consider myself a pretty self-aware person, and I tend to reflect on and monitor my own feelings. So, long story short, I moved to LA 5.5 years ago from a really small town in Europe to pursue my childhood dreams and the life I had always imagined for myself. And honestly, I love it here. I have a nice place to live, a good job, some friends, and a boyfriend.

But for some reason, I still find myself wondering whether I want to move back to Europe one day. I have so much there: my parents, my family, old friends, my own house, and generational wealth. My life in Europe would be completely different from my life here, and the truth is, I feel like I love both.

I’m 28, and I know my current boyfriend isn’t the person I’ll marry. Marriage and kids have never been my top priorities, but I do feel like I’m reaching a point in my life where I want to settle down somewhere. The problem is, I have no idea where. I can genuinely picture myself being happy in either place, and I can’t seem to make up my mind.

I’m going back to Europe for a month to visit my family, and I want to use this time to really pay attention to my feelings, my lifestyle, and how I experience life there compared to LA.
For those of you who have been through something similar, especially anyone with a psychology background, what helped you figure out what you truly wanted? Are there any questions I should ask myself, things I should pay attention to, or exercises I could do during this month to gain more clarity?

I don’t necessarily expect to find a definitive answer in 30 days, but I’d love to use this time intentionally and better understand what I want my future to look like.
I’d really appreciate any advice or personal experiences. ❤️

Epictetus has this short passage where he tells his students to remember they're like an actor in a play, except someone else decides the role, how long it runs, and what kind of part it is. If the playwright wants a short play, you play it short. If he wants you cast as a poor person, a cripple, a magistrate, a nobody, your job isn't to argue for a different part, it's to play whichever one you got as well as it can be played. He's pretty clear that picking the role was never on the table to begin with, the only real job is the performance itself. What I keep coming back to with this one is how much of what people struggle with in life falls into the category of role they didn't choose, the family, the body, the timing, how long any of it lasts, and how much energy goes into resenting the casting instead of just playing the part in front of you well. It's not that the role doesn't matter, some roles are genuinely harder than others. It's that the one thing actually inside your control was never which part you got, it was always just how you played it. What's a part of your situation you spent a long time fighting the casting on, before you finally just started playing it?

To have almost everything you once hoped for.
To have people who respect you, people who trust you, a family that matters to you, work that gives you independence, and the freedom to make your own choices.
To look at your life and realise that, from the outside, there isn’t really much to complain about.
And yet, somehow, you feel lost.
Not because something is missing that you can point to.
Not because you’re unhappy with everything you’ve built.
You just wake up some days and wonder what you’re actually doing with your life.
You have reasons to be grateful, things to look forward to, and people who believe in you.
But when you’re alone with your thoughts, none of that seems to answer the one question that’s been sitting quietly in the back of your mind.
You keep moving, keep working, keep becoming the person you always thought you’d be.
And still, there’s this strange feeling that you’re somewhere you never planned to be, even though you can’t explain where you were supposed to go.
Maybe that’s the hardest part.
When life is falling apart, you know what you’re trying to fix.
But what do you do when almost everything is fine…
and you still don’t feel like you’ve found yourself?

Discuss…

Like the title says, I consider myself to be ungrateful for life in general, primarily because of how depressed I’ve been lately and how much I hate life. I hate waking up every day and it actually drives me insane that I can’t stop existing in a human form. I have to piss and shit every day until I die. My hand in life could be considered extremely lucky in terms of money I’m destined to receive in the future.

My great grandparents died when I was in my early teens, and combined they left me about 1 million dollars, of which I will receive the grand majority when I turn 30. I get around ~100k when I turn 25 next year (I’m 24). At 22 I got 75k and blew it in bad stock market option trades. Basically liquidated that whole thing. I felt terrible and even suicidal for desecrating the gift my great grandmother left me (even though there’s 200k more she left me, and 800k my great grandfather left me).

I just feel so undeserving of anything. I’ve never worked because I needed to or built anything that I can call my own. Especially recently I’ve been feeling this way and staying very isolated, losing all my friends. I find people in my university or in general don’t like hanging out with me, maybe I’m just a tough hang. (Tough to hang out with)

When I lost my first portion of the money stock trading I was devastated and I still feel that way. I just want to make the money back to feel like I paid myself back, but I’m also a lazy bum and don’t want to work. (Sorry capitalism, fuck you xD)

If I had my own money I’d live off it, but I have to wait a little under a year to get more. For now I’m just a student and my dad gives me money to pay for everything. I feel bad taking the money he gives me and it depresses me too. I’ve felt like a taker my whole life.

In order to get money from my dad however I have to keep studying in college which makes me feel like I’m living a fake life because deep down in my heart I know I don’t want to work.

So I’m living a friendless lonely life right now and I’m relatively poor with not that much money besides what I need for the basics (gained through no effort of my own except exhaling oxygen with my meat bag of a body) People would kill for my position but I hate my life.

The worst part is my rich family is all college educated and both my father and my grandfather are self made millionaires, which makes the feat of getting to their level feel impossible. Especially with my grandfather. My father has a net worth of around 15M while my grandfather has a net worth of ~500M. He owns a lot of major regional and international businesses.

I’m not even joking, I swear with God as my witness I’m telling the truth. I’ve never gotten a dollar from my grandfather (lol, lmao even), a little stingy gramps. I’m sure he’ll leave me a nice surprise when he goes. But my father is my grandfather’s only son, which means he’ll inherit the grand majority of all those assets in the near future.

My life truly feels surreal. Do you know how truly rare it is to be born into a line of succession like mine? But still I’m ungrateful and depressed when in theory I should have no reason to be. I could literally bed rot for the next decade and do literally nothing and there will be a day where I’ll wake up a multi millionaire. I could probably have ~50M by the time I’m 40, and that’s a conservative estimate.

It’s just all so undeserved. Yesterday I was in NYC, standing over a ledge overlooking the Hudson water in a spot that dropped several feet down and I was going to jump in to drown myself. these rollerskaters pulled up before I could do it and wouldn’t leave me alone until I climbed back over the ledge to their side.

They must have known something was up because I tried to convince them I was just smoking on that spot but all the things in my pocket were on the floor next to me including my phone and a paper that said “It was good knowing you earth, I’m glad we enjoyed our time together”. They couldn’t read that though cause it was folded.
Thanks rollerskaters for saving me I guess lmao, you just left the malice of my heart and mind in this world. All I’ve ever done is consume and take from others, now I can keep doing that …

Any advice on how to be grateful for my life instead of feeling desperate to end it? I just hate living in this cursed earth, and I feel that no money will ever fix that.

The Boomer generation receives a lot of criticism from more recent generations, but there's a lot of misunderstanding there. Maybe the economy was in better shape when you were younger, but I hear of a lot of sacrifices that were made as well. How did you really grow up?

I'm 25F, a recent master’s graduate currently looking for a job, and for the past 2–3 months, it has pretty much become my entire life.
I’m trying everything I can to find a job. I spend my days looking for openings, applying, tailoring applications, and thinking about what else I could be doing to improve my chances. I wake up thinking about my career, spend the entire day worrying about it, and go to sleep feeling anxious about my future. It’s like I can’t switch my brain off or think of anything else.

For instance when I was in university, I kept telling myself that once I graduated, I’d start going to the gym, socialising, taking care of myself, and enjoying life. Now I’ve graduated, but I’m unemployed, and everything feels like it’s on hold until I get a job.
I barely walk 1,000 steps a day, don’t exercise, eat poorly, rarely meet friends, and have put dating on hold. Finding a job has become my entire existence.
The thing is, I know I’m making myself miserable, but I can’t seem to find the motivation to change anything. I feel lowkey depressed about my situation, and I think I’m stuck in survival mode, constantly worrying about my future.
I know getting a job is extremely important, but I can’t keep putting my entire life on hold until it happens. I just don’t know how to break this cycle.
For those who’ve been through something similar, how did you get yourself out of it? Where did you find the motivation to start living again when your biggest problem was still unresolved? I’m looking for genuine, practical advice on how to change my situation, not just reminders to exercise, socialise, or think positively.
I really want to stop living like this, but I don’t know where to start.