No aim. No perspective. Begin of 30y. Scared about political-decisions. Paranoid. What should I do?

"I just want to quit life and try something else."

this gave me a good laugh, really, but that's impossible because outside of life there's... normally another life

i don't know how long you've been feeling this way, but since you mention your age i'll take a risk to guess that it could be an age specific crisis, which for some comes about at around 29 years of age, when all aspects of a person's astrological map has come a full circle

so maybe as a first measure it would make sense to check with a competent astrologist, just to find out where you stand right now

Well after i recovered from couple of life threatening health situations i felt the same way like you do now. I was also not interested in common person's goals and i did not saw any importance in those stuff either. I was finally able to come over those things and these are my ways of getting over this situation. I hope this helps...

I think you feel like......

Life is going nowhere!

Reason :- Being lost among different pursuits

Answer :-

Stop, and now see what looks good at this moment and immediately you will see less favorable things and count them out. Now you are left with some good ones. Now it is time to sit down and go back to your memories of innocence, go to your childhood and see the world like that child for few minutes.

You will start to see how you and your wishes has changed and how some dreams have died while some still stays strong & hidden waiting to be chased.

What you feel is a direct outcome of not going after the things you actually wanted and feeling lost because you are not where you wanted to be.

If we let the "Rebel" inside you go to sleep for a while and see,i think we would see that child or that ambitious young man again. He might have a much clear vision for the future.

I was a big fan of "Anarchy" or "Social evolution" some time ago too but then i learned some history. I saw how time and time again the system has failed and every time the people who pioneered the revolutions did everything to reach that social and economical "Promised land". After all i realized that "Rebooting the system" is nothing new and each time it has ended up being a "Lost cause". That realization is the very reason that made me walk away from "Conspiracy theories" and become a good Buddhist.

Am i choosing Myself vs Love

Reason :-What you want to be is who you are, this is yet to sink in.

Answer :-

• If you want your Love you should choose your Loving partner
• If you want just Peace then you should choose a monastery
• If you want both look at option 3 (Keep reading.it is down there)

Make a choice and then go for it. If you are not sure this is what that will happen. You will loose your girl because as you said you are stuck & you will be going further into this dilemma.

Option 3

Well, no one said a good Buddhist can't be a "lay person" (a householder). Start again and don't look back. Stop resenting the years that you feel like wasted.

Know this that growing up is not your body growing old, it is your mind maturing. So if you look back and recent the time you have used to come to this point in life. You are wrong. Because today you are more mature than ever before and you already know many ways that you can fail. Use this to your advantage.

Drop the stupid theories about "Conspiracies", let someone else deal with that business. Go on with your life. Because the world will do just fine with you or without you.

As you see now it is all about bringing yourself to make decisions & and being brave enough to say that "I was once wrong" and move on with that knowledge. Do not be afraid to fail,be afraid to not to do anything while everything that you are is about to fall apart.

So my friend choose!

Please make sure you read the whole text before giving me an answer. I'm very serious about this and search a very good advise, something I didn't think before.

Let me try to offer some advice then, but beware it's from my past experience.

Scared about political-decisions. Paranoid. What should I do?

Don't watch the national or international news:

• ... on TV,
• ... which people post (e.g. on Facebook or wherever),
• ... on google.com/news

IMO you should also switch off your connections to Anonymous and/or any other groups that are interested in politics or focused on conspiracies.

Why? Because they feed paranoia (see the story of Two Wolves).

How? Sometimes I edited the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file) on my computer to null-route a web site that began to take too much of my time.

Local news might (or might not) be useful. Good news might be worthwhile.

I'm standing in the middle of nothing.

Easy to say, but that reminds me of this story: Nothing Exists

People aren't immune from feeling hurt, from hurting other people; conversely they can help other people.

My boss fired me and all in all I feel I quitted more jobs in my life than changing my underpants.

That's hard to diagnose based on the limited information you gave. Do you have trouble with drugs, drink, sleep? Depression? Attention? Do you have a doctor? An employment agent? Can you look for better jobs? Stick with the job you have and try to work well?

I've heard that some people specialize in temporary / short-term jobs, but I don't know about that.

If you don't need much money then maybe part-time or self-employment could work for you (however beware of being 'self-employed' but having no customers and no income ... perhaps you shouldn't be self-employed except with a partner, e.g. if it's a good idea perhaps you could persuade someone to help and vice versa).

I've no motivation to do something cause I've no aim for something.

I guess my motivation is not to be a financial burden on other people, i.e. to "earn a living" of my own, to help "support" me and other people.

When I started to do something (no matter what) I concentrate on it for a few days / weeks / months and than I left it and do something new or nothing, cause everything makes me bored from time to time or stressed me to much.

I was fired from one of my first jobs (which was reading and sorting tax forms) because my mind found it so boring that it wasn't able to concentrate on the job for hours and days on end, and therefore made too many mistakes ... even though I wanted to have the job and keep the job. Another time I enjoyed (and kept) a job as a courier, delivering mail, because that was walking around and saying "hello" to people and left my mind free.

Since then I have worked as a software developer: and I've been bored or stressed sometimes. Part of learning to do the job is learning how to cope with that: e.g. how to work (with software and with people) in ways which minimize stress; how to stay motivated (e.g. for me that means keep a time-sheet and be interested in completing deliverables and not lying); how to fend off boredom (learn new things, repeat an activity I enjoy, take new responsibilities or challenges, take breaks and go for a walk when you can't concentrate, have other interests too other than only work).

I think about all the political decisions (internationally) and get paranoid of a world war 3 or something like this.

Well, try and cut it out: it doesn't sound helpful.

On a separate subject, if you were going to be a gardener for example you'd have to be interested in growing plants, even though you know that winter is coming.

I've the opinion we are not on this planet to work and pay taxes.

Really? There's a saying that, "We should eat to live, not live to eat." Does that help?

Working for money, to make a low life - never become that successful, that I don't have to worry about the most money-cases.

That's a definition-of-success problem. Maybe a low life is better than a high life.

Becoming rich (having enough savings that you wouldn't need to work any more) might take a lot of work and time. Until then, financial wealth might be defined as the ability to earn more than you spend. I kind of enjoyed this definition of success: "People need Buddhism when their current raft has sunk. If there is food on the table, a comfortable place to sleep, and they have no complaints about their daily routine, then our jobs as Buddhists is to rejoice in their success (mudita)."

I don't want to build a future with making decisions with/for her when we broke up anyway someday (Yes, she really loves me - no sarcasm here)

Hmm.

I had no plan in the past and I don't have one right now.

Sometimes people feel awful being between jobs, and being fired is a set-back. Sometimes people advise that you should treat "looking for work" as a full-time job in itself -- get your CV right, etc.

I'm not sure I should tell you what to do with your life though.

Cause everything I do is making me bored.

It sounds like some kind of classic addiction.

Sometime[s] in the past, have you been not-bored? Did that change your perspective on what is 'boring', so that other things seem boring in comparison? Are you attached to that experience?

Are you suffering from a combination of thirst (for excitement or non-boredom), aversion (to boredom), fabrication (of pseudo-problems like WW3), ego (I'm too good and/or too bad to do this), identity-view ("Who is the 'star' of your narrative"), and ignorance (lack of insight into disatisfaction)?

Become a programmer: Oh no, it's not THAT cool

Being able to support youself seems pretty cool to me (but so does becoming a monk though, fwiw, although I won't presume to advise that).

Part of Buddhist practice (and of working) is apparently learning how to concentrate or focus on a task. There's a topic here about the experience of software development. Part of that experience was the ability to discard distracting (or chaotic) thoughts and emotions.

My thought would be to conquer your mind through your action. It is difficult to control the mind whereas it is relatively easier to conquer the action. I will say what you need to DO.

The first step is becoming a morning person. May seem to be unrelated, but Lord Buddha has preached that the best way for a person to deteriorate is to get up late. So get up early, a two or three hours before you can see the sun rays. It will make you a way more proactive giving you more control over thoughts and actions. You can get to bed early to get an enough sleep such that your mind is calm when awaken. After getting up early, you can study your domain or you can even read some sutta.

For being paranoid about political decisions, do not think much on politics, economics etc. Spend lesser time on them. Spend more time with the circle of friends and relatives, go for news just to have a grip. Politics and economics are having a downward trend although you may see random positive instances, that is what we are having, all of us are having, so do not think much on that. Lord Buddha preached about that deterioration. http://www.thebuddhism.net/2012/07/08/the-sixteen-dreams-of-king-pasenadi-kosol-and-their-interpretations-by-the-buddha/ Now as You know such bad politics are inevitable, you need to remove that variable from your life.

Socially, spending the time with the girlfriend and your parents can give you a boost. As a leisure activity, maintaining a little garden is fine in many ways, it can give enough physical exercise, can help the mind to stay focused and calm, and can give you tiny financial returns meanwhile. As you are good at photography, it can also be used as a hobby giving happiness and financial returns.

Job and personal finance, as it seems you have put enough hours on studying software and hardware. I think you need to get settled as a programmer or so, it can give you fine money. It can give you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukha#Anana_Sutta four kinds of happiness a householder can get. I believe as you sound to be valuing personal freedom, independence etc, doing something entrepreneurial or getting self employed on what you know also can be great. And on personal finance, you need to save more!!!

"There we find advice to householders on money, friendship, sex, drinking, working, saving, popularity, family responsibilities, and so on. The advice on money boils down to this: One should divide one's wealth or earnings (since the Buddha's audience asking about these things was often often the merchant class) into four equal divisions:

With wealth acquired in this [harmless] way, a layperson fit for household life in four portions divides such wealth: thus will one friendship win: The first portion is used for one's wants. The second portion is spent on business needs.* The third portion is also spent on producing more wealth. The fourth portion goes into savings for times of need."

Taken from, http://wisdomquarterly.blogspot.com/2010/08/4-steps-to-buddhist-money-management.html

You do not need to be in something special to be happy. The important things are mentioned in this verse.

"Health is the greatest gift, contentment is the greatest wealth, a trusted friend is the best relative, Nibbana is the greatest bliss."

30 is young and baby.

You need to meditate.

How? Under the proper guidance with rIght method.

You don't need to abandon your life or your girl friend.

If you have enough money for 1 to 3 months.

Go to South Korea temple (I know Kwan um internattional zen ceter or Musang sa offers some sorts program) or somewhere in USA temple where short retreat of 1 to 3 months are offered to public.

1 to 3 months is not long time. Its just short time like a morning dew considering you will have 50 or more years to live.

You simply have to stop trying so hard to please this 'I'. Focus on being helpful to others. Focus on doing good deeds and gaining merits. Stop looking for new things to entertain yourself. Instead, keep looking for ways to help others, including your girlfriend, parents etc. Don't expect entertainment out of your job. Do it to earn money and use that money to do good.

Whenever boredom arises, meditate on it. Don't react. Boredom is simply a feeling(aversion) that rises and passes away. Boredom is neither you nor your's. So why be a slave of boredom?

I think I see your karmic situation very clearly. You have a very strong predisposition to become a serious Buddhist. As they say these days, "you are a natural".

At the same time, you're kinda late in your cycle being in your 30s. If you start now you may not finish by the end of this life -- and in a next life, while major karmic and mental dispositions carry on, the conceptual knowledge and practices have to be restarted from scratch.

My advice to you is to not go to monastery at this age, and instead do a 100% watertight saint-type practice in your daily life. I believe this is your only chance. Then by the time you're ~50 you'll hopefully make the breakthrough and still have enough time and energy left to take care of future lives.

The gist of the practice is, you have to be perfect. I'm not joking (you wish I would). Obviously, life is an optimization game against many mutually competing variables but in every daily situation there is always the point of best balance. Which means, for next decade or so, you have to remove yourself from the equation and focus on achieving the best objective outcome in every situation regardless of your personal feelings. That's all there is to it: remove yourself from the equation, be impeccable, optimize every single situation as perfectly as you can.

This obviously includes your sense of self-worth (connected with praise and reward). Part of removing yourself out of the equation includes dropping all worry about how you look in the eyes of others. Your sense of the right must not depend on praise and blame of others. When you act like a de-facto saint (externally AND internally -- including not having negative thoughts about others or self-praising thoughts), then you know you are 100% right so you don't need to depend on others' opinions anyway.

Does this make sense? It's a very simple practice conceptually, the only difficulty is to be sincere with yourself - in order to make it watertight. From what you told us I see that this should work very well for you, if you have the guts to follow it through.

Sometimes a little perspective would help. The truth is for anyone in your situation right now, there're hundreds others around the world who are suffering much worse. Just imagine, while you're sitting in a cozy home contemplating about directions in life, there're men in Syria, Aghganistan, Africa, etc.. frantically trying all they can to stay safe from the horror of wars, famine, natural disasters, diseases, etc. And a Buddhist shouldnt' be surprised, for suffering is one of the Three Characteristics inherent in life.
As you contemplate more on this truth, your thoughts will become clearer and more focus, which in turn allows you to make the proper decision for your life. The path of monkhood is the noblest and most conducive to the goal of ending suffering. Just notice it's not an easy path and certainly is not for the faint of heart. Then there's the path of lay life with its own challanges, like the many duties for one has to fulfill for his family, relatives, and society in general. By choosing this path, you simply can't just do whatever you want for you'll need a steady income to make sure your family have food to eat and shelter to stay. Afterall your situation is not unique. I'd think any good Buddhist would probably have similar thoughts at some point in their life. It's not easy and it'll take lots of contemplation and wisdom. So take your time to do the homework and wishing you all the best..

PS: check out Ven. Brahm's wonderful essay "Joy At Last to Know There Is No Happiness in the World" if you haven't read it.