Good or bad??

Macgruber

For most of my life I have been depressed and just struggled through it but for the last year or so I have developed a kind of 'nothing to lose' attitude which has led me to a lot of things I would never normally do, sometimes reckless.

As an example, for my last few holidays abroad on my own and just did all sorts of crazy stuff like climbing mountains, skydiving, drinking way too much, drugs. In hindsight, lots of things could have gone horribly wrong but I had a blast at the time. To be honest, I knew this then but did not care what were the consequences.

My question is wheter or not this is the way to go about changing my life for the better?

tenchi-fan

I did something like this I guess. I left a pretty "good" (horrible) job, went abroad, came back and got a dead-end job, lived from week-to-week, spent every cent on drink and clothes.. got in a bit of trouble on some nights from drinking too much.

In some ways this was good because it really taught me to enjoy life & I felt I was beginning to push out my boundaries with regards to what I could get away with before it started biting me in the ass. I think what you're going through is temporary. Only an idiot would try to justify it as a lifestyle choice. Rockstars can do it because they have no money worries, but us normal people would end alienating ourselves from friends and society.

After about 2 years of being a messer I realised that I needed to settle down a bit. People seemed to look down on me because they thought I had no ambition. My financial situation was permanently poor, relationships were superficial and my friends were basically just drinking buddies, I didn't have a career at this stage because I worked in deadend jobs for 2 years, but the worse thing was with all the highs came plenty of lows.

I was also beginning to understand what was important to me, and what drove me to act like this in the first place. It was a good opportunity to get my head together. I decided to try to get my career back, work hard and lay off the drink for a while. I've spent the past few years just setting little goals I wanted to achieve and trying to concentrate on my career. I still have a long way to go before I'll be able to say I'm genuinely happy but at the moment at least I'm optimistic.

By all means, take it easy and take some time out to relax, but don't lose focus and don't do anything that will damage your relationships, your career, your health or your prospects.

tenchi-fan

Macgruber wrote: »

As an example, for my last few holidays abroad on my own and just did all sorts of crazy stuff like climbing mountains, skydiving, drinking way too much, drugs. In hindsight, lots of things could have gone horribly wrong but I had a blast at the time. To be honest, I knew this then but did not care what were the consequences.

I just realised I went on a bit about my situation. :P

I saw some parrallels with what you wrote. Basically the climbing mountains and skydiving are relatively safe, fun activities that you do on holidays.

Drinking way too much and doing harmful drugs are the activities you should be wary of because they can take over your life slowly, or one bad experience can cause you a lot of trouble: An aneurysm from taking coke, an arrest for being drunk and disorderly or drug possession.

Just be careful. Recognise that it's good to be the life and soul of the party, but just be careful about doing things that have negative consequences. You'll know when you're going wrong - arrests, people avoiding you, falling out with friends and family, money worries, bad career choices, etc etc.

Macgruber

Thanks for the reply, I would say right now I am living week to week like you were but I generally dont have too much ambition to change career wise in a positive way, even though my job is 100% dead end.

I just wanted to change the relentless routine of work, sleep, work. The 'nothing to lose' part of me has fun and when I mean reckless I mean that the consequences good or bad affect me only. Even after drinking a lot I dont get in to fights or anything and drugs wise I would only use e pills which is not as bad as coke or other drugs.

Settling down to me sounds like more routine. That sounds like the old me which worried about everything like bills and saving money instead of enjoying myself.

tenchi-fan

Macgruber wrote: »

Settling down to me sounds like more routine. That sounds like the old me which worried about everything like bills and saving money instead of enjoying myself.

There are extremes in both styles of living. I hope you find a good balance!

Everyone should go through a crazy phase of life and if you miss out in your teens you'll inevitably do it in your 20s (and usually repeat it in your late 40s but that's called a mid-life crisis)

If you're in a dead-end job you should try to upskill yourself no matter what age you are. If you haven't been to college it can be a great opportunity to drink and doss for 3 years in the guise of being a typical student and come out of it with a degree. Or do a Fas course and find a job in that area (no point doing countless fas courses and not using them)

You really need to put in some foundations in terms of education and work experience and the best time to do this is when you're young. A thrifty and fun lifestyle is brilliant when you're young but is more of a chore as you get older.