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Comment by k__ | Hacker News Reader

Is your life really what you want?

I'm asking, because what you said sounds like copied from somewhere, without any own toughts.

You also sound a bit narrow minded. Life is more than just getting rich, marry, make, kids and travel. You can make art, draw, musik, sing, dance, sport, research.

Also, you seem rather goal oriented. That isn't bad, but it can lead to problems. While chasing a goal, you don't have it and long for it and when you finally reach it, it's done again.

The way should be the goal. Love what you do and the goals become some nice extras.

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>Is your life really what you want?

Not really, you are right. Those things are culturally superimposed on a great extent.

>You can make art, draw, musik, sing, dance, sport, research.

Besides sport and research, which I basically practice daily, it's been ages since I last danced/sang/played an instrument. Let alone drawing and art :) Are you suggesting that I can find meaning by adding some of those to my weeks/days? It can be an improvement, but I don't feel it like a silver bullet.

> Love what you do

This sounds very cliche to me. Some day I'm loving programming, other days it feels like painful uselessness. The same applies to everything. "what I do" changes often, and so does the love I feel while doing it.

Can you accept yourself the way you are and feel? If you do stuff to drive away feelings, you'll always be chasing away from life and its many depths. Sometimes, life throws you curveballs or one just feels like shit. Doing something to "remove" shitty feelings, doesn't really resolve or accomplish anything. In Hinduism this is called "karma" (action), which is the opposite of "dharma" (right action). When we get trapped in patterns, we tend to go in circles (karma). When we break patterns, mend stuff and go on with life, intuition about our life's purpose is unwrapping and what we then do, even when superficially misunderstood or unseen, is called dharma. The root of dharma is often intention to do good, while the root of karma is often the chains of action-reaction. Without karma, there's no dharma, they go hand-in-hand.

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