The good news is that you’re young so you have a lot of time to improve yourself. This young woman may be the impetus for your newfound motivation, but you should first try to find an internal reason for self improvement in the off chance that things don’t work out.
This is what I would do. Pick something that gives you meaning and work to get better at it a little bit every day. I’m a practical person, so if this thing is something people want (i e., Will pay you good money to do) even better. It will be hard. You will want to quit, but the better you get at it, the more you’ll like it.
At the same time, work to improve your moral philosophy. Anything but nihilism, which is a dead send. For me, the Star Trek philosophy on life carried me a long way in my youth, but it wasn’t until I hit real hardship that I found it seriously lacking. It was a good place to start for me. You may want to skip the derivative philosophies and go directly to one that has passed the Darwin test and ensured the survival of humans for thousands of years (Buddhism, Judaism or Christianity).
On the “Darwin test”: note that memetic evolution pressure is not always aligned with individual human interests. Religions often encourage their believers to do things that help the religion at the believers’ expense. If the religion is otherwise helpful, then its continued existence may be important, but this isn’t why the religion does that.
The good news is that you’re young so you have a lot of time to improve yourself. This young woman may be the impetus for your newfound motivation, but you should first try to find an internal reason for self improvement in the off chance that things don’t work out.
This is what I would do. Pick something that gives you meaning and work to get better at it a little bit every day. I’m a practical person, so if this thing is something people want (i e., Will pay you good money to do) even better. It will be hard. You will want to quit, but the better you get at it, the more you’ll like it.
At the same time, work to improve your moral philosophy. Anything but nihilism, which is a dead send. For me, the Star Trek philosophy on life carried me a long way in my youth, but it wasn’t until I hit real hardship that I found it seriously lacking. It was a good place to start for me. You may want to skip the derivative philosophies and go directly to one that has passed the Darwin test and ensured the survival of humans for thousands of years (Buddhism, Judaism or Christianity).
On the “Darwin test”: note that memetic evolution pressure is not always aligned with individual human interests. Religions often encourage their believers to do things that help the religion at the believers’ expense. If the religion is otherwise helpful, then its continued existence may be important, but this isn’t why the religion does that.
Good point. I guess I was comparing it to the low bar of nihilism, which, I feel is a more parasitic meme than religion.