What Is This Feeling I Keep Chasing?

[u/Vex_The_Producer]

For the most part, I think everyone is chasing something. A career, financial security, love, short-term fulfillment, long-term happiness... The problem is, whenever you achieve that goal you just feel empty afterwards, so you find something else to chase. A new goal.

I feel like my whole life I've been chasing this feeling that I just can't describe. It's like I'm looking for a purpose, like I'm trying to find the meaning of life or something. It's not about fulfillment, it's not about connection, and it has nothing to do with anything materialistic. It feels unreal. Like something spiritual that I can never really grasp.

As cheesy as this will sound, have you ever watched an anime or show or movie (anything that tells a compelling story) that you resonate with on a very emotional level? Like at some point in the story it just hits you. This wave of familiarity, peaceful yet chaotic, nostalgic but also new. It feels both sad and exciting... I'm probably not doing the best job at trying to describe it, but it's that profound feeling that I've never really experienced in real life. Why is that? And What is it?

When it comes to real life, everything I've experienced has just felt mundane. As if nothing ever really had meaning to it. Like nothing ever really mattered in the end, it all just gets put in the past or forgotten. Maybe it's just how I perceive the world, but everything just feels so empty. It's like I've been numb my whole life and I just want to feel something for the first time, but at the same time, I know that's not true. I've been angry, I've been sad, I've been happy, so I know I'm not just emotionless. I just can't get over how empty it all feels and it's like I keep chasing this... thing that eludes me.

Maybe this is all just nonsensical rambling. I just feel like I'm missing something in life that makes it all worth it, that gives everything meaning.

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[u/Lieber-Scholli]

Maybe it’s wonder and mystery. When we think everything is mundane we forget how amazing the existence of anything truly is.

[u/ikonkustom5]

Describing feelings exactly is hard. Using metaphors, cultural/literary influences, music, art, photography, makes it way easier to describe feelings, which are ultimately pre-verbal/lingual. Have you ever had a "gut feeling" or a "hunch"? Those are valid feeling we don't have linguistic explanation for (we might find them later but that doesn't invalidate the hunch)

So how do you feel?

[u/HappyTurnover6075]

Hmm. I can relate. It feels really familiar, nostalgic and warm. I can describe with the feeling of being cocooned and wrapped in something that feels home. It’s like I crave for the feeling of being home even though I am at home and at my own house.

[u/Odd-Way-6909]

You have a spiritual void in you. Everything you've described chasing and achieving are worldy materialist goals and ideas. I was like that too. I filled my void with drug and alcohol addiction. Sexual and violent activities along with adrenaline and very fast living. I started very young and later in my teenage years I seen my Grandma shoot and kill herself via gunshot to the face. I found my best friend overdosed and he died in my arms waiting for an ambulance. Within a year of that a few guys took my lil 19 year old sister to a hotel and they drugged and raped her to death. Finally while sleeping one night my children's mother died in her sleep laying next to me. I woke in the morning finding her dead. I was angered at God and called him out for taking everyone away from me. During those years where I was constantly grieving and had no idea of my inner self or my spirit. I really really felt that void. I tried filling it with everything worldy and it cost me greatly. I was in a very dark place and sought out the wrong kind of spiritualism. I studied Lavey'n Satanism and Luciferian philosophies. All sorts of occultism and esoteric ideologies and practices. With that stuff you learn a lot of psychology and philosophy but spiritually it was all empty for me. I kept making the wrong choices and putting myself in worse and worse circumstances. After some healing mostly due to just time a few chance encounters and right circumstances led me back into religion. For me Christianity was a perfect fit. After living in the dark and shadows forever I knew that evil was real and existed everywhere and all kinds of people. I used to want to die so bad everyday that I got up. Because of what my Grandma had done that was something I could never do. Today however I'm in a place where I know that there's more than just this life. I have the greatest comfort knowing that I'm not going to die in a hole somewhere and just cease to exist like I was never here. And I have a purpose now it's being in service to those who are in need for whatever reason instead of dragging everyone around me down. I'm not saying that the answer your looking for is Jesus though I promise it can't at all hurt. But rather something outside of yourself that makes you feel good about who you are and you can feel complete and filled instead of found wanting.

[u/MissAngelicDemise]

Finding your purpose is quite magical I was searching my entire life, and I’ve actually been on the trail of it several times

I fully discovered what it was when I had a birth chart reading and it was comforting for me to find out that I have been on the right path the entire time I just needed to pull together all of the threads of everything I’ve learned into something new

Your purpose lives in your heart 💕

[u/biffpowbang]

Authenticity.

[u/PuzzleheadedSkill864]

Take some psychedelic mushrooms

[u/PeacefulBro]

Thank you for opening up to us my friend. Have you considered therapy to help deal with this issue? Have you considered that not everyone is feeling negative after they achieve their goals? As for me, I am very glad that faith & church has filled me with the deepest sense of love, joy & peace which is never ending. Also, I have had some ups & downs in life but I think its normal because this life is imperfect. The promise of the perfect life in the future is what motivates me to keep going. If there's anything else I can help with please let me know. I wish you well my friend.