Why do you live?

Trying to leave the world in a better place than I found it because there's not much else I can do. Committing suicide would make friends and family sad. Also my dog wouldn't understand, and that would be heartbreaking. So I can't do that to my dog.

Knowledge.

Life itself is a labyrinth of extensive disasters and fleeting prosperity, where every shadowed corner hides a lesson of some form, something new to pry and gleam from the depths of existence — each moment a puzzle to be solved that teaches not only of itself, but perhaps unlocks the mechanisms of all things in the codex of life.

In the end, all the suffering, the endless tedium, the ephemeral tortures of boredom incarnate, are little more than the price of understanding.

Inertia mostly. I'm already living. Life is decent enough, I see no reason to rush towards the final end. Every morning, I wake up, and for the most part, I'm not dreading existence. I want for little, and that's plenty enough for me.

To each their own. I love life. I love living.

I think people use whatever they can to cope with existence. I also don't mind looking dumb or making mistakes, because - to me - it is a part of life. And, my experiences add flavor to the life I'm living. Some flavors are bitter and some are sweet.

I've had some incredibly difficult moments in my life. But I wouldn't trade those experiences for non-existence.

I used to think I would hate growing old, but I'm loving it. It's a gift denied to many.

I live because it's a gift.

I don't know. Even when I'm happy, just idk. I've never had long-term goals, never really felt like I care about others in the way they care about me or their loved ones. I am not intrinsically motivated. I try to convince myself to do things because it's bad to not do them. It has not precipitated real changes. I need external motivators to do anything really. I have unread notifications on Tildes from almost a year ago because I have wanted to implement what is in them, but I have nothing pushing me to work on it beyond the first few hours until I encountered the roadblock that made me need to ask for help.

I don't know how to be like other people and I don't know how to make important life decisions that are longer-reaching than applying for jobs or buying a car. From the outside, people probably think I really have my life together and really love my life. I do nothing to make them think these things, but I do talk about doing a lot of things, leading people to think I love what I'm doing, but I'm really just fine with it. I have never been proud of myself, but I have felt accomplished and I have felt like things I have done were accomplishments. Strangely, those were distinct emotions.

I think a lot about certain people a lot and do things not exactly seeking their approval, but hoping to spend more time with them. I know they don't want to spend as much time with me as I want to spend with them (or at least they want to limit interactions for one reason or another), so I sit alone feeling sad for myself until it's appropriate to talk to them more, but they still don't want to spend time with me. I do want to spend time with romantic partners and they want to spend time with me, but there are long gaps between these. One of these gaps has essentially started, but it will almost certainly officially begin soon enough (I plan to initiate it). I will probably feel lost after that.

You could say that I want to live to be with other people, but that is impossible and, of course, it becomes harder as I get older. I don't always know if I even like the people I want to spend time with, but that hasn't stopped me, even when I am able to acknowledge that giving each other space is probably "best." I feel like a pet that never knew where or when its next meal was going to come from, so now it doesn't know how to live with the knowledge that more food will come in just a few hours.

So I don't live for anything. I just live.

And I just wrote a lot given that I was initially going to stop after "I don't know." And I suspect that because I essentially wrote this as a stream of consciousness, it's probably incredibly dense. I don't blame anyone for not reading it all (or most of it (or really any of it)).

Also, I was really confused by the prompt because I thought the post title was "where do you live?"

It was "maybe one day they'll make a good Pokémon game again." But then Legends Arceus came out, and it made me feel like I was 5 again, so now it's specifically "because Legends Z-A comes out next year and I want to fuckin play it." Also because I've got a wife and kids and dogs who deserve some support, but, y'know. Pokémon.

I'm of the opinion that we may be kinda pointless out here, a bunch of atomic golems just firing some electricity off here and there until there isn't any energy left to do it. But at the same time, if everything is pointless, then it's neat we can waste that energy trying to be positive. I think we beat entropy by making that ultimate expenditure a fun time for all of us.

Because after a couple of decades of self-hate, trauma, closeting, helplessness, and psychiatric treatments, I've finally got a few good things happening in my personal life in recent years, and so I finally want to actually live for the first time in my life.

For my mom and a few friends.

I have had chronic anxiety all my life but didn't really know it wasn't normal until recent years. It was really bad, like I'd want to go to the store to buy food for dinner but think about a million different ways I could die or get mugged or lose my wallet on the way. All totally unfounded of course.
I realised I had a problem and I needed to fix it. I went on a bit of a journey of self discovery and it took honestly years to work out and reinfornce myself and I've always got work to do, but I am light years ahead of where I was.
Because of that I have a much more positive outlook on life. I know it's not forever and I'm no-one special. Thats why it's so important to make the best of every day.
So why live. Honestly just for the experiences. As long as I'm getting to see, do and learn new things all the time I'm happy. Real life is complicated, people are especially complicated. And there's no end to the amount of unique experiences you can have while being alive which is fantastic in its own way.

For me it's mostly hope. Hope for something to come along that will change the current course of my life. Most of the time I don't have the energy/motivation/willpower to try something new due to depression and/or my avoidant personality disorder, and I just hope something comes along and changes me for the better. Other times I try with the little energy I have and something new comes off it.

It's planting those little tiny seeds in your mind garden that can sometimes grow into new interests/hobbies/careers or what have you.

And sometimes it's people you reach out to for no apparent reason other than a feint sense of connection because what they said resonates a lot.

So here's to reaching out more to each others when you feel there might be something there. Send someone a message that you appreciate what they've written and maybe something can grow out of it. People are naturally inclined to be among each other. Lets end individualism together.

I live because every day something happens. Might be good, bad, or neutral.

• Some days I accomplish nothing more than exist to see the next one.
• Twice I got to see a child enter the world.
• Sometimes I feel like I'm just observing this life in all of its absurdity.
• Once I had to hold a beloved pet while it was peacefully put down.
• Many nights spent drunk trying to escape.
• Countless hours spent on the phone laughing with my mother.
• A few hours spent by her side as she passed.
• Dozens of evenings spent gaming with my brother.
• Three agonizing days spent in the hospital learning about my infant son's Type 1 diabetes.
• Every day after that being thankful that he's still here.
• Hundreds of hours playing Minecraft with my nephews.
• Friday movie nights with my oldest son.

The list goes on. I don't know if there is a place beyond this life. But I'd prefer not to trade any of these worldly experiences for the unknown just yet. So I keep on living to see what's next.

As Tyler Durden said:
Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat, it's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go.

It seems like you actually followed this advice and it works! I do not why but I always worry about everything. Even when I tell myself that I shouldn't I still do.

I chose to build a life so that I no longer have nothing to lose.

Because "it's no longer painful to" is a big one. it did get better. A lot a lot better. I don't think my teenaged self could have imagined not only continuing this long, and not just thriving but downright having a ton of fun with loads of stuff to look forward to.

When I was in a bad bad place, i asked my pastor and he didn't give me the "it gets better" spiel because how can he have known. He did offer "because you can do something good for others".

Life's gotten better and I don't have to grit my teeth and mark my time to do so now, so I try to keep doing good for others. I believe people are immortal: it matters more than we were kind to each other than the short life of a galaxy blinking in and out of existence.

It's expected of me as a member of society to execute my duties. Go to work, care for my parents, interact with others. I am simply existing.

Life is fleeting, precious, and rare. I quite enjoy life, and try to appreciate it for the opportunity it is. I'm also blessed to have been born into a country not racked with famine, plague, or war. I've had challenges in life, but even when going through them I always just sort of kept swimming, not focusing on the bad, but investing in the good.

Now that I'm in a good place, and have been for quite some time, I try to create positive change, pay it forward for others, and enjoy the simple things in life. Friends, family, cooking, coffee, and nature. Not necessarily in that order. I've made a positive impact on thousands of young people I've personally mentored or taught, and have impacted many more through my work in public health and public policy. I've championed the inclusion of women and LGBTQ persons in clinical trials through my work with IRB's and setting terms of funding agreements, and am happy with the work I've done. I've also worked my way up the IT ecosystem, built some amazing things as an engineering director, broken up a monopoly, and built some useless but rewarding systems.

I never set out to do any of those things. I just kept swimming, just kept doing what seemed rewarding and worthwhile.

"Do that which deserves to be written, write what deserves to be read, and in all things make the world better for having been in it."

I don't know why I live, other than I enjoy it.

I have a few people in my life that'd be devastated if I didn't. Also, more often than not, I enjoy living. I don't have life changing experiences or interactions often, if at all, but there are many small things that make me happy and keep me going.

I live because I live, I will die when I die. Obviously the day to day isn't quite so stoic but overall, I am alive simply because I am alive.
Why do I do anything else? Well, I have to fill the time somehow. Might as well see what's out there, what I can do, who's doing things. There's certainly an amount of nihilism to my worldview but I find the discovery of personal meaning/worth/value without inherent meaning/worth/value to be freeing. In that mess, however, I do find a struggle to envision a "future" and find it hard to plan accordingly for anything further than a few weeks out.
Sorry this isn't my most formatted post, kind of just doing a stream of consciousness response here.

I want to live out the values I've got, with faith that the better I do at that the more life will become what I'd like it to be. Adapt to what comes, thread the needle when necessary, pay whatever the price is. I am not a particularly religious person, but I think if folks got to talking about it with me they'd find what I've got relatable. I like to learn things but I don't like pondering mysteries - I'd rather put things into practice, solve some problems, make some progress. Take some risks and see what happens. The challenge is working out how to keep to the values through the times when they aren't recognized, when they're misunderstood, when other things present obstacles and when other notions become prevailing among folks around me.

Maybe another way to say it - the point is to be here. I try to live in the moment as continuously as I can manage, be present and look intentionally for what's beautiful, interesting, and helpful. Enjoying things matters too, but not quite in the same way. Improve what can be improved, maintain what needs to be maintained, understand (and mostly ignore) what I can't control, wake up tomorrow and do it again, just grateful for the opportunity. Sometimes that's hard to do, but the challenges are all opportunities. Opportunities to strengthen, learn, and adapt.

I don't know, to be honest. I don't have a well thought out, philosphical, nuanced reason to exist, which I'm simultaneously comfortable and conflicted about (should I have one?).

For the majority of my life thus far I've mostly been propelled by doing things because I wanted to, usually for enjoyment. Plans were far and few between and at furthest extended into the next year or so. This has been shifting as I hurdle through my 30s, though, because I've become increasingly congnizant of the limited nature of my lifespan which has brought the realization that if I don't spend some amount of time planning the years ahead and arranging things to enable those plans, there's a large range of things that I either won't be able to experience or will only be able to experience them in an extremely limited manner and that I won't be able to support the people involved as well as I'd like to. I've felt driven to find ways to escape the treadmill that the overwhelming majority of us are stuck burning our time away on so I can do more things and spend more time with people who are important to me while I still have the mental and physical acuity to do so.

So, maybe it's experiences I live for. Probably the thing that's been most consistently on my mind for the past few years is that no matter what I do, I'll only ever get to enjoy a very tiny fraction of the human experience. I wish so much that I could spend a lifetime on doing each of the things I find interesting instead of being forced to skim the surface of most things, only going into any mentionable depth on a tiny handful.

I was thinking about this and, morbid as it may seem, "Because I won't kill myself" is basically it.

Not in a dark way, but it works when I'm really depressed. When things get bad I want to see if they get worse and try to beat it l, not that I've ever had it that bad (always had a roof over my head, lucked out on a wonderful job after college, etc).

I don't have a lot to live for beyond a curiosity for tomorrow, but I think that's enough.

I'm alive because my self-preservation instinct is too strong to let me kill myself. Also, my mom would be sad. And I want to see more seasons of my favorite anime ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Despite life being more pain than not most days, fundamentally I'm just really curious as to what happens next, and for now, that's enough.

Also, I got really lucky, and somehow have the best dog in the world. Wouldn't want to make her sad!

You can’t pause an online game. The only reason anything good happens is because there’s someone around to do it, the only reason anyone feels good is because they’re around to feel it.

Because I have too many people who depend on me and, despite the idea of non-existence becoming more enticing by the day, I can't just stop living.

I struggled with depression and suicidal intentions earlier in my life. I'm not sure quite how I turned the corner but the change correlates with 1. Better understanding my early suffering, 2. Becoming more compassionate towards myself, friends, family and people in general, 3. Finding things I want to learn about, pastimes I find fun and ways I want to contribute to my community , 4. Experiencing a loving relationship. Even if this one dies eventually, I know it is possible. 5. My dog, and the other animals I have loved and appreciated, and hope to in future.

When i was a kid, it was because i wanted to see if things would get better, and because i thought death might be boring, and for spite.

Now, I'd say probably inertia? Like, im not particularly depressed, or miserable. My life is fine, i like my friends, my job is fine, i enjoy my hobbies. But I guess it just kind of feels like i achieved my goal, right? i got to see what was on the other side of hitting 18 and getting out and living a life and tbh its kinda mid lol. But its not bad so like ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯