General unhappiness with wealth, life, etc

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Going through the exercise of giving thanks is a remedy for many things.
 
DaveEucharist said:
Thanks. I’ll think about it. It’s not just “lack” of materials that bothers me…it’s what I perceive as lack of accomplishment. Others will be super medical doctors way before me. I’ll probably still feel below average. 15-16 year olds with early admission to MIT Harvard Yale. They are out of there. I wasn’t one of them. Just a normal 18 year old in college that graduated with normal A’s and B’s. Sometimes I think “whats the point of going to medical/MD school in my 30’s if others started fresh out of undergrad? I’ll still be worthless and pathetic with an average brain”.

I was almost accepted into medical school after undergraduate school. Made it on two wait-lists. It’s competitive. Life happened and I just started a career.
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Have you every read “The Story of a Soul” by St. Therese of Liseaux? I think it might help you with these issues, at least a little. I think you should go ahead and follow your dream, just not for the money or prestige.

For instance, I absolutely love languages, of all kinds. I am currently going out of my way to learn no less than 15 by the time I’m thirty. Am I going to use even half of them? Probably not. But I do it because I love doing it, not for what I’ll get from it. Sure, it may impress people one day, but that’s a perk, not the goal. I guess it’s important to turn away from wanting to be great to the world, and towards deciding what makes you great to others.

As to your earlier statements about not wanting to make a commitment, I encourage you to try. It may indeed be a sacrifice, but sacrifices are often the most fulfilling things that we ever do. I urge you to consider it seriously. After all, how much of a burden will it be to call and spend time with your favourite person?
 
It’s been over two weeks. I still have the feeling that I’m not good enough in life. Other excelled more than me, ie started at the Ivy League before 18, became super young doctors, etc. I’m just an average joe. Pathetic, worthless, just average…nothing special. Whatever happens, I will die in mediocrity.

How can it be that no one else feels like me? If you are just “average” how do you live with yourself knowing there are smarter, richer, more prestigious people out there? HOW?!?!

Even if I reach my profesional goals in the future, why would it matter if others reached the same goal before me on a “traditional pathway” (ie, straight after undergrad, not a career change). Doesn’t that negate my achievements and make them “average Joeish”.:(:(:(:(:(:(😦
 
DaveEucharist said:
How can it be that no one else feels like me? If you are just “average” how do you live with yourself knowing there are smarter, richer, more prestigious people out there? HOW?!?!
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From my perspective, you’re smarter, richer, and more prestigious than me. How does that not bother me? Well it’s simply because I’m just happy being able to work and contribute to my family. I am alive and well (physically at least). So long as that doesn’t change, I try to make progress at my own pace and ignore the rat race.
 
Lost_Wanderer said:
From my perspective, you’re smarter, richer, and more prestigious than me. How does that not bother me? Well it’s simply because I’m just happy being able to work and contribute to my family. I am alive and well (physically at least). So long as that doesn’t change, I try to make progress at my own pace and ignore the rat race.
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How are you able to be happy like this? I don’t get it. It only recently occurred to be that people can be this way. Maybe it’s because I was sent to competitive boarding school as a child and continued being competitive in undergraduate school/college? Do you ever feel inferior or inadequate? I just can’t get over these feelings.
 
DaveEucharist said:
Do you ever feel inferior or inadequate? I just can’t get over these feelings.
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Oh yes, many times and guess what? Part of it comes from being around narcissists but the other part comes from reading about people like you.

Taking out and ignoring the narcissists though eliminates those feelings because I’m just glad to have enough to stay alive, have a decent roof over my head, internet, electricity, food etc.

Furthermore, looking at folks like you saying stuff like this now comes off as simply surprising. I mean people like you enjoy so much security. Again, if I had your success I’d only move out and establish more of that security after making my own family. I wouldn’t care if someone did things better than me so long as I could maintain that same level of security for myself and the people I care for.
 
I suspect you are suffering with envy and it’s a spiritual problem. You haven’t mentioned that you are doing anything that the Church recommends to combat this problem.

Envy – painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage: “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation” (1 Peter 2:1-2).
allaboutgod.com/what-are-the-seven-deadly-sins-faq.htm

The Church has remedies for vices. I hope you avail yourself of them.

A tranquil mind gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. Pr 14:30
 
DaveEucharist said:
It’s been over two weeks. I still have the feeling that I’m not good enough in life. Other excelled more than me, ie started at the Ivy League before 18, became super young doctors, etc. I’m just an average joe. Pathetic, worthless, just average…nothing special. Whatever happens, I will die in mediocrity.

How can it be that no one else feels like me? If you are just “average” how do you live with yourself knowing there are smarter, richer, more prestigious people out there? HOW?!?!

Even if I reach my profesional goals in the future, why would it matter if others reached the same goal before me on a “traditional pathway” (ie, straight after undergrad, not a career change). Doesn’t that negate my achievements and make them “average Joeish”.:(:(:(:(:(:(😦
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Because they try to think as God thinks. And I can pretty much guarantee that He will not be asking you how quickly you became a doctor or a specialist or how high you rose in
the ranks of your field.

Remember Jesus didn’t start teaching until He was 30. Until then He probably helped
Joseph as a carpenter, but between the ages of 12 and 30 said and did nothing apparently out of the ordinary. His followers mostly seem to have also been very humble
and undistinguished previous to their encounter with Him. And some were his age or older.

By your standards this makes Him a mediocrity - an average Joe - a slacker who wasted a huge portion of His life, given He only taught for about 3 years. The idea of the Son of God being inferior in any way makes me laugh, as it should you, but it is completely where your logic leads. Same applies to them, really.

There are other leaders too - think Winston Churchhill for one great example - who were late bloomers, and indeed made all sorts of mistakes and had all sorts of setbacks before coming into their own. There’s a wonderful letter Churchhill’s mother wrote to him early in
his life despairing whether he would make anything of himself. Again, knowing what he did become, that letter makes great comedy - and a very good point.

And you only need to look at Hollywood child stars, or the music industry, to know that early success very often leads to burnout - failure - and a messed-up later life. The medical profession is certainly not immune to this phenomenon either. My parents are both doctors and I’ve seen it.
 
The tone and spirit of the original post is bourgeois decadence at its worst.

To be very honest, it made me very, very angry.

How I wish I never read Marx.
 
Marchmain1987 said:
How I wish I never read Marx.
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Okay, so here’s a joke.

Two old men are sitting in a nudist colony, and they’re communist. One man says to the other:

“I say, old chap, have you read Marx?”

The other one said:

“Yes. I believe it’s these wicker chairs.”

zing
 
JNdoum said:
Okay, so here’s a joke.

Two old men are sitting in a nudist colony, and they’re communist. One man says to the other:

“I say, old chap, have you read Marx?”

The other one said:

“Yes. I believe it’s these wicker chairs.”

zing
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😃

At least I am going on retreat tomorrow!

This will be something else to confess I fear:
  1. When I think of all the problems of people I know how I wish their problems were as simple as not having the most expensive seats at the Met.
  2. This post cuts a little too close – I have stopped wearing designer clothes. And to be honest, it really bothers me. More decadence on my part! 😊
 
Marchmain1987 said:
😃

At least I am going on retreat tomorrow!

This will be something else to confess I fear:
  1. When I think of all the problems of people I know how I wish their problems were as simple as not having the most expensive seats at the Met.
  2. This post cuts a little too close – I have stopped wearing designer clothes. And to be honest, it really bothers me. More decadence on my part! 😊
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Sarcasm? My concerns are more than that.
Seems like my issues are too eccentric they seem out if touch.
Kudos to everyone who is happy being average ( note super elite).
I need some serious spiritual reflection.
 
DaveEucharist said:
Sarcasm? My concerns are more than that.
Seems like my issues are too eccentric they seem out if touch.
Kudos to everyone who is happy being average ( note super elite).
I need some serious spiritual reflection.
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Not eccentric - quite common actually. Just sorta trivial and petty and sadly missing the point of Christianity, let alone life in general.

Point being - we’re NOT ‘average’. Not a single blessed one of us, no matter what we earn, how we earn it, no matter our material or scholastic achievement or lack thereof, no matter what goodies we may or may not possess.

We know we’re not average because each and every one of us is made in the image and likeness of God. All brothers and sisters of Christ and beloved (even when we sin) children of His. Ain’t nothing remotely average about that. And that uniqueness and value has nothing to do with achievements or material possessions.

And it’s because we know that we are not and never can be average that we can be happy, in a way that those like you who depend for their self worth on externals like achievement or material gain can never hope to be.
 
DaveEucharist said:
Sarcasm? My concerns are more than that.
Seems like my issues are too eccentric they seem out if touch.
Kudos to everyone who is happy being average ( note super elite).
I need some serious spiritual reflection.
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Perhaps you’re being a bit too hard on yourself. Or do you find us “average” people contemptible and inadequate? I doubt you do, so maybe you should be a bit easier on yourself. I think psychiatry would be the best course to solve your particular issues, and that there is little any one of us could really say to help you. I hope I didn’t come off as mean there, and if I did I never meant to.
 
I’m 28 and just finished medical school. I would just encourage you to try to find sources of security for your self-worth outside of performing well or competing with other students in school. I’ve seen some residents in the hospital really try to come across as smarter than their peers, and it saddens me because I don’t think you can be happy doing that. I think it also shows a lot of insecurity.

I’ve actually had huge self esteem issues that I’m still working through - but I’ve never found self acceptance through academic accomplishment. I’ve been valedictorian, Ivy league magna cum laude, went to an amazing medical school, but I can tell you from experience that doesn’t bring peace. Just like more and more money will not bring peace. I’m convinced that it will only be through prayer, recognizing God as our Father and most noble benefactor who loves us because He created us - and through strong friendships that God places in our lives, that we can learn to love ourselves and be content with our lives.

Check out this video. It’s sweet, and tells it like it is youtube.com/watch?v=N4Bb4UDypi0&feature=related
 
chazk728 said:
I’m 28 and just finished medical school. I would just encourage you to try to find sources of security for your self-worth outside of performing well or competing with other students in school. I’ve seen some residents in the hospital really try to come across as smarter than their peers, and it saddens me because I don’t think you can be happy doing that. I think it also shows a lot of insecurity.
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On the topic of medical school:

If the reason why you’re going into medicine is what you can get out of it (feeling of achievement, status, etc.), that might not be the right choice.

Medical school is difficult and time-consuming, and it means a lot of time studying medicine instead of doing things you would rather do. There might be other ways of achieving your personal objectives than medicine (for instance, if someone just wants to “make a lot of money” they could be an M.B.A.).

I don’t get the impression that you’re burning with desire to help humanity and save lives. If you’re not that person you might find medical school more trouble than it’s worth.

And as I said in the earlier post, I sympathize and I feel the same way sometimes myself; I’m just suggesting that medical school might not be the best option.
 
First, I can tell from your posts that you’re confused and in a lot of pain. And, I will pray for you.

Let’s play the what if game…If you were the youngest person ever to become a neurosurgeon, then would you be happy? If you were the highest paid doctor in the world, then would you be happy? If people fell down at your feet as you passed by, just overwhelmed to be in your presence, would that make you happy.

I would argue that even that wouldn’t be enough. What you want is the all-powerful love of God. That is what you were made for, and nothing else will ever be enough. We all have a God shaped hole in our hearts, and no earthly thing will fill it. Once you experience the love of God your whole life turns upside down. The only thing that you’ll want is to serve God better, and to know what HE wants you to do while you are here on this earth.

We all want to be loved. But the funny thing about love is that the more you give away, the more you have. I’m happy that you’re rich and doing well. That’s great! Just don’t forget to love, whoever crosses your path…look into their eyes…loan them your heart if they need it…even if it’s just for a minute.

I think maybe God is stirring up this discontent in your life because He has something in mind that he wants you to do…maybe this is His way of asking you. If you can, maybe go talk with a good orthodox priest or spiritual advisor.

As I said, I will pray for you, I would ask anyone reading this to join me in prayer, that God will help you to experience His love in your life in a radical life-changing way! May God Bless you my friend!
 
Happiness is an inside job.

I am always surprised at how many people don’t know this. :confused:
 
Lost_Wanderer said:
I kinda know what you mean but the inside has as much capacity (if not more) to drive us bananas.
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I mean that happiness is not related to anything corporeal (outside). Money, job, family, home, etc. do not make a person happy. We only have to look at what we know of the rich and famous to know that fame and fortune do make a person happy. It’s a myth.

Some people are sure that if they find the right spouse they will live happily ever after. That’s another myth. Everyone can think of an example of a person who has the perfect spouse and children and is not happy.

Happiness is completely a spiritual condition (inside). The state of one’s soul is directly related to happiness. As a person advances spiritually, the more happiness he acquires. As one gets closer to God, he becomes happier.
More virtue = More happiness
More Grace = More happiness
More efficacious prayer life = More happiness
Less sin = More happiness
More like Jesus = More happiness

Happiness comes from using the gifts that God has given us to the best of our abilities.
 
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