
Ask HN: why do you get up in the morning - davidjhamp
Mine was reason was to try to make the world a better place so that I could feel fulfilled when I died.<p>Now I&#x27;m looking for better alternatives.
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adzeds
Because the Mrs kicks me out the bed and gives me a list of jobs to do!

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davidjhamp
That sounds pretty good but how does she decide whats on her list?

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AnimalMuppet
Why did you abandon your previous reason? You no longer care about making the
world a better place? You don't find fulfillment from doing so? The
fulfillment isn't enough? Or you no longer think you're going to die?

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udfalkso
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ9A3GCL7jU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ9A3GCL7jU)

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duiker101
Because I would get bored after 10 minutes in bed without sleeping. Instead if
I am awake I can do things I enjoy.

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khyryk
My back begins to hurt if I lay around too much.

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1029475
I've been asking myself that question for the past months with alarming
regularity. At the moment, my answer would be: 'because it's a habit, because
I need to pee, and because... why not?'.

Which obviously doesn't really feel good, and is cause for worry.

If a friend were to give me such an answer, I'd think he was depressed and
suggest he see a psychologist. I will likely do just that sometime soon.

That said, the problem is that this feels different from what I know as
'depression'. I've had many periods of unhappiness ranging from general ennui,
to multi-week depressions where I could barely do anything.

In all of those cases, there was some awareness that my depressed state of
mind warped my view of the world. As I grew older, I learned to deal with
that. Sometimes I'd just 'sweat it out' and basically get sick of being
depressed. Sometimes I'd actively try to remove the source of unhappiness, or
force myself to just keep moving. And once I regained a more 'healthy'
perspective, I got better.

In this case, however, I feel that my perspective is not off, or at least not
much, but rather that I truly have no legitimate reason, or at least not one
that motivates me, to get up. Here's why:

I'm in my late twenties and many of the problems or challenges I faced in my
teens or twenties have either been resolved, or have became unimportant.

On a personal level, I do not have any internal problems, anxieties, or
conflicts going on that I feel need to be addressed (other than the getting up
part!). In part, this has been the result of many years of diligent self-
improvement and pushing myself out of my comfort zone, of which I'm proud. But
I've also been lucky: I have wonderful parents and siblings, a decent social
life, and an above-average amount of close friends. And perhaps because of my
personality, I am very happy alone and rarely, if every, feel lonely. I
wouldn't mind having a partner, but it is a 'light desire' more than a need.

Professionally, I no longer have acute deadlines to fulfil, a degree to aspire
to, or a job to find. I make more money than most of my social circles as a
web developer, and I actually _like_ my job (much as it's not a passion
necessarily). And I can probably just do this for at least five years, and
probably longer.

And finally, as far as world view goes, there is no 'higher goal' that I
aspire to, at least not as a conviction. I do not strongly believe that
certain things are intrinsically better or worse, just that I'm inclined,
either as a human or as a particular individual, to think certain things are,
and that following those inclinations is likely to affect my happiness. But
that is not enough of a motivator for me.

The result is that perhaps for the first time in my life, or at least since my
teens, there is nothing that feels important enough to get out of bed for. And
while I do actually feel sort of okay most of the time, because really, how
awesome is it that I don't have many of the worries or problems that keep
others up at night, I find it a horrible state of mind.

And the most likely way out of this state, perhaps with some help from a
psychologist, would be to find something that gets me going. To fool myself
into caring, day-to-day, for something, enough to _want_ to get up (or,
alternatively, to actually become a true believer in something, but I tried
that already).

I don't like this solution.

I know it's likely to happen, I know it's quite possible I will meet the love
of my life and live for my kids and stave off this 'existential depression',
or have some humanitarian cause tickle my fancy, but it feels rather...
brittle and unsatisfying.

Sorry for being a downer and giving such a long answer, but I guess I'm hoping
some of you can help me to find a way out of this that is... satisfying.

(And yes, there is of course the option that all of this is a warped
perspective that can be fixed with professional help. That would be ideal. I
just don't think that's quite it, in this particular case)

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jagawhowho
To have fun during the day. Drink a nice coffee.

