u/Reporter-Friendly

Personally, what I hate the most about life is how inherently unfair it is because of genetic and environmental factors that shape everyone into who they are; in the end, who you are/become really just depends on luck. Of course, there are specific things I enjoy about life sometimes, but that's only because I'm lucky enough when the interactions of my genetics and external environment allow it.

Objectively, I'm fairly lucky: I'm a veteran who is in college, about to finish my bachelor's degree. I own a very nice condo in a nice neighborhood. I have zero debt and decent amount of savings that I don't have to worry about getting a job immediately after graduation… I’m not going to share my whole life story, but I’ve definitely overcome a moderate amount of obstacles to get to where I am right now. I feel like most of the time most people are just forced to do things they don't enjoy just to be alive. I'm just tired of life in general as an “average human.”

I'm turning 37 this year, but I've had these existential thoughts since I was a teenager. The older I am, the more I regularly feel this exhaustion toward life, my own, and the human condition in general. I think this famous quote from Schopenhauer explains how I feel about choices in life well: men can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. In other words, I think everyone is already doing the best they can with the cards they were dealt.

Personally, what I hate the most about life is how inherently unfair it is because of genetic and environmental factors that shape everyone into who they are; in the end, who you are/become really just depends on luck. Of course there are specific things I enjoy about life sometimes but that's only because I'm lucky enough when the interactions of my genetics and external environment allows it.

Objectively, I'm fairly lucky: I'm a veteran who is in college, about to finish my bachelor's degree. I own a very nice condo in a nice neighborhood. I have zero debt and decent amount of savings that I don't have to worry about getting a job immediately after graduation… I’m not going to share my whole life story, but I’ve definitely overcome a moderate amount of obstacles to get to where I am right now. I feel like most of the time most people are just forced to do things they don't enjoy just to be alive. I'm just tired of life in general as an “average human.”

I'm turning 37 this year, but I've had these existential thoughts since I was a teenager. The older I am, the more I regularly feel this exhaustion toward life, my own, and the human condition in general. I wish the problem is my “mindset” but this really isn't something that can be resolved by regular therapy. I think this famous quote from Schopenhauer explains how I feel about choices in life well: men can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. In other words, I think everyone is already doing the best they can with the cards they were dealt.

If you could “rewind” your life back to any point without retaining any current knowledge, for any choice you've made so far in your life, do you think you could have picked a different one if external circumstances were the same? The choice could be mundane, like what you ate for dinner yesterday, or more significant, like deciding to go to college or join the military.

Personally, I don't know for sure, but I don't think I could have done otherwise, especially for any of the significant decisions I've made or habits I've formed so far, because it feels like they were just the most likely outcome of the interactions of my genetics and external environments. I used “most likely” instead of “absolute” here, but subjectively it's more like the latter because every time I replay the scenarios where I've made any “bad” or “wrong” decisions with the knowledge I had at that time, making a different choice just seems impossible to me.

By the way, this is more of a yes-or-no question. It's a thought experiment (or survey) to see how people who believe in free will think about the choices they have made or will make in the future.

For people who don't like the rewinding time framing, just answer this question: for any choice you will be making in the future, do you think there is a possibility that you would/could make a different choice from the one you will actually make?