Hope for a better future motivates many of us to do our best and bravely move forward.
When you feel that you no longer care about the future, it means that some of your vital values are seriously threatened, that you have lost hope your wishes and needs will ever come true.
Simply put, the feeling of loss blurs your vision, and you are not interested in the future at all because you see no reason to strive in your present.
This feeling can be a completely natural reaction to a significant loss. But the bottom line is that it’s just a phase. If this feeling lasts for a long time, you can easily step into depression. And the way out of it is not easy at all.
That’s why it’s essential to start by admitting to yourself exactly what you’re feeling and recognizing what exactly is the cause of that feeling.
Behind every feeling, there is a certain thought. Behind every thought, there is a need.
What to Do If You Don’t Care About Your Future?
Even if you don’t care about the future, it doesn’t mean that your future isn’t wonderful, bright, and shiny. It’s totally okay that sometimes you don’t want to think about your future at all. Before we explore the reasons why you feel that way, here are some quick tips that will surely help you get through the critical period:
- Practice mindfulness
- Focus on the little things that bring you pleasure and enjoy them
- Don’t make any big decisions now. Allow yourself flexibility
- Find something you enjoy and devote yourself completely to it, whether it’s drawing, swimming, or watching your favorite series.
- Imagine if your best friend felt like you now; what would you advise him?
- Hang out with people you feel comfortable with
- Remember all the people who love you and remember why they love you.
- Focus on the present, don’t plan anything in advance
- If you have to do a bigger task, break it down into small steps and focus on each one as they come, not on the end goal.
- Allow yourself to enjoy the moment as if there is no tomorrow.
You will notice that after some time, your love for life slowly returns. That’s for sure.
Feeling Lost
When we end a critical life period, lethargy suddenly sets in instead of the expected happiness.
We have been told all our lives how you will be happy when you graduate from university, when you pass that particular exam, when you get a job, when this, when that…
However, happiness as a permanent state simply does not exist. So there is no particular achievement, person, or event that has the power to make us permanently happy.
Just accepting that the key to your happiness is in your hands is an important step in maturing and growing up. But acceptance is preceded by disappointment, which is life’s natural course.
What to Do If You Feel Lost?
So, if you are at a major turning point in life, it’s quite normal to feel hopeless and not want to move in any direction.
You probably have no idea in which direction you could move. Time is often a key factor in such cases.
You simply need time to understand where you are and what you can do. It will always be very helpful to talk about how you feel because many people have gone through what you are going through.
If you don’t feel like moving forward, don’t. Take your time and trust that you will know what to do when the time comes.
Burn Out Syndrome
It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment we became so “busy.” Our minds and bodies suffer from additional work and responsibilities, extended workdays, and increased stress.
The worst outcome of our hectic lifestyles is burnout. If our days are filled with anxiety, it is normal that we do not look forward to a new day.
When we spend too many days feeling anxious and overburdened, how could we ever look forward to the future with hope?
Burnout syndrome has detrimental effects on our physical and emotional health that go beyond the stress of everyday life.
Burnout results in exhaustion and the loss of all enthusiasm for the future. It also kills our creativity and stops us from seeing other choices.
What to Do If You Suffer from Burn Out Syndrome?
Although there are no universal and definitive signs of burnout syndrome, the cure for it is universal.
A quality vacation where you will be free from worries, sure that someone is taking care of you, is usually the only real cure for this condition.
So if you feel that you have no more strength to hope for a better future, just stop. Take a break from overthinking, work, doing your best, people who exhaust you, obligations you don’t like, and activities you don’t enjoy.
Indulge yourself. Try to set aside some time when you will do only what brings you pure pleasure without needing personal improvement or material gain.
It’s okay to not be okay sometimes. It’s okay if you don’t care about the future. Look at the present and look for something in it that brings you pleasure.
When you rest, and your energy returns, your faith in the future will also return. Checked.
Pessimistic Mindset
In some families, worry and anxiety are part of everyday life. When you grow up surrounded by adults who are constantly afraid of the future, it’s not at all strange that, at some point, you simply feel resistance to any consideration of the future.
Such thoughts trigger that old feeling of quiet anxiety and expectation of the worst you grew up with.
What to Do If You Have a Pessimistic Mindset?
What you can do to shake off such thoughts and feelings is to recognize precisely from whom in your family you adopted such a pattern.
Whenever such thoughts come to you, remember who it is in your head, and then remind yourself that these are not actually your authentic thoughts.
It will take you some time to get used to this, but once you succeed, it will be very easy for you to push negative thoughts away from you. And then it will be much easier for you to hear your authentic, inner voice.
The child in you is still looking forward to the future, that’s for sure. You just have to get to it.
Rekindling the Connection
From the moment we are born, we are already in a relationship with one human being. We are born in a relationship, and through relationships, we grow.
The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our relationships. If for any reason you do not have contact with close people, or if you do not manage to achieve close relationships for a long time, it can easily happen that you lose the will to live and that the very thought of the future becomes dreadful to you.
The people we love are very important, as are those who love us. One of the surest ways to feel more joy in life is to connect with people who mean something to you, with whom you share some interests or common experiences.
How to Connect Better with Others?
To connect with others, you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable. Vulnerable and weak are not the same thing.
Being vulnerable means letting others see how you really feel, and being weak has nothing to do with that.
Share how you really feel, don’t try to act cool.
You Don’t Need to Care. Just Enjoy
Sometimes the best thing you can do for your future is to enjoy every moment in the present. Excessive focus on the future can often cause a lot of worries.
Our reaction to problems that we cannot solve can be a reaction of denying the importance of our future.
Simply put, precisely because you care too much about your future, you put yourself in such a state that you simply no longer have the energy to deal with your future.
The thing is, if you focus on something that hasn’t happened yet, you can’t focus on what’s happening now, and then you lose control of your life. So instead of worrying about the future, focus on the present moment.
Allow yourself to enjoy a little and not make any decisions for a while until you feel that the joy of life is returning to you.
Let the Healing Begin – Take Baby Steps
Often, behind a nihilistic attitude towards the future, a deep fear of change and mistrust of life is hidden.
Since you cannot believe that your future will be bright, and you feel that you do not have the strength to take the reins of your destiny, you choose not to care about your future.
That, however, is not even close to a solution.
Instead of worrying about something you can’t do, rather note the things you can influence and start working on them.
When you focus on what you can do instead of what you can’t, your whole life will easily turn around. Moreover, you will see that you have much more power over your life than you thought.