When I was in kindergarten, life felt meaningless.

“Is this all there is?” I asked myself, sadly.

My parents didn’t understand. “We bought you (another) pretty dress! Why are you still not happy?”

I became a philosopher at the ripe old age of Nine– the beginning of a quest for meaning that lasted 20+ years. Nietzsche and Kant were my besties, Indian gurus and Peruvian shamans my go-to guides.

Did I become more profound? Yes.

Happier? No.

One day I took a pill that boosted BNDF (google it). Whoa! I was calm and happy overnight. The meaning-of-life question didn’t came up for a week. I was too busy living.

I realized what I had for 30 yrs was a text-book chronic depression. Stress overworked the limbic system of my brain. Overtime the latter stopped processing experience properly.

That manifests as sadness, anxiety, loss of interest, and… a constant quest for the “life purpose”.

Where did the stress come from? I was in kindergarten.

Two things.

1) I was and am energetically sensitive. My system processes 30% more stimuli than average person (read: more work for the CPU).

2) I was raised a self-critical perfectionist. Nothing was good enough. Had to prove my worth every 5 mins.

The cure (in descending order of importance):

  1. a) Rest. Your brain needs to regularly recover from stress. Give it plenty of sleep and feed it good nutrition.
  2. b) De-stress. You are always under more stress than you realize. By the time you realize it, it’s way too much.
  3. c) Love. Give it to yourself. Be generous.

My search for meaning was priceless. I learned so much. But it was solving the wrong problem.

You don’t need to know the purpose of life. But you definitely need more sleep 😴