For the vast majority of my life my only goals were gettimg academic satisfaction and doing unproductive stuff in the free time to get temporary pleasure. No end goal whatsoever.

The question you have to consider is what the purpose of life is? Is it impressive achievements? Because a lot of people who have done that are depressed and look back with regret as well.

IMO its just happiness. Do the things you enjoy that will don't harm those around you and allow you to properly enjoy the future as well. If academic satisfaction and "unproductive stuff" meets those goals, why worry about third parties? Do you want to match those achievements for your own enjoyment, or is it to avoid feeling shame? If it's the shame, consider whether that shame is meaningful because of your internal desires or of it's being pushed on you by societal expectations.

If it's internal, then recognize that and start taking steps to meet your internal goals. If it's external, try to let it go and understand that societal expectations are not laws to live by.

How old are you OP? Being "normal" isn't time wasting. You grew up, you went to school, will find a job, find love, maybe build your own family (or not). It's beautiful. You don't have to achieve greatness in life. Be yourself, be kind to others and that's actually enough. If you find something you're passionate about, and you can dedicate yourself for it and in time be good at it, it's good! If you have an unremarkable career, it's also good! The obsession with "success" is not a good thing, in my opinion. Be happy, and be the source of happiness for other people. The time you enjoy wasting is not a time wasted!

You should try to move away from chasing goals, especially goals which are dictated by others. But even with your own goals, keep in mind that achieving a goal means little in comparison to the road there.

Imagine you dream of buying a house, or big car, whatever status symbol is your jam. You work your ass off for decades, are possibly miserable all the time and then achieve your goal. Do you think this will change anything meaningful? Sparks of joy never last, so take them when they come, try to be happy about smaller things in life and stop chasing grand goals. Embrace the present, not the future. You live now and only now. Always.

A carpenter and his apprentice were walking together through a large forest. And when they came across a tall, huge, gnarled, old, beautiful oak tree, the carpenter asked his apprentice: “Do you know why this tree is so tall, so huge, so gnarled, so old and beautiful?” The apprentice looked at his master and said: “No…why?”

“Well,” the carpenter said, “because it is useless. If it had been useful it would have been cut long ago and made into tables and chairs, but because it is useless it could grow so tall and so beautiful that you can sit in its shade and relax.”

Source: Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude (Ave Maria Press, 1974, 2004), pages 26-27

Do what matters to you. For me, it's traveling. Doesn't have to be expensive, or far. I just like to see as much of the world as I can.

It’s not just you, it’s all of us. But what people really regret when they are facing the end is perhaps different from your fears as expressed here.

Five wishes of the dying:

1. “I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
2. “I wish I hadn't worked so hard.”
3. “I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.”
4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
5. “I wish I had let myself be happier”

From The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing by Bronnie Ware

There is no end goal in life. If you are satisfied on the day to day, there's no reason to be depressed because other people do other things. An infinitely small number of people do the things you mentioned.

Not really. Part of my life's adventures have just been showing up.

"Wasted" as in how? Who are you answering to? What standards are you judging by, and are they your standards, or the cultural standards pushed onto you by a capitalistic "must be productive" mindset? Or parents pushing their own hopes and dreams unrealized by the same mindset? Are these friends really successful?

Maybe I was cursed or blessed by having parents who really didn't give a shit about me, were constantly "disappointed" by who I was, and not really caring about me as an individual person but how I made them look. My dad was a sociopath who never wanted children, and my mother was an alcoholic who wanted children to show that her marriage was successful and good unlike what all her relatives kept saying. Until she committed suicide and my dad threw me out while I was still a teen. Thankfully, I learned early on that my parents would NEVER be proud of me because it wasn't about me at all. It was about them. The disappointment was their motivator with no real strategy behind it, and they set me up to impossible standards with bad examples, and frankly, lies they were trying to make into truth. So I stopped seeking their judgement, because I could predict it would always be disappointment.

Last time I spoke to my dad (1998), he asked what i was doing career wise, and I told him, and he dismissed it as "you have no idea what you are talking about," as if I was making it up. The thing was, I was still making money. The money was real, his opinion of my success was worthless. He had to one-up me, and always will. I felt so free after that, and never spoke to him again. He never missed me because he does not love me or hate me. He just doesn't think about me at all.

The expectation of others is a powerful drug, I won't claim to be immune to it. But at a certain point, you have to ask who you are answering to when you determine your own success and failure.

There is no objective purpose to life. Having a hobby is a popular way to enjoy the limited time available.

Comparison is the thief of joy. It's good to be just yourself being weird and happy in your own way. If it feels like you are really missing something from your life that's a normal feeling as well. Listen to yourself without the comparison. What are you missing what do you want?

If the world was a better place for having had you in it, even by so much as a single smile, then your life is not wasted.

If not, there's still time to do something about that.

There’s nothing wrong with doing what you’re doing. You’re a human being (not a human doing) who gets to choose how to spend your time. It is your life. You’re not a machine who’s purpose is to be productive, it’s an unhealthy mindset. No one is happy being a machine.

A few thoughts:

• As others have said comparison is the thief of joy. It’s also not a very useful motivator. Feeling a bit better off than someone else isn’t going to push you to work all night when it’s required. That motivation is going to have to come from an intrinsic place - some well of meaning that has significance for you.

• I’ve had the chance to study a little philosophy in pursuit of my profession and having a foundational system of thought - or several to compare - from which to approach decision making has helped me to determine my path and give meaning to my time alive.

• If you’re trying to do anything difficult, doing it alone is courting failure. Find other people doing similar things and figure out how you can help them out. Equally, if you want to learn something you’ll have a much easier time if you find a teacher.

Bruh you are 17. Life is just starting for you. My advice would to be find something you’re passionate about. If you’re not sure what you wanna go to college for, that’s okay, focus on what you love, and eventually you’ll make a career out of it. If you can live with your parents until you get your feet off the ground, you’ll be in a great position. I wish you luck. But please know you never wasted your life until you’re actually dead.

I'm fixing it by going to therapy and am learning avenues to move forward happy. I would recommend you do the same even if you don't think you have something mentally wrong, your happiness is important and thoughts like these can spiral out of control without you realizing it.

There can only be so many people with impressive achievements in a world of 8 billion people that deserves to be recorded in the history books. And then you should think about the millions and millions of people lost to history and prehistory (pre writing) period that have left this world with barely a trace of even the city that they and thousands of their community occupied. So many people completely and totally lost to time.

When I think about it like that, I realize it's my ego making me feel bad for not "accomplishing" something when there's so few of us who get to alter the thread of civilization.

The beauty is there's no right way to live, because we're all going to die one day and you won't be around to care about your achievements or lack thereof. If you want to set those goals and strive for them, go for it if that's what makes you happy. I had a similar crisis at one point that caused me to go back to school and do a bunch of new stuff I had never done. But eventually, I realized it was pointless to stress too much because there's no true value, there's only value to you. For me, that meant spending more time with family while they're here, and studying things that interested me. If you sit around doing nothing but watch movies for years, but every single day you did what made you happy, how could that be a waste? It can only ever feel like a waste when you compare yourself to others and aren't confident in yourself. Even if your values changed over time, and now you want to do stuff you never did, go do it! You didn't waste time before, during that stage of your life you lived how you wanted to.

Kind of felt that way for a long time. Still kinda there but I feel like I'm finding satisfaction in other things than a yuge career, like my family and home improvement. The time I spend being useful to someone else than me (and my boss) don't quite feel like a waste of time. To me, it's not about "pacing up", it's more about finding what makes you feel the best version of yourself.

Psst you are 17. You can't even legally waste your life on alcohol or drugs yet in Canada. Maybe you are/were messing around and causing trouble. You can still get out of it at this stage.

You are still growing up. You are at the starting line. What you do from here is up to what you want.

I know almost everyone has a parent or relativ tell a kid to be the next Galileo, Mozart, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or invent the next thingymajig. But it's more about what you desire to do, what you desire to be.

It took me over a year to find work in my field in the industry I wanted to be in (railways). Did I waste a year of my life? From some perspectives, yes, but I think not really because it was a terribly challenging time keeping my mental health, job applications are so bullshit but I got what I wanted eventually.

Did you want to change the world? Here's how I did. I had a casual chat with a homeless person by the parish, gave them 10 dollars, and the dollar store gloves on my hands to help them on the cold winter's day. It didn't do much to combat poverty in society overall, but for this person on this day it seemed like I meant the world to them. Even if that was 2 or 3 years ago, that's something I can feel just as proud about (if not more) as all my programming, hobby projects, school and work accomplishments.

At 17 I was a total waste of space. Didn't even attempt to get my life together until I was about 23, and even then it was a long process. I barely even graduated high school.

Now I'm 32 and I'm that guy people are jealous of that "has his life together". I've got a family, a good career, an education - all the societal boxes are checked.

I don't think anybody really has their life "together", though. We're all just trying to get through life as best we can. I'm not necessarily any more "happy" now than I was at 17, I've just had more time to improve my situation a little at a time. Just live your life, my dude.

You are the only one who decides what gives your life meaning, and you decide what counts as "waste". If your meaning is keeping up with people who have achieved big goals without working hard to achieve big goals of your own, you'll probably end up envious and miserable. A lot of people like doing that so you've got plenty of company to wallow in your misery with if that's what you want to do.

I'd suggest finding another form of meaning.

I have thought that way before.

But nowadays I have a different perspective. I've got everything I need to be happy, and that's enough for me.

You're not going to be obsessing over all your career achievements on your deathbed, you're just going to wish you had spent more time with loved ones.

why you compare an achievement of someone who have live vastly different than you ? like for example you live in europe so you mostly eat bread, and people in asia mostly eat rice, you cant expect yourself as european to suddenly envy asian just because they eat more rice than you

A shift in perspective could help. You focused on different things than them. We're you successful in your studies? Your leisure?

Putting perspective into place, you're in a different position than them. Direct comparisons like that are unfair and a fallacy.

As an approach, radical acceptance may help in coming to terms.

Or seeking to gain what you desire - but at your own pace and focused on yourself and your situation.

Focus on your own milestones, steps, and successes. Practice could internalize. Maybe a thankfulness diary. Listing 3 or 5 things each day. Or forgiveness for letting go, or successes.

I'm very successful in some things and utterly unsuccessful in others. I don't often feel envy, more often frustration, and probably often anxiety. I try to accept and suffer through what I can't/am unable to change. I distract myself and do/focus on what I'm good at.

You can’t reach self-actualization without grinding through the rest of the hierarchy. And when you get there you realize the only thing that matters is if your life was a waste for you and what other people think or do didn’t matter

It’s never too late to make a change. Be the you that you want to be but don’t judge your worth against other people’s achievements.

Set a goal for yourself. Learn Japanese, release an app, cure cancer, whatever you want and aim for it on your terms. But be realistic and if needs be set a small goal first and work your way up.

Edit. Typo

Yep. Nothing's ever worked out, I've never had the opportunity, ability, and inspiration to get anything done. Some inspiration but I just can't. Mental problems, financial problems, social problems, always something in the way and I just kinda give up and play video games for a few months because that's all I can do. All' the cheap philosophy around here is like, "Oh, but you have a warm bed and a safe home and Internet access" but the bed's too warm to sleep some nights, the "home" is really not safe or healthy for me, and the Internet is a pile of memes and memers and several kinds of news that make me glad humanity's driving itself extinct and ready to jump ahead on that. I'm just not compatible with this hell-world.

It's a journey, they say. Yeah, the kind of journey where some of us get tied to a truck and dragged around town. "Enjoy the ride!" they say. Yeah, sure.

Anyway, what the bollocks am I even doing here? Idunno. Answer is yes, you're not the only one who feels like it's all been a waste but I think it's not just a "you're some kinda loser" sort of thing. While it's true that not everyone can or should do "incredible things" it's also the case that this world's pretty aggressively built to prevent much of anything from happening :-\ Go to work, rest for work tomorrow, repeat, repeat, repeat. Consume some memes. No thoughts, no room to breathe. It's amazing that anyone does accomplish anything. And then it gets taken and sold. still rantyrambling for some reason. Better just post and hope no one notices, I guess

Live your life for yourself. Everyone's path is completely different, and you are only seeing the highlights of others loves, not their struggles. So stop comparing yourself to others and do what will bring you long-term joy.

Having goals for yourself is important, but they should be based on self improvement for the sake of it. Not for some weird one-sided vendetta. For example, I eat healthy and do yoga so that I can perform better at my sport. Does it matter if I actually improve at said sport? No, I'm never going to be the best in the world, or be able to compete in the Olympics. But improving gives me satisfaction in life and it is fun. So I set goals around it that give me something to strive for. I'm healthier and happier for it and that's all that matters.

Find the things that are important to you and focus on them. Life is much better when your focus is on what actually matters to you, and not the things that matter to others.

Look, I spent my entire adulthood addicted to drugs. I have done nothing. BUT I wouldn't trade my experience for the world, because ultimately I like who I am because of it.

You need to appreciate experience for what it is. There is no goal, but death, and that is the ultimate completion.

Life is pointless. The only point is what your able to mine from it. I have settled on appreciation, and enjoy the ride (:

Eh I wasted a lot of time in my 20s could've been more aggressive about a career/family compared to other people... but I'm not other people. Think I needed that time to figure my own head out

You live in a world with 7 billion other people and the weight of all of history to compare to.

Huge numbers of them are going to just be flat out better than you in every single way. Incomprehensibly large amounts are going to be comparable in certain ways and just luckier at times when it counted.

None of those people brightened your friend's day with a joke, cooked and shared a beautiful meal with your family, planted a flower patch on your street, whatever you did that contributes in some local way.

You can be meaningful and find contentment without being world changing, and every single world changing person was supported by a world of people doing their own little things to contribute positively to their life.

Don’t overthink it. If you have a good place to sleep and are happy, healthy, and not hungry then you are good to go! Success is almost always felt in the moment and doesn’t last. Sure there are some great discoveries that change the course of modern civilization but the rest were just a moment in time. Also some people are just full of themselves and not telling the truth.

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

• William Faulkner

The race is long, and in the end its only with yourself