By Salvador Abarca S and Psych. Paulina Araico Quintana
Imagine you are 30 years-old, you live with your romantic partner or a roomie. You probably have a job that allows you to have a lifestyle including certain luxuries and stability. However, sometimes you experience a sensation of loneliness, uneasiness, discouragement and demotivation. You constantly wonder if you are in the right path, if you are really doing what is truly making you happy and is getting you closer to your future goals, and maybe sometimes you lose the motivation to continue. Unfortunately, the lack of sense nowadays has provoked many of us to live automatically, to survive without really enjoying life, or even make a real sense of what we are doing with our lives.
What can you do when you are at the peak of your youth, but you just can’t make sense of it at all?
Every person is different and the way to get out of our “comfort zone” or make sense of life is also different to everyone, but it is important to know the difference when one is immersed in a deep sadness or demotivation process, because it can lead to depression.
In all these situations, one would see sadness, constant fatigue or exhaustion; lack of interest in daily activities; sudden changes in one’s mood; difficulty to express or feel pleasure; lack of motivation; energy loss, etc. It is essential to be aware about how long someone has been like that, and how it has affected one´s life. When these symptoms lead us to lose our romantic partner, our job, or close relationships and, furthermore, we even depend on someone else to be able to overcome this situation, we could be talking about depression. This requires appropriate professional help.
A key factor in this process, as part of one’s life and even in the developing stage that the young adult is going through, is to learn to recognize and express our emotions, and to find a trustworthy space to do so.
If you feel identified with this article, you may use the following recommendations to help yourself out of this situation:
- Remain active by pursuing other interests outside your job; find yourself a new hobby or do something you’ve left pending in the past and that comforted you.
- Continue your academic life through on-line courses or workshops. There are plenty of options available, some of them are free and others rather inexpensive.
- Self-evaluate your strengths and abilities. You might find a new occupation you haven’t even thought about in the past and you may find yourself suited for said activity. Sometimes, doing this by oneself is kind of difficult, so getting an expert to help you is a good idea as well.
- Create a route sheet to achieve getting out of your comfort zone and discover new goals.
As we said before, figuring the way out of a depression -whatever its cause may be- is not easy at all. It is crucial to acknowledge it and be determined to overcome it. This implies sufficient willpower and the necessary support to once again begin living our live to the fullest.
