Is this the brave new world that Gen Z people are building for themselves? They do not seem to have the motivation to thrive. They aren’t exactly interested in making a career. They aren’t very much interested in building families. They do not have much respect for the values that previous generations built to hold our social fabric together. No respect for hierarchy, no respect for achievements. They are simply lazy with no outlook on life. 

WHAT?? NO!!!

Gen Z folks simply don’t t buy into the current ways we live. They don’t buy into the toxic, inhuman, and painful rules by which we live. 

Don’t they have the motivation to thrive, make more money, and have a great career? Maybe they just simply see how ridiculously stupid and toxic the world of work has become. 

Aren’t they interested in building families? Well, maybe they already have a deeper, intrinsic understanding there also that the way we do it currently sucks. 

Not much respect? No, they do have respect. But in things that they find more value in. And not for the sake of keeping the status quo.

Do they consciously know what they are doing? I am not sure. I think that deep down, they know they don’t want what they see. What matters is that they are doing it and bringing a change. 

Do they suffer? Yes. The world they came into isn’t exactly what they imagined. 

Are they lazy? Let’s not mistake depression or lack of motivation to do shit for laziness.

Gen Z is a new wave of people. My personal opinion is that this new wave is making a real change. 

Sometimes I am able to realize my trauma through a comment that someone made.

Examples

‘Oh, so you are the smart one!’ vs looking for praise

• The situation: I am talking with someone about something that I want to do, how I think about it, and how much I am happy to find that I understood it, understood myself, and know what to do. And then I get this comment – not necessarily the same sentence, but the pinch of sarcasm is there: ‘Oh, so you are the smart one! I am happy for you that you figured it out, I wish you all the best with it.’ And then I feel uneasiness, maybe I get angry at the other, maybe try to talk myself out of this situation, maybe I get sad, etc.
• What happened in reality: I was proud of myself that I figured something out. The actual content doesn’t matter, my goal was to get praise. And chances are that I triggered that something in the other person. And strangely, I got the opposite of what I wanted.
• The trauma: Since childhood, I am carrying this trauma that I feel I don’t get praise for. This is one of the most common traumas that happen to most of us in early childhood. Children go through certain stages of development and at one point we all realize that we are actually capable of doing things and we are getting clever. This is a fantastic and healthy step we make. Nothing can be more natural than a child wanting to share this with the world and naturally with the ones closest to him or her. And the trauma happens when the ones closest to us, who we love the most do not recognize this. Usually, they carry the same trauma. Speaking of how family patterns get passed on from generation to generation…

‘Why are you so sensitive?’ vs looking for help in calming myself’ 

This example is more complex, it contains an interplay of different traumas and unmet needs.

• The situation: I am talking with someone about a stressful event that happened to me recently and I am describing how fed up I am, and since then, I am just not able to pull myself together. (And maybe I talk about some other things like how unfairly I think I was treated and all the rest of it.). And the other person has this comment (again, not necessarily the same sentence): ‘Why are you so overly sensitive again? Get yourself together and carry on.’   
• What happened in reality: I got stressed, I could not get out of it, and unconsciously was looking for someone to help me calm down. Instead, I got a message that I should be able to calm myself down (Actually worse, because I was ridiculed also). Did I trigger something in the other person? Probably, since I got a harsh reply. Can I complain? Well, probably not. At least not for the other person refusing to help me calm down: I did not ask for it. (Imagine another possibility: When the other person does go into the game I started and agrees with me and puffs up my anger about the person I described as unfair. Then the whole situation can evolve into a game of two people sharing their victim consciousness. Or who knows where the dramatic discussion will take us in our interplay of traumas.)
• The trauma: Children in their early years do not yet have the capacity to calm themselves down. They need someone to calm them until they get to that stage where they can. When the ones close to us cannot help us we still need to find ways to cope with this. The usual examples are the suppression of our feelings – which will result in depression -, and thinking that there is something wrong with us – which will result in shame. (Imagine yourself as a very small child, or as a baby whose nervous system isn’t yet fully developed. And you don’t yet have thought patterns to help you out either. And on top you are also ‘still’ highly sensitive and truly connected to the ones around you – hopefully your parents and/or people who love you and take care of you. And you face an unsolvable situation at your stage of development.) 

The opportunity

When you can connect the dots from such conversations, you always have a window of opportunity. What works is that I first understand what really happened (connecting the dots), and then I ‘transform’ the trauma.

We are all different and connecting the dots does not have to be this analytic as above. But self-observation and practicing to understand myself better surely help.

The transformation part is truly miraculous. In Psychology practice, it is the conscious revisiting and processing of the trauma. In religion, all regions have an element of atonement and salvation. I will write more about this miracle a bit later and link it here. Sorry, I am not yet there.

I want to be better than others. Why? Below is an ideation of its causes. If you are coming to the realization that this is a core problem of yours then this post may help you to move closer to it. It only may as certainly, the job is to find your own thoughts and beliefs that cause this and realize them deeply.

(These are provocative statements for the sake of triggering a change.)

Why do I want to be better than others?

• I have made it the core goal of my life.
  • This is useful. But why did I do that? Where does it come from? Not everybody has this wish. There must be a personal reason.
• It feels good to think this way.
  • Ok, but why? What is this good feeling that I get from it? Is it some kind of satisfaction that I finally made it? (Ah, ok, so there is a goal that I set for myself.)
• I come from a poor family.
  • This is how I want to help my family…
  • This is how I don’t want to be like my family members…
• I have the inner feeling that it is just simply true. And I am waiting for it to happen finally.
  • Am I absolutely sure that I am superior to others?
• I hate feeling that I am worse than others.
  • I never want to feel this way.
  • My logic is that I am either better or worse. And this is how I see others think also.
• I know that there is a thing called a superiority complex and the cause is that deep down I feel inferior.
  • I feel no deepness in this statement.
• It feels good to think that people look up to me.
  • I have this inner image that people look at me and respect me. More than respect actually: Admiration. And a bit of envy. Oh, that also feels good.
• I don’t want to face my reality.
  • This is a good escape if I think that I am better than others.
  • (I realize that this is not a cause.)
• This thought has formed in the past.
• Actually, I do not tell people that I am better than them. I want them to see it. I think they see it.
  • I even act kind, generous, and helpful. Mostly. This is how superior people behave, right?
• I am realizing that this belief is ruining my relationships and other parts of my life.
• I am afraid I will never get rid of this. It is so much part of me.
  • (Kind note: There is nothing wrong with you. It is a belief. Not you. Maybe I can prove it; Think this over: Somebody in you said this sentence “I am afraid I will never get rid of this”. Somebody in you is already ‘dis-identifying’ from it.)
• Fill in this line…

It is all about achievement in our society

It would be hard not to see. This post is not about why our cultures and societies contain this currently. Anyways, if you are presently working on figuring out why you cannot achieve what you want, then this post may be of interest to you. 

“The reason why I can’t achieve what I want is that I actually don’t think at my core that this is good enough for me.” If this resonates with you then this post may be for you. It takes courage, honesty, and quite a level of deepness to realize that this is your challenge in my opinion. And this realization may present an opportunity to solve this conflict of yours and move on finally.

The below may be useful, and as it is many times with posts on SelfChatter, the idea is to trigger thinking and inner work.

My ego’s way

My ego may create this image that I want this thing. But for my ego, this is a question of choice. If I am in victim consciousness or feel I am not worth it, then my ego can use this goal that I want to achieve ‘against’ me – in other words, reinforce the need for its existence by compromising success. Strengthen my victim consciousness, low self-esteem, and alike. So my ego whispers “This is not good enough for you, you deserve better.”

My True Self’s way

Now my True Self works in a different way. If my wish comes from my True Self, it will respond to it. What do I mean with this exactly in the context of “I actually don’t think at the core that this thing I want is good enough for me?” I mean exactly what the thought says: My True Self realizes that it is not good enough for me. This is actually pretty good news if I think it over. My True Self knows exactly what is good for me and it cannot be tricked, manipulated, destroyed, or harmed in any way.   

A side note: I could look at this as a protective function of my True Self. But if I think about conscious manifestation then it is not about protection. My True Self simply only responds to things that are good for me. Not because it selects for me, but because it chooses only to see wishes that are wholehearted, and made out of love. My True Self doesn’t need protection (and it doesn’t matter if you think of it as a standalone being or as one that is in interplay and in co-creation with God).

One logical question

“But I do achieve things that turn out to be bad or unsuccessful for me later. How about that?”

1. In this post, I am writing about consciously knowing what I want and not about the unconscious wandering of my mind.
2. I cannot be sure that the things I deem bad or unsuccessful are really invaluable. It is true that it takes a lot of consciousness to connect the dots. 

An unmet need

(Let me just put into context what I mean by an unmet need here. My needs that result in things like Feeling unloved, feeling not being worthy, thinking that I am not able to make it, etc.)

When the thing that I want to achieve is formed because of an unmet need I have, then I don’t think it is likely that I will get it. Why?

• The ego’s response: My unmet needs are “in my ego’s territory”, and so it is likely that my ego will respond, and chances are that my ego formed my wish. And my ego will surface my unmet needs. Until I solve them, integrate them.   
• My True Self’s response: My True Self responds to things that I am wholeheartedly asking for. A “dirty” example of why my True Self will not respond (or not how I want): Say that I want to win the lottery. If this wish is because of an unmet need then it is not money that I want actually. But people’s admiration, respect, love, feeling safe, or whatever my logic is what that money will bring me.

Shame

This may be the reason why you came to this post. 

When I have this “not good enough” thinking then it can be that I have toxic shame. Why? The way I look at the outside world comes from my inner world, the way I look at myself. If I look at myself as “not good enough” then it is very likely that I project this to the world around me. Then my failures to achieve things are opportunities to realize how I think about myself.

Does this resonate with you? “I can’t relax because that would mean that I had to give up my present life.”

I am trying to phrase the same thing in another way: “I am afraid to relax because then I would not know what to do.”

Maybe one step further?: “My stress keeps me together and I am afraid I would lose control if I relaxed.”

One step further?: “I can’t relax because I am afraid I would lose my consciousness.” – to me personally, this is the closest to reality. This is pretty paradoxical.

(One more: “I can’t relax because I am afraid my life would open up too much.”)

Understanding of causes and effects

Depending on how deep you go there are different understandings about the same question. 

I could have given this answer: “I can’t relax because I am stressed.”. Probably true. And then my job would be to find why I am stressed, and eliminate it. 

But the above doesn’t say this. It says the “Obstacle I have is my fear of losing my present life”. I personally believe that this understanding is one step further than the one that states that the core of my problem is my stress. Why? Because the thought “I can’t relax because that would mean that I had to give up my present life.” doesn’t state why I cannot relax but it already states what effect my inability to relax will have. And that implicitly means – there is a good probability – that you have already ‘cooked’ this question already in yourself. I know it may sound pompous.

It also explicitly means that you are already interested in the next step. And also maybe you have no problem staying in the tension that your present inability to relax causes you. 

(There is no problem in staying on a ‘higher level’ – it is not a race. Maybe that is what you need to solve what makes you suffer. But if the suffering doesn’t end, chances are there is a need to go deeper.)

Phrasing my problem and my answer to why it is happening

Note: All the above cause-and-effect reasoning may sound very logical but the thing is that insights come out of our ‘no thingness’ – our consciousness. Maybe what happens is that we are, or we become capable of receiving and understanding some things. 

Anyways. Do I need to be able to phrase my problem? We are all different so my answer is: Not necessarily verbally. Maybe in another way. But you need to express it, name it, and paint a picture in your mind. When you do that, you create an opportunity for yourself to let that thing go. Actually more than letting it go, but integrating it. You become more ‘anti-fragile’ when you process it.  

I have written a separate article about an effective method of how to phrase my problems. It is here: The strength of phrasing my problems in a short and basic way. This article also contains a useful method: What is behind my constant restlessness? 

The work to be done

We all wish it was so easy to become conscious about a problem without much labor. I singlehandedly figured out that until this happens, there is hard work to be done…

The above is just one idea of why you may have a hard time relaxing. So here are some other starting points. I am putting in some links to other articles on Self Chatter as to a large extent this site is about understanding ourselves. 

Fear, anxiety

It sounds obvious and this is why it is important. My experience shows that I just simply miss the ‘obvious’ in trying to figure out why I can’t relax and why my thoughts are constantly racing. 

Am I in some form of panic?

Am I afraid of losing my safety?

Hustle culture

Today’s culture demands us to always be on the edge. We do not necessarily have to have any personal challenges in our life; It is all too easy to fall victim to the hustle culture around us.  

Confusion

I find that this is important. I believe that one of the leading causes of why we can hardly relax comes from our confusion. It is so easy to overlook that “My main problem is that I am confused.” because – Well… Because I am confused and do not know what to do. It is like my confusion is sitting on top of everything. 

Inherited behavior, mindset

Put simply, we inherit unfinished business and behaviors. Nothing that we have ‘done’, things were just passed on to us. The main reason it is hard to connect those dots and become conscious of them is that they have been with us since childhood.

Shame, expectations towards me

Clues: Shame easily causes us to be on constant alert. Shame keeps us thinking all the time. Shame is a form of fear. 

There is a connection to the above ‘Inherited behavior, mindset’ chapter: Shame is intergenerational. 

My anger and tension because I don’t get what I want

Again, it sounds obvious. Don’t we get tense if we do not get what we want? Imagine if this need is unconscious: What if we just have a constant feeling that we are lacking something in our life but we don’t know what? Here is an article on this: I have been waiting all my life. 

Yes, by the deep oneness I am looking for I probably think of the same thing as you do. This kind, gentle, joyful, happy state of being where I feel that I am totally connected with something. I could give this something many names. But more importantly, what I feel about it is that it is alive. And it is very happy being with me. And it has some kind intentions toward me. Maybe intentions is not the best word, but wishes. And this something is so fragile that it is anti-fragile. And it is so kind that it has become indestructible. I am not a poet, but I trust you see this.

The best name I and many others could give this something is consciousness.

The oneness with my mother

Since I started to connect the dots in my life, I understood that my biggest challenge has been my relationship with my mother. Many of us go down this path in our self-development when we go back to our early childhood and make the cause-and-effect relationships between those early days and our present life. This post is not about this path but I would like to talk about one very important thing in relation to this article: As a child, we are all looking for this oneness. And we are looking for this through the person who we are the closest to – luckily for me it was my mother. This is one – if not the – major need we have before we can get to the next steps in our development. 

I did not think I got enough of this deep oneness with my mother. And a shift happened with me. I realized that my mother did give me the deep oneness, and togetherness that I was looking for. As much as a human being is capable. Now I understand that I was able to experience it through my relationship with her. I can clearly feel it at any time. She did all she could and she does love me. Even if she is fallible like all of us, it does not matter – I did get it through my relationship with her.

It has been a long time since I felt this sense of liberation when I understood this – I mean that I have been loved. I also understood that this deep oneness that I am looking for is not something that another human being can fully give me. I am not sure which happened first: My deeper understanding of my relationship with my mother or my deeper understanding of this ‘something’ I am looking for.   Maybe they happened together. Either way, through our human relationships we can get a glimpse, a peep into it so that we start to ‘remember’ that it exists. Today I look at it as one quality of my independence that I can feel this ‘alone’ – I don’t need anybody, anything external to feel this.

The fall

There is some cut from this oneness today. For a reason. We were in a deeper connection with this oneness before and recently we have turned away from it – perhaps in our quest for more individuation? I am not sure if this separation is one natural step in our development or a ‘mistake’ that should be corrected. But I do see that there is a shift happening and I do believe that this shift is happening independently from our current ego-based, ‘control-seeking’ setup. And I do believe that it is something truly good for us. 

“I don’t know what I want from life because somewhere along the way I got used to the idea that I cannot get what I really want.” If this thought resonates with you then this post may be valuable to you.  

I got used to going for Plan B. And somewhere along the way, this thought solidified in me. It became my mindset, my primary way of looking at my life. And I lost sight of ‘Plan A’ – which is my inner knowing of what I really want. I may have lost sight of it to the extent that I kind of don’t even remember that such a thing exists.

How and why did it happen? 

What were the steps that made me develop this behavior that I got used to going for ‘Plan B’?

First step: It happened due to some form of fear. Phrased in an elementary way: ‘I did not get what I wanted and I got scared.’

(Why didn’t this happen?: ‘I did not get what I want and I got angry.’ Actually, maybe this happened. And my anger – or maybe not my anger, but my very strong drive – helped me to push more and get what I wanted. And maybe I did have success. But the fact that I am here and reading these lines suggests that I do have a deficit.)

Next step: I did not get what I wanted and I developed a sense of loss. And as result, I got depressed and have given up. What do I mean by ‘I did not get what I wanted.’? : Take it abstractly. I had a need that was not met. This need may be unconscious. It doesn’t need to be something physical (I believe it usually isn’t), or also it can be something that I wanted more of but did not get enough.

Next step: I developed the belief that ‘I just cannot get what I really want. This is my life.’ This became my reality. Why did I form this belief? I formed this as my coping mechanism. We need to cope and make sense of the world.

(Imagine that you already had a strong and developed self when those experiences happened to you. Chances are that your belief – your conclusion about what has happened to you – would be closer to something like this: ‘This sucks but I understand that I cannot always get what I want. But there is nothing wrong with me. I will change my behavior and situation so that I can get what I want.’ (Strangely, I think it can also be that I got too much of something that I did not want. And after all, it had the same effect because I could not ‘identify’ with what I got (‘This is not what I want and it is not a substitute.’). )

Next step: Since this is my belief about my life, the world around me is ‘mirroring’ this mindset back to me. I see things through this lens and gravitate toward such situations. 

The hiding places of this belief

Just ideas. I am only listing painful things to trigger self-observation and I am sorry. I am doing it with the best intentions.

I am a people pleaser and act as a very empathic person

Since I have a sense of lack I develop this tactic to get what I want – which will inevitably lead to ‘Plan B’. Perhaps the unhealthy opposite of narcissism. 

I criticize almost everything

It is hard for me not to criticize – since I am on ‘Plan B’ usually. A way of coping.

I do not stay in relationships, I may be a job hopper

I think that this is a way of coping – an attempt to ‘escape’, and change my situation for the better. There is some good news here: I act, I am looking for a change, I am looking for my way out. A big difference compared to being muted and still.

I have low self-confidence; I may overreact to things more than average; ‘I feel like waiting all my life’, prone to depression, etc.

The list could go on. A sense of loss can result in a thousand ways of suffering.

Bottom line: The reason why I don’t know what I want is because there is something blocking it. I believe that this block is this sense of lack most of the time.

The good news

There is nothing wrong with you! You picked up some behaviors that helped you in the past but they do not anymore. That’s it. If you are a little bit like most of us then you developed a belief that helped you to cope and make sense of things. The fact that you are reading these lines is probably a strong indication that you are already processing your sense of loss and letting it go – This makes all the difference!

As you realize your own self-worth more, you will go less and less for things that you don’t want actually. This will be intoxicating.

In my experience I do not look for what I want; It comes automatically and from a healthy sense of self-confidence.

Hidden in the good news is a bit of work needed maybe: Even if it is understandable that I developed this mindset that I automatically go for ‘Plan B’, it is still my behavior; I am doing it. It takes a high level of courage to realize that ‘S..t, I am doing this, not someone else…’ When I get to this realization, it is an indication that I am on the other side of this already.

What works for me

1. When I understand this: It doesn’t matter that I don’t know what I want. What matters is how I want to feel and think. Maybe in other words: My job with myself is to create the circumstances in me so that it reveals itself. 
2. When I catch myself that again I am automatically going for ‘Plan B’.
3. And when I realize that it doesn’t have to be this way.

“The reason why I have no motivation to thrive is that I do not think that it is worth it anymore.” If this thought resonates with you then this post may be for you.

The dependency trap

• “My will to thrive is dependent on the world around me. Especially on people, and people who are the closest to me can have the biggest negative effect on my motivation.” 
• “I get a kick of motivation, go full in on it, and then something happens and I lose it. The main thought I have is that it is not worth it.”
• “I explained an insight that I had to my partner and he/she did not understand or was not interested in it. It made me angry and then later depressed.”

If the above examples trigger you or you find a resemblance of some sort in your life then it can be that you are in a stage of what is called co-dependency or counter-dependency. To make a long story short, it is a normal stage of development and one of its main characteristics is that we are emotionally dependent on another person and we want the other person to satisfy a need we have. It is normal and healthy in the sense that we all go through it early in life and it is not normal in the sense that most of us stay in these stages in adulthood. It is so widespread that we do not realize that it is not normal. 

When I am in a “dependent state of mind” it is because I have a need from an external source. There is nothing and nobody in the external world who can always give me what I want and is always trustable. So it is properly easy to lose motivation in this state of mind. 

The good news is that even if you are in this state, there is nothing wrong with you, however painful it may be.

Internal motivation to thrive and the True Self

There is such a thing as internal motivation. This comes from my True Self. My True Self is independent. And it can choose to be mutually dependent with others on top of its own independence.

I know when my motivation comes from my True Self: It feels so easy, it is very alive, it is strong, it is happy, it is natural to me. It doesn’t tire me like a motivation that comes from my False Self. I barely even can or want to rationalize why I want to thrive. I know that it is my natural state.  

(I think that all motivation is internal ultimately. We just may have some glitches here and there.)

Does my ego or my True Self motivate me?

You may not subscribe to the above explanation of “dependency, stages of development, and unmet needs”.

Maybe this one is closer to you: The ego isn’t real. And so its motivation to thrive isn’t real either. Even if I thrive through the ego, it will not last. The ego works with our fears and so its function is to keep those fear “alive”. So the ego will just not let true motivation and true success last because that would mean an end to its existence. On the other hand, the True Self can only work with true motivation. And that does bring the ultimate happiness that I want to experience through my successes.

Since the ego wants something completely different than my True Self, I shall not have such a strategy that I am ok to have a bit of both. 

A way out that worked for me

I am the type who always wants to figure out how things work – and why they don’t work and what is the problem. And I have always wanted to ‘pass’ on what I learned as this is giving me the biggest joy. Pretty early in life, I bumped into this pattern of mine that “I am excited to share something and happily acknowledge that the other person received it and got equally happy with it, but instead I get non-understanding, non-interest, ridiculing, and alike.”. (This is a sort of “Drama of the Gifted Child”. I am not gifted more than anyone else. We are all gifted and it is so frequent that we lose it.)

So I developed this mindset where I felt that all my life was about waiting for something to happen, and probably I don’t have much value in what I think and do (and ultimately in myself). So you may imagine I was jumping between trying to do it “better” or getting depressed. 

Until I could finally see that the source of most of my problems was that I chose not to live out of my True Self. This came when I understood and decided that the only choice I have is to live my True Self. A couple of other things also happened – maybe in parallel or one after the other, I don’t know: I understood that there is nothing wrong if people do not get as equally excited about what I am describing them. Nothing wrong with them and nothing wrong with me. I also developed more resilience. Painful things do not touch me as hard. I enjoy being my True Self more and more by the day.

• • • Fear

    • Shame

    • Anger

    • I feel like a victim.

    • Sadness

    • Confusion

    • Panic

    • I don’t know what I am feeling.

    • I am muted

What it is and its usage

This is a quick list that you can use to help yourself identify what you are feeling or thinking. Self-observation only works in the present so grab this post at the very moment you go into your self-observation and are sure what you are feeling/thinking. 

Notes

The above list is high-level, and obviously, you may miss the exact emotion or thought that you are looking for. Also, it doesn’t contain a cause-and-effect relationship. (Like, you identify that you are feeling shame, but this list doesn’t try to give further possible clues why you may be feeling it.)

The above list is intentionally not bolded and written with not too high a font size because you may need to grab it in public and not want others to see what you are doing.  

Do these statements resonate with you? “I feel I have been waiting all my life.” “I live a muted life and I just don’t know why.” “Why don’t I get what I want?” Then this article may be for you. The goal of this article is to trigger your thinking and self-observation by proposing some possible reasons behind these thoughts.

How may such a thought be formed?

(And why it is so hard to find the way out.)

Let me start with a seemingly primitive statement: The reason why you feel you have been waiting all your life is because it is probably true. It is not an illusion.

You are waiting for something to happen. Inside, you do have this [thought] pattern that you are waiting for something to happen (even if your life on the outside may be active on some or many fronts).

If you are like most of us who suffer from this then you may have a thought pattern similar to this: “I know I am waiting for something but I cannot say what. I have had this thought since I can remember. And I feel trapped. Like having a block that doesn’t let me step through this.” If this resonates then chances are that it was formed in your childhood.

Why is it a possibility? You cannot say what you are waiting for but you find as if you have had this feeling since you remember: You don’t have a ‘pictorial’ memory of it that you can bring up. This is natural as we do not ‘store’ such memory in early childhood, that only starts to happen later. Also, take into account that as a child you have had instinctive needs (the stuff you are waiting for), not something that you created with your ‘grown up’ logic. Nevertheless, you as a person do have an idea that you are yet missing something. This is a shallow description, I apologize, but I hope it goes through. Now add the next paragraph to the situation.  

How about this ‘block’ that I mention above also?: I am referring to Developmental Trauma. This happens in early childhood. Do not think of it as something necessarily brutal, sudden, and life-threatening (although the child may experience it as such). Nevertheless what happens is that the child cannot cope with something and a trauma – block – is formed. This is what trauma does. And this block, until resolved, doesn’t let us process, rewire such a pattern in us like ‘I have been waiting all my life.’. 

Here are some possibilities, as food for thought, what may cause such a mind pattern as ‘I feel as if I have been waiting all my life.’

Possibility #1 – Abandonment

“I am just sitting and waiting for someone to arrive.”

Childhood abandonment happens more often than many would think. We all need strong bonds and if this breaks for a longer time than what we can tolerate as children then it can go with us all our life. Even with the most loving parents, we can develop this mindset. Not to mention more severe abandonment. 

Possibility #2 – Neglect

“I am just looking up to her/him and waiting to be recognized, listened to.”

Neglecting children can be cultural, and intergenerational, and can be a behavior of the whole family. Just like with abandonment.

Possibility  #3 – The narcissistic wound

There is a stage in childhood where we ‘become’ narcissistic. It is when we realize that we are able to do things, able to understand things. We fall in love with ourselves. We develop the feeling that we are capable of anything. We feel like all mighty. This is when we develop love for our own selves. It is fully normal and good. And if it goes ok then this feeling of grandiosity develops into what is called healthy narcissism. But what happens all too often is that our parents and the ‘grown-ups’ around us get triggered by this grandiose behavior and they ridicule and suppress us.  Generally, things can go two ways because of this suppression. We either become narcissistic adults or mute this in ourselves. And we just keep waiting for recognition. 

Possibility #4 – You are more developed than average

You may be more developed in some areas than the people around you. I am not trying to please you with this. Just putting it here as a possibility. Imagine that you are trying to convince someone but that person just doesn’t get it. This doesn’t even have to be a thought that you created with your logic. As examples, it may be that you are able to think in more abstract ways than average, or maybe your moral is higher than average. Imagine that this person who doesn’t get you is your mother or father, who you love the most in the world as a child. What can happen – especially if you are a ‘rescuer’ type – is that you want her/him to understand you and ‘come with you’. And you keep waiting for her/him to get there. All your life…

(Let’s not forget that you may think that you are more developed but in reality, you are struggling with narcissistic wounds. Maybe both at the same time.)

Possibility #n

The list could go on forever. I picked some that happen to so many of us. My goal is to trigger/stimulate so that dots can be found and connected.   

Some possible coping mechanisms

The below are just ideas, please do not think that there must be a one-to-one relationship to this article’s subject all the time.

• Job hopping
  • It is natural that we project our relationship issues to other parts of our life and it is the case with our jobs. Our work-life is a relationship like all others. We want our humane needs to be met in them too. ‘But we can only wait and hope so long.’ And after all, it is technically easier to stand up from a job and try our luck at another. 
  • I would also like to point out that I think something pretty healthy is happening with our life at work lately (I am writing this article in the second half of 2022). There is this phenomenon currently called the great resignation and our dormant dislike of our workplace is coming to the surface. Thankfully we are realizing that we are not robots, and solution machines. Let’s hope that other players at the life of work will catch up soon. I wrote a bit about this in this article: The cause behind the great resignation
  • You may also be interested in this: Why do I keep quitting jobs?
• Continuously changing relationship partners
  • Pretty much the same as above. ‘My need doesn’t get me so I look somewhere else.’
• Use of downer drugs, smoking
  • I cannot prove this, I have no factual evidence. I just simply find it logical. My basic view of this is that ‘waiting’ is truly stressful and we need something that cools us down. 
• Receptiveness to conspiracy theories, doomsday predictions
  • Among other things, these theories have this underlying promise that a big change is coming that will finally explain everything and bring about the much-awaited release. There you have it. Your wait will be over. (I am not judging all predictions about the future in general.)