Guide My Life (Please?)

[Wes]

Hey guys, I would like to do a short intro before asking what is really on my mind, in hopes it will aid all my prospective "question-answerers." All the "summary information" is kind of listed randomly, so don't read into the order of it too much.

     As you might have suspected my name is Wes  :eek: . It all seems so clear to me while I'm typing and reading because its structured so well in my mind. Many thanks in advance for those who take the time to read and/or answer.

[The Magic Pudding]

Hello

Why don't you just do some volunteer work?
If the poor turn out to be an undeserving bunch you can help animals, if they seem unappreciative you can do some land-care.

Welcome Wes

[Recusant]

Hello and welcome to HAF, Wes.  I think that the feelings you've expressed here are admirable.  I advise staying in school, though.  You'll be able to do much more to help with a proper education.  Consider sticking it out through a medical degree and internship, then joining something like Medecins sans Frontieres.  Or if you can't wait that long, at least get a basic degree then try the Peace Corps or something along those lines.  A person with the advantages and talents you have who has a strong desire to make the world a better place should optimize what they have in order to have a greater positive effect, in my opinion. Magic Pudding's advice is good, too.  There are probably homeless shelters/soup kitchens in your area which would be glad to have your help.  There's also Habitat For Humanity, which might teach you some skills which you could put to use if you decide to join the Peace Corps.

As for dealing with the internal psychic tension you're experiencing which is making you impatient with your current mode of life, I think that some strenuous physical activity might be helpful.  Try taking up one of the more intense martial arts like taekwondo or karate, or even boxing.  Not only do they help you focus your mind, but the conditioning is a great way to relieve mental stress, in my opinion.

 I strongly advise against striking out on your own right now.  How much good can you really do without much in the way of resources?  And one solid resource is a decent education. Grit your teeth and carry on.  Remember that you can do more to help once you have good tools to help with.

I hope you enjoy your time reading and posting here, Wes.

[terranus]

The world is a strange place, isn't it Wes?

I too like to spend time alone to think about things. I have quite a few friends...but I don't think I'd be happy if I couldn't escape to be by myself for a while. I've spent the last 7 years in college thinking about some of the very same things you are thinking about now. The difference b/t you and me is - I came from a relatively poor family. Both my parents were teachers   But you can't just go about things all willy nilly and run away to Africa. You have to have a plan, or else you're doomed to fail and then you'll be in an even worse boat than you are now. Trust me on this one...I learned it the hard way.

So lets go over the steps one more time in chronological order:

1. Figure out what job/profession/career/etc. would make you happy for a long time - NOT just right now. Social work sounds like the field you might want to look into, but then I'm not an admissions counselor either so you might want to look more into the specifics of that one (Note: This step might actually take you the longest. It took me 3 years to figure it out...but then I'm a slow learner   )
2. Make a plan, set some goals. Whether it involves a degree, 2 degrees, joining the peace corp, whatever - just do it. Seeing something that you can physically cross with your mind helps in the process.
3. Try your best to stick to it. If you have to change a few things or improvise along the way it ok, but just don't forget your original goals in the process.
4. Don't forget to have fun. I'm nearing the very end of my long college career, and the fun times are really starting to wane. Part of growing up, but sometimes I wish I had the chance to go back and start over at 18 again. It was a lot of fun. Just remember to keep your goals afloat and don't go drowning them with too much liquor.

Other than that...

Bonvenon al la Forumo!
[spoiler:207qq1rz]Welcome to the Forum![/spoiler:207qq1rz]

[Wes]

Hello

Why don't you just do some volunteer work?
If the poor turn out to be an undeserving bunch you can help animals, if they seem unappreciative you can do some land-care.

Welcome Wes

Thank you very much for the advice. What you've said is along the lines of something I suspected I should probably do, which is get involved more in a local sense. Its just that at some point I feel I need to go elsewhere for fulfillment. That being said, I highly doubt I'm going to find the poor an "undeserving bunch", and if they seem that way, I'll probably rationalize it by thinking thats how they were raised and conditioned. I really want to make a difference for other people, but at the same time I will probably also stay involved in some way with conservation efforts.

[Wes]

Recusant, thank you very much for the welcome and helpful ideas. I guess I had never done much research before and never realized how much already exists in the way of structure for professional service. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières really seems like something that could serve as an aiming point for me right now. Also, it wasn't until you mentioned it that I realized I have been pretty inactive physically as of late. Where in previous years I had been swimming competitively for a great portion of the year I now lead a more or less sedentary lifestyle, and really do think picking swimming or something else back up could bring a bit of peace to my life.

Hi and thank you Terranus. Its good to know there are other people out there who think along the same lines as me. I had never heard the term secular humanism until I read your post, and after googling it, the tenets of that philosophy seem almost perfectly in-line with my own beliefs. Its also very funny how much your advice to do something that can make you happy in the long run is so perfectly opposite from the way I lived less than a year ago. At that point I was very into the "live, feel, and think in the moment" as the end all be all of living a happy life. I had rejected it, but at the present moment it seems clearer than ever why I moved on. Also, I am going to write down some goals, and try to look at them every day.

[Matt]

Have you heard of Less Wrong?  It's a site with several metric tons of articles about how to think.  If you want to read them start here.  They were very enlightening for me, but you probably already know a lot more of it than I did when I started reading it.  Some people find him a bit arrogant/elitist, but he doesn't seem too bad to me.  I mention it because it shaped a lot of my thought right after I deconverted.  The author of those posts, Elizer Yudkowsky, is a transhumanist, and a lot of the philosophies he wrote about I agreed with.  I'm a bit wary of them because I like them so much (send me a PM if you disagree with stuff he says, I want to hear it [Heck, start a thread if there's a lot of it]), but it seems to be pretty good stuff for the most part.  Yudkowsky's a transhumanist.  I'm not sure if I would call myself that, since I think there are some goods that would be bad if taken to the extreme (let me know if I've mistaken the transhumanist philosophy; I'm not too clear on it), but it made me think about my new morals.  Because of that site, I decided that my top priority was life extension.  100 years is not enough for me and I'm pretty sure it's not enough for most people.  I'm still not absolutely certain on how I'm going to accomplish this, but if I find that I am uninterested by anything directly related to the subject, I'll just make as much money as I can doing something I like and give it to people who are doing the research.  This goal might--will, most likely--change, since I'm still in high school and I probably won't feel the same way when I'm older, but for now it's my plan.  My point is that, as others have already said, one way for you to serve is to take advantage of the unfair advantages you have been given.  My personal suggestion is that you become filthy rich and use your money for humanitarian purposes, but you probably have some other (quite possibly better) ideas.

Also: HPMoR (it's related, I swear)

[Whitney]

Marshall Brain the founder of How Stuff Works (lesser known for starting www.whywontgodhealamputees.com ) is working on a project called Deciding to Be Better.  It's still being worked on but is open to the public for viewing as well as comments:  http://decidingtobebetter.com/

[fester30]

You sound like you have been thinking about winging it, setting off without direction to do something good for you don't know who, and you don't know where, as if it will fall into place as you go along.  I agree with those who say get that education first, don't choose a major yet, though.  Take a variety of core and electives your first year and a half to find what you really love to do.

Also.  This winging it idea seems to bleed through to your idea of volunteerism.  You don't have to wing it.  You don't have to approach people who look poor and offer to help them, or drive all day on a highway looking for people with car trouble.  People in need will come to you if you do it right.  College was 11 years ago for me, but I remember there being a great many charitable opportunities right there on campus.  Just look around at bulletin boards.  Check for student action groups.  Every college or university has groups of students that want to help the environment, or build houses for the poor, or help out at soup kitchens, or spread some kind of social consciousness, or live under bridges and teepee houses.  There are a great many opportunities in an environment like college that brings such a variety of different cultures together in such a small space.

[LARA]

Hi Wes.  I suggest checking out the Nature Conservancy since you are interested in ecology.  I've had a good opinion of them in the past since they have centered on preserving habitat rather than just species and employ actual real live scientists on staff. I'm with the others and echoing that you stay in college and get your education and look around for campus organizations that can help you with your need to give back to others who deserve it.  You might talk to a prof you admire to see if they have any info on organizations around campus, maybe pop them a super polite email or something....  Also I noticed you consider yourself bipolar.  I would look into some of the info on giftedness, hypersensitivities and Dabrowski's theories of positive disintegration.  I'm not exactly sure how well his opinions are accepted in the psychological community, but they might be an interesting positive alternative to just labeling yourself as bipolar since you seem to be a bright and empathetic individual, with strong emotions derived from real issues that are important to you, rather than strong emotions motivated by ego and lack of impulse control.