Things aren't that great.

I'm a college student and I hate my job, thankfully I'm quitting at semester and getting an apartment with friends. I'm overwhelmed with classes and work, though. I've never been so stressed and unhappy before this semester, even when I held the same job as I did last semester.

Back home things aren't going very well. Our basement flooded a month ago and now my family is desperately trying to remodel everything, which was not a planned remodeling. More money wasted. My parents' marriage isn't going so well and hasn't been for years. I need to find the courage to talk about it with them because if they're not happy then I don't want them to be together. I just want them to be happy.

I don't know if I want to continue being with my boyfriend of 2.5 years. I know that I'm depressed and when I'm feeling really down I tend to push others away and I don't want to do that to him. I love him but I'm not sure if I want to be in a relationship or not. We always talk about marriage, but to be completely honest, it freaks me out a lot. I like being on my own.

I'm constantly thinking about how pointless life is. I'm spending thousands upon thousands of dollars going to school for the first 25 years of my life just to have a career for the next 40 years of my life so I can make enough money to be comfortable and retire for the last 10 years of my life and then die. What's the point? Nobody really cares about other people.

I don't want to be a part of any religion and I don't have the courage to tell my family. I don't believe in God - it's just bullcrap to me - and I don't want to participate. The only reason I still do is to keep peace in my family. I don't want to raise my children in any religion, though. I don't even know if I want children because I don't know how they can avoid the craptiness of this world.

I need someone to give me hope for myself that everything will be okay.

I think that the point is the process of doing it. Creating memories. You need to take life as it comes, one day at a time. We all have our ups and downs. Some of us more down than up. But we can make it through. Just keep trucking along. You both will be feeling better, I promise. It just takes struggles to develope and become the person that we want to be. But always stop and smell the roses along the way. Don't let the goal crowd out the trip. Life can be good. It is the little things along the way that make it worth it. I am sure that both of you will see this as you grow. Just never give up.

Hugs, Karen

Tricia,

You don't need to believe in God to have meaning in your life.  You don't need God to have beliefs either.  I make no judgments on people on whether they believe in God or not.  Some of the best people I have ever met have been very religious or very atheist. 

Joan of Arc, for example, was the most influential people (not just a woman) of her day in my belief, despite her short life, despite her "alleged" delusions - and she was truly devoted to God, and she changed the course of European history, single-handedly.

Stephen J. Gould, in my opinion, was one of the most influential scientists of his day, and much of what we understand about evolution of life on this planet can be attributed to his ideas.  And he was a devout atheist. 

So what in both cases - I don't care what or who they believed in - I look more at what they contributed to the world. 

Some of the most ridiculous and wasteful debates I have ever seen are those that argue about whether God exists or not.  Either God does exist, or God does not exist, and no amount of debating is ever going to change the facts.   

As for the pointless thing, even with or without God, life can seem pretty pointless depending on what ways you look at it.  Wish I could give you a way to deal with the pointlessness you are seeing, but alas, I think about that much too much myself.

Being that this is not a good day for me, I'd rather refer you to Karen's comments on that  - she's a very good person to listen to.