[davidscolgan]

It feels like I have failed in every way that is possible.

I have lost my wife, my child, my parents, my grandparents, my friends, my house burned down with all of my possessions. I lost my ability to code due to burnout and had to spend several years doing nothing.

During my burnout experience I was basically forced to confront the roaring void of existence. I spent time at a monastery and contemplated the futility of it all.

And yet at the end of all of this, I considered what else is there to do with life but to begin anew? And now that I have lost everything, I am no longer naive. I know what is possible to have, and what is possible to lose, and I can act with understanding from past experience. I feel far more capable of success now that I know what it is to fail in the hardest ways I can imagine.

[Etheryte]

Sorry to hear you have suffered, happy to hear you've found peace with how life has treated you. I wouldn't say I'm a deeply spiritual person in any way, but I've seen many people around me find solace in spirituality when going through hardships. What did your path to spirituality or religion or however you'd like to call it look like? How do you look at the world now, or how would you describe what you practice?

[davidscolgan]

Perhaps the most important event of my life was discovering I have autism at age 33. Many things that didn't make sense suddenly did. I pointed my hyperfocus inward to my own mind, at first because I had lost the ability to code and make a living, and wanted to heal my "coding injuries" as I had called them. I had become an atheist at age 20 and primarily had used psychology to try and figure out what was happening.

I studied Buddhism under a mentor and realized that many of the principles applied regardless of your beliefs about cosmology. The idea that all problems humans face can be summarized as "greed, ignorance, and aversion" was a useful frame. These helped me triangulate the ultimate source of my burnout to unmet family expectations that I had for many years tried to live up to but could not. Confronting my family about these expectations and taking responsibility for my own life was absolutely key in my healing.

These days I don't exactly have a set practice but I still live with my mentors. They started a syncretic monastery that welcomes all traditions, and observing the similarities and differences between worldviews has been quite eye opening. The most valuable practice I take from all this is a honed awareness of the root causes of suffering, and I've found that once the root cause is identified, it becomes possible to release it.

[i_like_pie1]

wish you peace and strength

thank you for sharing

[retrac]

It's interesting what hypotheticals, straw men really, that we project in our minds as we read. When he said "doing nothing" I pictured a literally homeless man drifting through life. Such people can certainly "afford" to do nothing. You presumably pictured something different. In any case neither of us is likely imagining what OP has actually lived.

[dom_hutton]

Your reply is dismissive of the OPs grievances they shared with us all.

Suffering, and life, is a relative experience.

[davidscolgan]

I am not saying this to complain. I have no regrets or complaints. I am free from suffering as a result of going through this experience.

I live at the monastery full time now.

[shreyshnaccount]

Incredibly bad take if you don't know this person's life and experience

[Etheryte]

This is utter nonsense. "People in Africa eat less than you do so you have no right to feel hungry" levels of nonsense.

[jahsome]

Gold medal at the trauma olympics I see.

[AlecSchueler]

Drown in the ocean or drown in the bath it's all the same to your body.

[SnowHill9902]

Read the book of Job.