OK, it's a click bait title, designed to trigger, apologies, we'll not really, actually I don't care if you read this or not, do what you want

I've been pondering an idea or a subject I've heard somewhere, the person explaining it said it came from either from Nietzsche or Schopenhauer, I haven't gone back and checked their exact sources, so I'm not claiming this is their argument exactly, but the basic idea definitely has roots in or around there

Think about your great, great, great, great grandfather

Who was he?

What was his job? What clothes did he wear? What did his community think of him? What did he spend his spare time doing?

For most of us, the answer is.... we have absolutely no idea

And yet, he lived an entire life

He may have had ambitions, he probably wanted people to respect him, he may have worried about money, maybe he wanted to be successful, he may have really cared about what other people thought of him

And now he's completely forgotten

The same thing will happen to all of us, unless you're an Elon Musk type, which anyone reading this isn't, the reality is, eventually, nobody will know you existed

And I don't think that's a bad thing

I think it's liberating (and to be clear, I'm not saying this in some nihilistic way, where we should just give up and become down and outs and drink whiskey on the park bench)

Because if you accept that you're probably not going to leave some enormous, permanent mark on humanity, then why spend your entire life trying to impress people you don't even particularly like?

Why buy the house you don't really want because you think it's what a grown up is supposed to do?

Why take the middle manager job that makes you miserable because society tells you that it's a 'good career'

Why obsess over whether randoms think you're successful?

Why spend your life accumulating status credits in a game where the scoreboard will over time disappear?

There's nothing wrong with wanting money

There's nothing wrong with wanting a nice house

There's nothing wrong with wanting a decent career, travelling the world, getting a great body, having kids, creating art, starting a business or becoming a celebrity

The question is....

Would you still want these things if nobody was watching?

Because if the answer is no, maybe you're not actually pursuing the thing itself

You're chasing the approval that comes with it

If you're going to be forgotten anyway, you don't have to live your life around someone else's idea of success

We can stop coping anon

You can admit that you actually want to live in the forest and wander through the leaves, even though there's no money in it

You can admit that you don't care about climbing the corporate bitchery ladder

You can admit that you'd rather live in a small house by the sea than own a giant apartment in the city

You can admit that you don't want to become horrendously rich

And most important of all, you can stop worrying about whether your life is 'meaningful' in someone else's eyes

Your great⁵ grandfather didn't need to become famous for his life to contain moments of happiness

He didn't need to be remembered for his kids to love him

He didn't need to be remembered like Lawrence of Arabia or Genghis Khan

And neither do you anon

You don't have to become somebody

You don't have to leave a legacy

You don't have to prove anything to history

You get one relatively short period of breathing, and then we die

Once you see it, it's the most liberating thing to realise

If nobody is going to remember you in a thousand years, maybe you should spend less time worrying about what they'll think of you tomorrow

Live the life you actually want

Not the life you're supposed to want

Not the life that makes you look successful

Not the life that gets you approval from people you barely know

Your life may ultimately be pointless, so relax, nobody cares