Purpose

Is there a purpose to all of this?  Is there a reason to continue?  I think about this often.  Maybe I'm being melodramatic.  Maybe I'm just severely depressed and this is a passing thing.

I'm reminded of the movie Shawshank Redemption.  The whole point of Brooks eventually outcome (suicide) was because, despite his freedom, he was not able to find a purpose.  In Shawshank, he was the man who provided literature to the prisoners.  He had a purpose.  Red surely considered reaching the same end as Brooks.  He was institutionalized.  Prison life was all he knew.  In Shawshank, as he put it, he was a man who could get you things.  Anything you wanted, he could provide.  He served a great purpose and a service to those in the prison.  When he got out, he was just a lonely man with nothing to offer anybody.  He continued on though.  There was a something that Red promised Andy, that if Red ever got out, he was to go to a certain place and to seek out Andy.  It kept him going.

I find myself in a similar situation.  I've been in a mental prison my whole life.  I'm instituationalized.  In the organization, I served a purpose.  I was a man who could get you things, so to speak.  Now I'm out.  What do I have to offer people?  What keeps me going?  Is there a purpose for me to continue?  Do I truly have anything to offer people?  Do people want what I have to offer?  Can I truly make anyone happy on more than a superficial level?  Can I find somebody who views me as irreplaceable and wants to stay with me to the end?  These are questions that go through my mind.  The more I dwell on them, the more depressed I am by the answers I come up with.  I can't honestly answer those questions in a positive manner.  Yeah, sure maybe I can helpa few people out.  Maybe I can help people who don't even appreciate it.  Is there somebody who can recipricate that help back to me?  Is there somebody who can mirror that love back to me and make me a happy person for the rest of my life?  I don't know, I hope so.

All my life I've tried to do the right thing by people.  I've tried my best to be a good person, to help people in need.  I've never in my life asked anybody for anything in return.  I guess, I'm finally doing that.  Is there ever going to be anything in it for me?  Is there a point to continue being that kind of person?  Am I being selfish for thinking that?  I'm afraid I'm going to become a bitter, lonely, old man.  That outcome scares the hell out of me.  I don't ever want to become that man but I just know if things continue like this, that will be end result.

I wish I could stop dwelling on the bad.  It isn't doing me any good.  I just can't help it.  I really want to focus on good things but it just gets harder and harder to do.  I know so many people have worse problems than I do.  Am I being selfish by constantly being negative?  I just want to be happy with my lot in life.