[travisgriggs]

I’m really sorry for the straits you find yourself in. I hope time will help.

I know others will suggest service/volunteer/lose yourself to find yourself. And I know that can kind of be off putting when you’re feeling down and out.

I’ve been through the feeling of feeling disenfranchised/lonely a couple of times. After a couple of iterations I began to notice a pattern in the types of volunteer service that helped. It wasn’t volunteering to be in the local flying club leadership. Or to help something happen in the kids schools. It was mundane repetitive work that no one was doing but clearly needed to be done. It was putting the chairs away after the church social. Or washing the dishes at the homeless kitchen. I’m not sure why this is. Because in my everyday work, what I value most is creative autonomy and pursuit of solving new and original problems. I think it has something to do with uncomplicated nature of something like labeling vials at the vaccine clinic. There’s no real wrong way to do that. You just get told thanks, sometimes, and even if you don’t, you know you made a difference and that your part was part of something bigger.

YMMV