Why can't I just be happy?

Question

Why can't I just accept that God exists and be perfectly content and satisfied like most people? Most people don't even question their faith, they just know. I wish I could find that kind of security, but I doubt everything. I'm very pessimistic- I expect the worst. I fear that there isn't an afterlife, and spend literally every night crying, fearing that I will never be reunited with my loved ones in the afterlife. I'm only 19. Is it normal to feel this depressed about death all the time?

I wish I could just believe that God existed. I wish it were simple, but it's not for me.
What's wrong with me?

Answer 1

One of the hardest things for young people to understand is that we often do get wiser as we get older. But when someone is 19 like you, adults around you probably seem like a bunch of clueless relics. So, try to put aside your doubts for a minute and consider some advice from this 47 year old geezer.

There was a (typically) hilarious episode of The Simpsons where Bart deflates the ego and image of some grunge band by observing, "Making teenagers sad is about as hard as shooting fish in a barrel".

So, first step towards being happy: don't surround yourself with music that's designed to make people glum and moody. Be a rebel. Get some music from old school singers like The Carpenters and John Denver. I will never forget hearing from a lady who been undergoing psychoanalysis for depression. She said that, on a whim, she bought a John Denver CD and it brought her out of the depths of despair. It was better than therapy.

Watch some funny, uplifting movies. Rent "Blast From The Past" with Brendan Frasier.

You doubt the afterlife? Go to the bookstore and take your pick from hundreds of books written by people describing their afterlife experiences from being resuscitated after being clinically dead. There is tons of literature about the afterlife, and all it takes to believe in it is to read someone else's account of what they glimpsed. Read Shirley McLaine's book "Out On A Limb".

In the last few years, a number of molecular biologists have started coming forward and openly asserting their belief in a higher power due to what they have discovered from examining life at the molecular level. To their amazement, they discovered that science cannot explain why there is organization where there should only be chaos. Some of these scientists say it is like God leaving them a message saying, "yes, I'm here."

Abraham Lincoln once observed that people will be just about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Sometimes happiness takes a lot of effort. For me, it meant leaving the United States to pursue my dream of living as the Europeans do. It's not easy. I am away from everything familiar (tv, newspapers, food, friends) but sometimes change is good. So, get off your butt and go after happiness. One way to take your mind off your own troubles is to help others. Are you good scholastically in anything to the point where you could tutor children? All you need to do is contact a school and offer your services. There are lots of kids who need help, and by helping you often feel better about yourself, and the negativism of your life evaporates.

Some people only need the overwhelming impact of the grandeur of nature to reassure them of the existence of God. Standing on a rocky ledge perched high above the Grand Canyon or standing at the shore of the seemingly limitless ocean often convince people there must be a higher power.

No, it's not normal to feel this depressed about death all the time. Civilization helps us in innumerable ways, but it can also strip away very simple ways that primitive use to be happy. Africans who live in dirt poor tribal villages are often happy and smiling. Joy is a part of their life. They dance and sing without inhibition. So, take your clue from them. Go dancing. Sing from your heart (happy song, please).

You'll be fine in no time.

Answer 2

Nothing wrong with you if you say that you scared of death. Every body does, they either admit it or they dont.
Almost everybody try to be carefull when they drive, everybody seek for medicine or medical treatment when they're ill; Why??? They all want to be alive, they scared of death. We all do.

I was scared of death badly since I was at junior school until I was almost 40. You know why? I was always active, I think I was a superwoman whom could get away from anything I didn't like.
But death?? I knew I cant run away from it when it comes.
The implication was, I was really tried hard to avoid anything close to death; That made my faml life unpleasant because I hated travelling, scared at home alone, worried abt my children badly etc.etc. Lucky my husband was patient and loves me so much. He tried anything to make me feel easy. One day my husband said there is no afterlife.If we're dead---> we're dead, he pointed at grave yard and said : that's a rubbish dump. So I followed what he said. I was happy, I was not scared of death so we travelled around with no hazels... but after some months I was scared more than before....which really turned me into depression.
I was hospitalized with actually nothing wrong with me.

It doesn't mean that I didn't believe in God. I did say I do, my mouth said I do, I prayed, read all kinds of Holy Books. ..until one day ....I realized that no point fighting against something I will not win. So I trained my self.
I visualized my self being dead, and burried.
I visualized myself eaten by worms, rott and stink.
I visualized that I couldn't do anything against being rott and vanished. I couldn't cry, there was a strange feeling, it was so pain inside which then I said : Oo God!
Since then I do it several times, and the result is amazing ....I become a humble person, I am no more behave like a superwoman, I really become a different person, that's what my surrounding says.

I still dont know whether there is afterlife, it doesn't matter, I just do my best and become a real person.

Answer 3

Many of those feelings are entirely normal for your age, as your body chemistry is changing. Please, stop beating yourself up over it.

Would there being an afterlife justify wasting your life? If not, then why waste even a day? You have only a finite number of days in your life's account, so spend them well.

Make a real, genuine effort to get some good from each day you spend. Enjoy your time with your loved ones as much as you can. With just a little practice, the effort will seem to diminish. It will just become habit.

Try to identify some goals for yourself. Working toward them will ease some of your fears about the future.

And ask more questions, as necessary. :^)

Answer 4

this is just my opinion --- well, I don't have a real religion, I just believe that we end up where we want to be and I also believe we are reunited with our loved ones through reincarnation.
Now I could be wrong, but it dosn't seem like you find security in christianity at all, and who's to say that it's real anyways, so why not try somthing else or just let religion go completly. I think we find the people and animals we love no matter what we believe. --- oh, and PS - there's nothing wrong with you lol, lots of people don't find security in "god"

Answer 5

Nothing is wrong with you. Everyone falls away from faith now and again. It's not for everyone either.

Nothing wrong with questioning God or your faith. Sometimes it can strengthen it, other times it can lead you to other ways of thinking you may have never had before.

Either way it can be a very enriching experience.

Although Its not normal to feel depressed about death ALL the time, there are points in our life when we have internal struggles with it.

If the depression continues perhaps you should seek a doctor, but many times it subsides after we simply try to understand it.

Answer 6

Find a friend. Spend the day with them. For the whole day, do things with the friend, but inside, assume, fully and live a day accepting for fact that there is no God or afterlife.

Throw yourself into your fear.

Happiness is your natural state.
Depression occurs when you can't express your anger at a perceived threat.
Expectation, the though that you are owed, is holding you back.

God cannot be proved except by personal experience (yet).

I experienced God directly when I was seventeen. This is NOT proof for you. It is proof only for me, since I have no right to expect belief, and you would be foolish to "just believe".

Live your fear as if it was perfectly normal.

You may be very freed by it to believe, or not.

Discuss the experiment with your friend AFTER -not before or during.


Let me know if you are pleased by the results and how they came out!

Answer 7

If you want to know if God does exist, ask your self this Q
1. What is beyond Pluto and other planet that already discovered by human. What is beyond human knowledge?
2. Why did everyday new things has been invented. But no one can ever make air, water and soil from bare hand. So where did all this come from?
3. How can we explain unexplainable stuff like; dream, intuition, love, hate, etc. Are you satisfied with science explanation?

Imagine this situation, you are in an airplane. Suddenly the airplane has problem and nobody can do anything. You are about to crash. Who would you turn to ask for help?

Believe in God is like you believe that you are in love with someone and you believe that the person is really love you. The difference is if you love God, he will never betray or cheat you. If He gave you obstacle, that is because He remember you and wants to see how much you love Him.

Answer 8

in all honesty hun this doesn't sound like a crisis of faith entirely.
It sounds more like you are suffering from depression, death isn't really a great thing to look forward to entirely, it's terrifying because we don't know whats going to happen.
For going to bed you need to find a way to "switch off" your mind almost, reading, listening to music, anything that works for you to help you get a good nights sleep.

Answer 9

You sound like you are a rational person who wants to believe in something better after this life, but being rational you see that it is just a fairy tale. This is nothing to be ashamed of, and eventually you will need to face your fears. More than likely facing your fears will be finally admitting to yourself that there is no God, or at least that the Christian God is not real or logical. When you do that you will have a period of fear and depression because God is a wonderful fairy tale if you can believe it. However, once you reject the idea there will be other things that comfort you. You will adapt and you will find new ways of looking at the world and at death/loss.

If you need some help coming out of the Christian closet, then try this website: http://www.godisimaginary.com

You are not alone.

Answer 10

I don't know I struggle with it the same as you...except I am older and slightly more jaded and pissed off having been burned by organized religion many times before causing me to even doubt the existence of God. I wish I could help maybe someone else will have an answer for us both.

Answer 11

Hun nothings wrong with you....Everyone feels like that .......people just usually keep it to themsevels tho....GOD is what you want him/her to be.......Or even if you don't believe in god who cares?????????? Thats good you doubt stuff it shows you have a brain most people don't even have one......don't worry being happy is so hard...The question is anyone actually happy or their just being content.? and i do belive you'll see your loved ones once again