Can we change?

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about myself and life. I am 38 now, almost half a human life and I often wonder: Did I really learn anything? I am not happy with my life and I am not even sure anymore what my goals or hopes for the future are. I do have a wish to find a good partner, but Stoicism and other teachings tell us that we must learn to find happiness within. This confuses me, because people who are happy rarely seem to be alone. So how much can we include other people? Obviously, we shouldn't make our happiness depend on others. But if we marry for example or start a family, don't we do that to some extent? When we fall in love, isn't that also something we do and have to do? 

I am confused where I keep going wrong in life and what I can and have to change. I know I am someone who seems to be too sensitive, who's constantly overthinking and who must seem quite negative. I don't know if there's much I can do about it though. How do I stop to think? How do I stop to feel? If I worry, is it with good reason or without? 

I remember 17 years ago, I was having problems in one of my first relationships. The girl didn't seem to know what she wanted. One day, she seemed to love me, another day, she didn't. One day, she seemed to plan a future with me, another day, she didn't. I felt very stressed and it affected me at work and in my daily life, because I was thinking about this all day. I shared with some friends and they gave me advice. But because of what I still felt for her, I couldn't follow that advice (which was to leave her and focus on myself). So my friends got tired of listening to me complain. Back then, I couldn't always understand it, although sometimes I may have. But if it would be the same today, I think I would. Over the last 17 years, there have been occasions where I had problems that I shared. Some were about relationships, some about work, some about finances and some about just feeling depressed and unhappy.

Since I was a kid, I seem to suffer from depression, although it wasn't diagnosed until I was 17 or 18. And one part of depression is called anhedonia, the inability to feel joy. It also comes with a lack of motivation (it's somehow affected the cerebral cortex) and so far can't be cured. 

Knowing this made me wonder how much I really can control this/my life and how much it's really just "luck". I have had friends who suddenly suffered a similar fate and they told me "I could never understand you, but now I can!". I felt bad for them that they had to go through this as well, but also a bit vindicated that maybe it wasn't just me being "lazy" or unwilling to do something. 

I feel like I want to learn and get better. But my condition confuses me a lot. With anhedonia or depression, you no longer know when you're actually powerless of the feelings and thoughts you have and when you're in charge of them. So I often ask myself: Am I just lazy? Unwilling to change or learn? Or would anyone in my position be incapable of changing or feeling different too? 

It might also be this time we live in. I seemed to be able to focus and concentrate better 15-20 years ago. Now, I am easily distracted and out of the many things I wish to do, I seem to only do a few or none. Maybe this is where I can and should start. I always thought that I had good self-control and discipline, but maybe I overestimated myself?

Also, what's the real reason I or anyone does or doesn't take advice? In some situations, it might be right not to take the advice (for example if the person giving it has never been in a situation like us or doesn't understand it). But in others? Is it egoism? Fear? Why did I not take the advice 2006/07 to leave my girlfriend for example? Would it have made my life worse? It seems the end result would have been the same. 

I have always been a diligent person. I couldn't always make a choice quickly or easily, but if I did make a choice, I usually saw it through until the (sometimes bitter) end. Maybe that's why I couldn't take advice on relationships or investments or bad jobs? I didn't want to be marked a "quitter"? 

And I do believe that people can change or better themselves. Yet, I seem to be a prime example that that's not actually the case :(. 

Chungking Express (and why you shouldn't be afraid of people who know what they feel)

I was watching Chungking Express today. The main character was just dumped by his girlfriend, May on April 1st. In pain and desperation, he decides to buy 30 cans of pineapple (May loved Pineapple) that all expire May 1st. If by then, May didn't come back or contact him, their love "expired".

While waiting, he ponders why everything has expiration dates. Why do we throw away things that still work or function? Why do people end relationships that worked for quite some time? 

And how can people's feelings change so easily? In my life, whenever I liked someone or even loved them, my feelings for them NEVER just changed! I literally can not understand how that is possible, unless those feelings someone felt were never true to begin with. It always took me years or at least months to let go and move on if someone broke up with me (and except once, I never broke with someone) and after I agreed to be with someone, even if I felt frustrated sometimes if there were the same issues, I never wanted to quit or give up. 

Love and true feelings can't expire. If they can, they aren't real. And if they aren't real, I think we don't really feel true love. Just something we mistake for love or we mimic love. 

In the second story of the movie, a policeman and his true love with his girlfriend, a stewardess is shown. The stewardess leaves him and he can't forget her, feels reminded of her through gifts she gave him (like stuffed animals) and he can't give a chance to another girl named May he often sees at a diner he visits.

This May is in love with him and starts to break into his place. Step by step, she replaces the gifts the ex gave him with new gifts by her, removes the hair the ex left behind and thus forces the police man to move on. I admire that. It's never easy to let go (I think especially for men, we seem to be far more sentimental and sensitive in that department), but what often holds us back is probably all the memories and the feelings that are still there. I read that men fall slower, but deeper in love, while women fall faster, but fall out of love faster too. Now this is just a general study/knowledge, but it's a match with what I saw myself or with friends. 

Maybe it's because there aren't too many people these days who even are serious anymore? Maybe because guys can be surprisingly sensitive (and at least some women surprisingly insensitive?). 

Of course I don't say guys are better, women are worse. But there just seem to be differences. I think I never knew any woman who really fought for a relationship that would have been good for her (only for bad ones). It's usually the men who do (those that are serious will. Those that don't care are guys who never cared about you to begin with or who just want sex). 

All I can say, all that the movie reminded me of or made crystal-clear to me is:

Know your true feelings! Don't easily let something go that could turn out to be a huge loss for you! You may NEVER in your life find such a person again, even if you thought they're troublesome at the time. But only people who care about you will care enough to bring up unpleasantness and will be brave enough to open their hearts for you. And that's why those people suffer a lot if you punish their courage and don't dare to take that risk together. But what more can or will anyone ever do for you, if not that?