
I was tweezing my eyebrows and suddenly got the urge to get rid of them, because everything is pointless, right? I stopped myself in the nick of time somehow. In fact, as recently as two days back, I was tempted to shave off my eyebrows. I have found myself gravitating towards full-blown nihilism at times. Optimistic nihilism seems easy to execute in theory, but in reality, it can be quite challenging.
#Nihilistic optimism professional#
Seeking Professional Help for Optimistic Nihilism Watch the video below to get an idea of how I incorporate this philosophy in my life. This is where optimistic nihilism can help you. To keep depression at bay, it is important to find purpose in the things that matter to you. This is a vicious cycle that can be broken when one rejects rigid social norms regarding what makes your existence meaningful. Existential crises make depression worse, and depression worsens existential crises. This is because many of us are not living life on our own terms, or we are setting unrealistic expectations owing to social conditioning. The duration, intensity, and recurrence of the crisis vary from person to person, but the result is typically the same: despair, depression, anxiety, and stress. Speaking from personal experience, an existential crisis occurs when you question the meaning and purpose of your life.


Why does an attitude of optimistic nihilism help someone with depression? I believe there are two reasons behind this: one, depression not only makes one lose interest in goals and hobbies, but it can also make that person experience an existential crisis.

Why Optimistic Nihilism Can Help Depression Optimistic nihilism is, therefore, a brighter outlook than mere nihilism as it proposes that since life is meaningless, we are free to give it whatever meaning we choose. Needless to say, that's a depressing point of view. The way I see it, nihilism is a school of thought which believes that life is meaningless. There are precious few things to be optimistic about when one is depressed, so you must be thinking I'm cuckoo.
