I've been thinking a lot lately about life and the roles we all play. I'm 25. Time is moving so fast I'm worried that I'm not achieving anything of real substance. I can't help but walk past coffee shop owners, convenient store clerks, furniture shops and banks and just think... what are these people doing? Are they content? No disrespect to any one for their professions, I guess I'm asking: what does it take to be happy.. can we and should we 'settle' because there's 7billion other people all wanting what's best for tthem.I can't help but wanting more out of life.. emotionally, physically, spiritually and financially but think "am I entitled to it..?" what makes me different to the next person
Is any one here content? Why? Figured out life yet?

Don't wory... time only seems to speed up thhe older you get.

At 25 your are still trying to support yourself... substance comes later when you have the basics for life secured.

Contentment is subjective. Its learning to be happy with what you have the ability to afford or achieve.

If you are 4'11" you should be happy not becoming an NBA sports legend for example.

I asked myself all this when I was about 21, because I had dropped out of college and it was more and more clear to me that I wasn't going back, and wasn't going to be a doctor or scientist. I was miserable. I had let down my parents. I didn't know what I wanted for myself. I too looked at other people and wondered what drove them, and if they were happy.
For the next 15 years I either joked about it or worked it into a philosophy of sorts, living as meagerly as possible for the good of the earth. Nothing has changed since then except for ever decreasing angst. I don't think 'happiness' is all it's cracked up to be, nor is career success. Peace is more like it. We are born and we will die. A very few of us stay on in the history books or the arts. More of us do significant deeds while alive. Even more do little things that changes things in some way. Then we are just gone, big deal. We stay on (if that matters) by virtue of having been part of it all.
The Dalai Lama has been in exile all these years, yet keeps his sense of humor and tenderness. That's what I want to keep in mind.