Anyone else frequently feeling useless or insignificant?

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Does anyone else often feel worthless? I've been contemplating my life a lot lately, and I've come to the conclusion that I am completely useless.

I cannot think of a single person, aside from my parents, whose life would be drastically altered had I not been born. Even my parents would have been better off without me. They say they "love" me, but they also say that I am difficult and, at times, hard to live with. I have made my mother cry a lot, never intentionally. As for my "friends," I never really "hang out" with them outside of school (or even in school, for that matter) and I don't know why they bother keeping me around at all because I never contribute much to the atmosphere. Besides, they never call me or ask me to "hang out" with them. Not that I'd want to, anyway. I would probably get bored. Yet it would still be nice to know that someone cares enough to talk to me, even if I don't really want to have a long conversation. I've never had a boyfriend and I don't think I could ever have a good relationship anyway, because I don't reach out much and I'm afraid of emotional proximity. I'm afraid of my own emotions as well as the emotions of other people.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be the "special" one, the "important" one. To put it bluntly, I want to "outshine" others and be "better" than them. However, I have no talents whatsoever. I can't run fast or hold my breath underwater for a long time (in fact, I HATE putting my face under water at all). My artwork looks too forced, and I'm not very creative. I am a mediocre singer because I have difficulty controlling my voice. I have good comprehension for numbers, but I scored quite low on the math section of the SAT. I could sit here for hours and list the things I cannot do, but of course no one would want to read something that long.

To make a long story short, I feel as though I fail at life. I'm not important to the people in my life, and I'll never be important to the world. It's like I was born just to make other people feel better about themselves. No one would be affected if I was suddenly wiped out of existence, and I'll never do anything useful with my life. Does anyone else feel like that a lot?

I also have recently been contemplating my life, and I see myself as a "successful failure". Nothing I have have ever done or tried has ever really turned out well, but I still "succeed" in giving it all my best shot.

Yes, our parents have cried over our lives, but at least sometimes they were crying with us ... and yes, some of our "friends" contribute more to our lives than we contribute to theirs, but at least we give them opportunities to do so ... and like you, I am neither athletic nor "creative", and only my grandchildren like to hear me sing.

One thing I have learned, however, is to be very careful about what we mean by "fail at life". I might never do anything all that great or seemingly "useful", but I stay away from making that judgement of myself and just keep doing whatever is in front of me.

Yes, I can relate. Most importantly, I'm useless to myself. I can't do anything that matters to me. I can do things for others, but that doesn't matter that much to me (except my husband. He matters and I do things for him.) I wake up every day feeling lost in life. And I'm almost 50, so that is pretty bad.

Wow, me too.
There are people in my life that constantly remind that I am worth something to someone.
I have, pretty much, only one close friend and until I started college we didn't talk much. Now we both agree college is WAY over-rated.
I have never had a close guy friend, therefore never a boyfriend and yes, I have wished I could have someone like that who would just hold me and say you aren't useless.
I can't sing, draw, or do anything special, so life's boring to me.

Yeah, I feel useless sometimes and like I haven't lived up to my potential. You just have to keep trying. My sister looks like a model, is self taught at playing the piano, the flute, violin, harp and can even sing a little. I can sing a little, but it doesn't do any good other than entertaining myself. My strengths have become more clear to me as time moves on because I have learned that I have pretty good instincts. It's not much, but it's something, and hopefully one day I will be able to put it to good use. But yes, I have always envied the artists and the people who are book smart. I used to think my life was a mistake, but now that I'm older, I see that I do have a purpose. On my bad days I do feel useless sometimes, but you just have to learn to ignore that voice and focus on your strengths, as trite as that may sound.

I might make the secular people angry with this, but there is a belief that when we die and get to heaven we will look back on our lives and see that there were no accidents. In a sense, that is true for our earthly life. As they say: Hindsite is 20/20.....

i can relate.

All the time. Most of the time I just feel like a burden on people.

Before these last few weeks, I did feel like a burden. I felt useless, pathetic and a boil on the ass of society.

But I found something that has given me hope, something that really calls to me.

All you have to do is find your calling. Mine is the Defense Force.

We all have a reason in life, a calling. Even if you don't think so, the sheer fact you exist proves you have a purpose.

For that which does not have a purpose, does not exist.

I feel like that a lot too. Recently I have realized how little my life matters, how I'm never going to matter to anyone, either by contributing to humanity or by being a good companion. Everyone else seems to be able to do at least one of those. Right now, people only value me as a source of money, and I hate it. Every time they try to associate with me, it's because they want to make money off of me, or they want me to give them money. I wish someone would ask me to program their computer for once. It would make me feel so much better about myself, and it would mean someone was actually valuing me for my good qualities, not just because I'm a schmuck.

I feel the same way you do, FallingStar.