What I want in this life but it feels unachievable

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I want a loving girlfriend who could possibly become my wife who shares interests with me (Doesn’t have to be everything, just some.) and we can experience fun things together.

I want a solid friendship network that doesn’t shrink.

I want to live a life according to my values, not my parent’s “If you aren’t killing yourself and not making tons of money, you aren’t really working.” outlook.

I want to be able to channel creativity whenever I need it instead of it getting blocked.

I want to get out of my older brother’s shadow and be recognized for myself.

But life has denied me these things and continues to do so. I wish I knew if it’s still possible to achieve these things or if I am permanently broken?

Based on my own life experience, the only way I know of to answer that question is to keep living life day to day and keep finding out what result your efforts give you as you go.


And thanks to effects of a constellation of neurological, endocrine, mitochondrial, and musculoskeletal, diseases, oh man do I feel that one!
Maybe not in the exact same way as your experience of that thing.
But, yes, I do get the concept.
I don't have a fix for it.
There may not even BE a fix for it, given the diseases involved remain incurable at this date.
Even so, I do what I can when I can.

Why do you want all that? If the answer is happiness, you are getting it all wrong.

Happiness is ability to experience positive emotions and enjoy life. Girlfriend can't make you happy. On the opposite, if you are happy, your happiness will attract a woman, you will be able to share your happiness and enjoy relationship.

To achieve and, more importantly, enjoy those things you need to be happy from inside. Not in some esoteric way, but mostly in physiological.

I'll sound like a broken record, but again: physical activity, fresh air, direct sunlight, healthy diet, are not just desirable, but a must to achieve internal happiness.

To my mind, happiness is the stage where you're willing to try new things, and it doesn't matter whether they end up being good or bad. It's having that confidence to just try stuff, knowing you'll handle the outcome regardless, and you'll have learned something in doing so. Even if it's only, "Never do that again" lol

Yes, but fundamentally it is still ability to experience positive emotions. Willingness to try new things is part of our brain's reward system, motivation is result of positive emotions - anticipation, desire, basically function of dopamine.

That's 50% of it.

The other 50% is being able to risk a bad outcome and not mind if it does turn out bad. The confidence to experiment, and to screw things up sometimes, without caring too much. That doesn't have a direct dopamine reward.

Being able to encounter negative experiences and NOT take them to heart is just as important as being able to milk positive encounters for all they're worth. Sometimes the absence of things like cortisol and adrenaline is just as important.

It's a mental overs and unders account, both sides are important in the long run.

Motivation to take risks in pursuit of even slim chance of positive outcome is still 100% reward system. Being able to encounter negative experiences and NOT take them to heart depends on ability to experience positive emotions in context of those negative experiences. Fundamentally our positive/negative mindset works as chemically transmitted signals in neural network.

Why wouldn't you want that? Those all seem like pretty reasonable desires from a human life to me.

It's difficult, sure, but best I can offer is kitesandtrainsandcats' advice:

Because people don't realize these things are not truly end in itself, they don't make you happy. To achieve and enjoy those things you must be happy from inside first.

That's quite a lot to wish from life. Most people, me included, haven't been able to achieve more than parts of our wishes. Much of it has to be given up too. You can't have everything you wish for, even though you try your hardest.

Life's default mode is to give you nothing for free (at least in adulthood). Putting all your effort into a goal and persisting on that road is one good way to a better life, imo. In any case, happiness is hard work, but if you take responsibility of your own happiness your chances of achieving it are much higher.