Perhaps this isn't the best place to do this, but considering how useless the various counselors and therapists I've had over the years were, Reddit probably isn't any better or any worse than asking anyone else.

A few things you should know about me. I'm 31 years old and I was diagnosed with autism. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it likely aids in my discomfort around people and lack of ability to really understand why people do the things they do. Naturally, I'm an introvert. I've never been able to keep a normal job very long, so I make a living through streaming and youtube videos.

My problem is simple - I don't know what I want.I don't know what I want out of life. I don't know what will give me meaning or happiness, or if I have ever really felt meaning or happiness. While it seems most people have some kind of hobby or interest or some goal, I have nothing and have really never had anything like that. Nothing seems to have a particularly long-lived interest in my mind. My interest tends to jump around between art, making youtube videos, practicing for competitive games, writing, creating video games, studying psychology, and various other things. Yet, I never stick with any single interest for very long, usually not longer than about a month.

This means that I'm not particularly good at anything. Although I have ideas for various creative endeavors, I don't have the ability to make them happen. For example, I want to write a novel, but I quickly lose interest in whatever I'm writing before I even have the complete structure planned. I want to be better at art, but I'll pitter out halfway through an art class/program and simply not draw for months at a time.

More and more often I have no interest in anything. It becomes a chore to even play a video game. It becomes a chore even to watch a youtube video. I have tried likely a dozen various medications for depression and anxiety and most of them have absolutely no effect on me. I don't think it is a chemical imbalance, but rather a pattern of thought that can't be fixed by medication.

In the back of my mind, there is this voice that tells me that I must be good at something and that I must create something for the human race. It could be some great work of art, or a novel, or comedy videos. I feel capable of doing these things but also incapable at the same time. Like I have the potential to do them, but not the skill. Gaining the skill requires substantial effort and I must be absolutely sure that I'm putting that effort into something that I actually want. But, as I said, I don't know what I want. I don't know what specific thing I'm interested in enough to actually put in the effort to become good at.

How do you know you want something? How do you know if it is worth it to put the extreme amount of effort required into gaining something? Should putting effort into something cause extreme misery and fatigue? How much misery should you feel before it is time to give up on a goal?

I remember being a teenager and thinking about this same problem. Wondering what it is I wanted to do when I grew up and never being able to figure it out, even though everyone around me seemed to have life goals that they were sure they wanted. And now I'm nearly 32 and nothing has changed. I've become aware that if this continues, my entire life will pass by and I'll have accomplished nothing.