Feel Stagnated in Life at 25. How to Move Ahead?
Hey everyone,
I’m a 25-year-old guy and lately, I’ve been feeling stuck in life — like I’m just moving through the motions without much direction or excitement. I wanted to share a bit of my background and see if others have felt the same or found a way out of this phase.
I had a poor academic record in school but turned things around in college — graduated with a great record (but from a tier-3 engineering college).
I’ve been working in a well-paying, remote job for the last 2 years. It’s stable and I kinda like what I do, but for the past 1.5 years, life has felt stagnant.
The routine is repetitive — log in, work the whole day, log out, and repeat. The work stretches out so much that I’m left with no energy for hobbies, learning, or anything else after.
Weekends usually go in errands or catching up on leftover work, so there’s no real reset either.
I’ve tried various things: gym, cycling, even learning a musical instrument. But all of them faded out after a few months, mostly due to exhaustion from work.
I’ve travelled, done treks, tried breaking the routine — they helped temporarily, but the feeling returns.
I’ve thought of switching jobs, moving abroad for a master’s, etc., but either they didn’t make sense or I couldn’t follow through.
I have a small group of college friends and no romantic relationship. Socially too, it feels like I’m in a bubble.
I know I have a lot to be grateful for, especially the job. But I’m really struggling to figure out what’s next. The worst part is that even when I try to change or start something new, I don’t follow through. It’s like life is happening to me, and I’m not really in control anymore.
Has anyone else felt this way? What helped you break this phase?
Would really appreciate any advice or even just knowing I’m not the only one.
TL;DR: 25M, decent job and life on paper, but been feeling mentally stuck and hollow for over a year. Tried hobbies, travel, job switch ideas — nothing sticks due to work and low energy. Struggling to find purpose or motivation beyond the daily grind. Looking for advice or similar experiences.
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Check your vitamin levels - B12, especially. Or start taking multivitamins and see if it makes any difference to your mood.
On the other stuff, the most rewarding things in life come out of a boring routine. Try to include some form of physical activity with your routine and follow through, no matter what.
Hi does this taking tabs have any side effects and is this any cause for mood swings and feeling drained out can you please let me know because I have not taken any supplement before and have stopped taking non veg for few years now if you could help it would be great sir
Marry a housewife as you have never been in relationship. Even if you find a girl in future for marriage, you would be sad as a working girl will make your life hell. So Marry a housewife and have a good romantic relationship
Na umra ki seema ho. Na janm ka ho bandhan. Jab job karey koi. To dekhe keval dhan.
Nayi reet chalakar tum. Ye reet amar kardo. Mera geet amar kardo. Sangeet amar kardo.
I had a similar issue, 25M good salary, work used to take up most of the day, felt like nothing was moving. Even my friends are not in my hometown anymore.
So i tried joining different clubs, then going out with people from my gym, etc. Still I felt stuck all the time.
Then I realised only a goal and a purpose can solve things for me. So i stopped complaining and decided i want to speak at conferences, get into companies where only few gets into. Goals that are difficult to achieve and goals that keep me awake.
For the energy part I would recommend get blood work done, get on some good supplements, you will have ample energy
Then only think of getting the goals, nothing else matters.
Men are hard wired like this. Once you understand your nature everything falls into place.
You give a man a goal, something he feels he can conquer.
Same experience dude (apart from my pay, which is peanuts), you're definitely not the only one.
Work itself is the problem—eats up the entire day, and is so exhausting that I hardly have energy left to spare for other activities, let alone having fun. I'm desperately looking to switch from my toxic workplace, but haven't received any calls yet. At this point, I feel like even a vacation won't do much good.
It's incredibly frustrating to not be able to break the cycle. This is not even "life revolving around work", it's become "living only to work", no different than slavery.
What will it take for the industry to change? Unfortunately not even Anna Sebastian, or the Ola guy...
We need financial freedom so that we can actually 'live' life
Get married, a life partner, or better half really does changes things around in your life. I was stuck in the same path, but getting married changed my life, for the better. For people bashing marriage online, please take those with pinch of salt or use your judgement. For every failed marriage, there are many successful ones which are not spoken of.
Also, I'm not suggesting that this is the only solution, but one possible option to consider. I know that people will say you're just 25, lot of time to go, etc. Maybe true, but doesn't hurt to start looking.
In case you are not ready for marriage yet, then I do have another suggestion, are you spiritually aligned? If not, you should. Find ways to align your mind - body - soul, I won't go into how it's possible, you can research them. This alignment will certainly help remove any mental blockers and open you up for greater opportunities in life. This is not easy, but it does pay off, worth the effort.
Interesting. Thanks for taking out the time to share your experience in a respectful way (unlike someone else on this thread).
Regarding marriage, I'm not sure how to find 'The One' My life experiences have made me a less spiritual person overall TBH
Hitting Gym, doing Inner Engineering from Isha foundation and embressing spirituality helped me. Came back from near suicidal state!
Yooo bruddah same situation word to word I'm 28 btw, the only thing I have consistent is being at the gym showing up and working out if there's no energy I used pent up anger to make me complete the workout session. Then every evening I walk a little bit like 1-2 km usually around 9-10pm night this helps me disassociate from my professional life. And I have kept a hard stop that post my shift let the whole world come to an end I won't login. Learnt swimming this year, will go for learning some music instrument not for conversation, not for impressing anyone just because I want to.
After couple of rejections on the relationship front, I learnt how to enjoy being alone, one good thing I do is at regular intervals of 3-4 months I decide to randomly go anywhere in India no friends no nothing just go to a random place book a room for a week work from there and repeat the same routine which I do at home.
So far I built resistance to the urge of pursuing any opposite gender I just watch from the sidelines of people running behind these relationships and tripping and rolling aside.