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Superb question!
I’ve written elsewhere in some detail about how humans are designed to handle difficult truths and why they are better served when they do so. Let me explain here briefly the nugget of those intertwined beliefs.
The human brain works best when it is unencumbered. Like a cell phone with too many apps open, if we are trying to direct a through-line series of life decisions (i.e. choosing the next career to try), our ability to do so will be both slowed and frequently interrupted if we don’t close out distractions first. A major distraction for all humans is the belief simmering below our consciousness that we are some or all of the complete list of awful – stupid, childish, boring, cowardly, unlovable and lazy. This shameful inventory will constantly derail us unless we shut it down by girding ourselves with the existential, feminist truth that we are to be admired and supported for how well we have been doing so far in life. Specifically, because the existential given of meaninglessness makes facing the challenge of designing our future so very, very difficult, we are most centered (the majority of our unneeded apps are all closed) when we are proud of ourselves for facing this dilemma.
So, in answer to your very excellent question – what you need to do with the information provided in this article is to use it to undergird your girding process! In other words, use the truths written about here to remind yourself that you are to be congratulated for facing life. Every time you cycle through a self-esteem-inducing process of thought you turn off another shame app. Hopefully, eventually, you will purge them entirely from your system.
In a nutshell, think of this article as a pep talk that is designed to free you from unhelpful naïveté around the interplay between the given of meaninglessness and the fear and trembling we experience when thinking about the future. Having an understanding of that interplay is philosophically sophisticated, so, when you can achieve that, you can be proud of yourself.
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