I’m really glad you’re taking time to reflect so deeply on this. Your questions strike at the heart of an ongoing struggle between short-term gratification and long-term fulfillment, a tension that anyone navigating existentialism will confront.
Let’s break this down.
When you're asking, why should I care about living authentically if nothing will ultimately matter?, you’re touching on an important truth: on a cosmic level, it doesn’t. The universe truly doesn’t care whether you scroll TikTok or push yourself toward something more meaningful. There’s no cosmic scoreboard, no ultimate judge weighing your actions. This is part of the existential dilemma—it’s on us to decide what matters, and why. If it matters more to you to take the path of least resistance when you'd most prefer not to, you can choose to accept that choice by making it, and then you need to accept who you will ultimately become by making similar choices like that over and over. No one is here to judge you or be OK with who you become, except you.
If you don't think you will be happy or satisfied with who you will become (or who in fact you think you already are), then you again have a chance to choose differently. But I think underlying in your reply to me is a search for some fortress of inspiration or a tank of motivation that you can hide in during the hard times so you can ride through it without the struggle. I won't be able to give that to you and neither will the rest of the universe. You need to create that fortress of resistance to those urges yourself.
If you don't then start coming to terms with who that means you will inevitably become, now.
But here’s the catch to all this: you need to want care about the outcome of those choices. Time will not be on your side indefinitely and the more you repeat choices you'd rather not make, the harder it is to change and the less time you have to do so, because quite frankly, you're that much closer to death.
And I expect you will regret it when you don’t act in alignment with what you seem to know are your true values. That regret, that feeling of dissatisfaction after giving in to the short-term pleasure or lack of will, is telling you something important. It’s a weak signal from your authentic self that the person you want to be, the one out there in the future waiting for you along with that life you want to live, is more deeply tied to the harder path—authenticity and resilience—than to immediate pleasure and relief.
Now, as for why force yourself to build resilience if in the moment the “why” feels less compelling—this is exactly where that callusing of the mind comes in (Goggins). Meaning is rarely about the immediate payoff. You’re absolutely right that in those tough moments, the value you’ve constructed will lose its appeal.
But the point of resilience isn’t really to hold on to a meaning (a "why") that you made for yourself when it was easy-times. Resilience is a reserve of strength that allows you to hold on to that better version of yourself and trusting him and the decisions he made when you least trust yourself. And if you can do that through those dark times, that’s where the real transformation happens and you will have taken a step closer to meeting that better version of you.
About the temptation to give in to immediate pleasure—scrolling TikTok, indulging in something easy and fleeting (video games, eating too much or whatever)—this is where the short-term pleasure vs. long-term fulfillment battle takes place. In the moment, sure, it feels good. You get that dopamine hit, and for a while, everything seems fine. But you’ve already recognized the catch: that momentary satisfaction is hollow and you knew it would be, but you chose not to care. Those choices tell you who you are, every day.
The real you—the version of you that strives for meaning, for authenticity—the one engaging in this reddit thread, the one disappointed in himself, will always feel a sense of loss afterward and perhaps a bit of embarrassment (though that's often suppressed).
So, here’s where it gets important: you need to reconnect with your deeper “why” before you find yourself in those difficult moments. Your mind, like all of ours, will default to the easiest route when stressed or depleted. That’s normal, it’s survival. The work comes in preparing yourself to face those moments, by continually reminding yourself of the reasons why resilience, grit, and authenticity matter to you. Not because the universe cares, but because you care. You prepare by doing small things you don't want to do, consistently and stacking the choices from there. You also know what choices those are, I don't have to tell you, you already know because you've failed in those choice-moments before, you said as much.
You’ve may have heard of the concept of pre-commitment—making a decision when your mind is clear, and setting up structures or habits that help you follow through when things get hard. This is where systems, routines, habits and mindset shifts come into play. If you wait until the moment of decision, when the pull of TikTok or that extra portion of food or the comfort offered to you at the choice-moment of giving up feels overwhelming, it’s already too late. Your mind has an incredible way of rationalizing comfort when under stress.
The key is to pre-commit, to have something stronger in place—and the first few times will suck. Maybe the first 50 times.
And yes, you might feel like you’re constantly in this battle of immediate pleasure vs. long-term fulfillment. That’s okay. That’s part of being human, of living with awareness. There’s no final victory where you’ll never be tempted again, no endpoint where grit becomes easy. Unfortunately, in life the challenges rise with the resilience. Better choices usually lend to more responsibility and that lends itself to greater challenges ... until you die.
What there is, though, is progress—a gradual strengthening of that resilience muscle over time and a better opinion of yourself at 3am when you can't sleep and look in the mirror.
So, when your mind tells you, why bother with the hard path when the universe doesn’t care?—you remind yourself that you are a part of this universe by virtue of your atoms and molecules and YOU care. Therefore a part of the universe cares for you.
The rest of the universe’s indifference isn’t the point; it’s your response to that indifference that matters because you're the one stuck in that meat sack called your body. It’s your conscious choice to live authentically, to resist the pull of momentary pleasure or release because the better version of you already knows it doesn’t align with the person you’re striving to become.
Ultimately, the struggle is the point (Sisyphus). The constant re-choosing of authenticity, even when it's a grind, is where true meaning lies. And yeah, you will stumble, you will give in sometimes—but have the grace to forgive yourself, remind yourself that life is a journey and you're not done yet.
Now, here’s the brutal truth you’re avoiding: no one else is going to save you from yourself. Not me, not some YouTube motivational speech, not even Goggins. You’re sitting here asking for a reason to keep going, a reason to push through when it’s hard but there’s no outside savior coming, no magical moment of enlightenment where everything suddenly makes sense and gets easier.
And I won’t lie to you: that’s a heavy burden to carry. But no one else can carry yours, we each have our own. If you decide to take that easier path, and waste your time here, then a fair and valid choice—but the person you’ll be left with, at the end of it all, will be someone you no longer recognize and may even hate or worse, will no longer care for.
And when you face that person, it’s not the universe you’ll hate—it’s yourself, which is your own little piece of the universe.
As you live your life every day, learn what you can and figure out who you want to be. That may change as you age and you have to let it and follow where those choices lead: likely to your first, best destiny. And then, every single day, make the choice that future person would make—today. Especially when it’s hard, when it sucks, and most of all—when it feels like it doesn’t matter.
So, after the philosophy, the Goggins books, the motivational YouTube videos and reddit posts like these, find yourself through your choices. You'll see them every day in the mirror, or not. You still get to decide.
Oh . . . and you’re running out of time.
[Note: This was a lengthy response to a question from this thread.]