34 and bored out of my mind with life.

I am a few years older than you (but still in my 30s) but struggle with the same issues.

I wish I had a solution but it does feel like the soul has been sucked from everything.

The internet used to be a place you could escape to back before 2008 I'd say but now it's Web 2.0 and corporate controlled so trying to find a healthy discussion on things is impossible.

Just Say No to Satan and Sloth.

I would suggest reading the following books to realign your priorities:

You're dead wrong.

Delete social media and go outside. You will immediately love live 10x more. Trust me

You seem very negative and too focused on the internet/media as a solution to your boredom/loneliness. Yet you have a great running background. Why not get into something a bit different, like trail running? You live in the UK, so sign up for some races in Switzerland, Norway, places like that. Also, try to meet a partner. Explore the world.

Where in the UK are you? Why are you there? There are some amazing parts of the country and some terrible ones. Can you have a new start in a new area with a new job and running club?

Facebook and social media - unfollow all the nonsense and leave the ones you want in your feed. There's more choice in tv now than ever before and it can be overwhelming. There's more good stuff than ever out there but the streaming services can make it hard to find. Can you ask friends for recommendations?

Find a wife and have a child. Volunteer. Go to church. Find new hobbies you are interested in doing.

PS - supermarket food is bland and tasteless?

Sorry but that's self-pitying nonsense. It's as bland and tasteless as you make it and, if you're buying ready meals, you deserve it to be bland and tasteless!

Options: 1) Shop in a better supermarket; 2) take the time to cook proper food from recipe books (might alleviate some boredom too); 3) use Hello Fresh a few times, keep the recipe cards and recreate yourself; 4) Shop at farm shops or markets

It feels like you're in a rut. Food is the easiest thing to change.

nihilism is the philosophy du jour of your generation. tho not entirely your fault, the whole world is basically heading toward a socioeconomic collapse (perpetuated by spiritual malaise), so there's plenty of reasons to be in the gutter.

do what I did. spend whole life being told you're super capable and can do whatever you put your mind to. be negative, think miles down the road and quit before you ever start anything because everything is "bs".

cope by being a total wastoid through your 20s after barely graduating from a top college where you went to class almost never and decided to hand in your senior thesis 20 minutes past the deadline.

drift in and out of odd jobs with minimal responsibility, get fired from many, barely scrape by.

then, rediscover a creative outlet. in my case, writing stories, books. self publishing.

you need to do something, create something. because you want to. maybe the money will come with it, but make it something you do for yourself. spirituality and religion can serve this function in some regards as well. for me, if I'm not creating a little something (words/pages in my next fiction novel) every single day, I don't feel satisfied.

We’re living in an unbelievably childish age. I’m all for sentimentality but we’re living in the peak age of ‘twee’. There’s no real weight to life. It’s tedious. Half the country seem to be LARPing for online followers and the other half seem to be nihilistic.

You summed up life very nicely.
At the end it's all about what you make with it.
Learn to cook!
Get out when you can and notice the beauty around you.
There are so many things you could start doing. Pick one or two and start doing them.

Things will change. Guaranteed!

I was there. Twenty years back.

Now I run/hike and hike distances I never thought I'd reach, exploring where I never thought I'd go, have a clean diet, get out to new places where I can see new people, and see new experiences, have picked up interests in nearly every sport, flip cars and trucks for different ones a few times a year, never do anything I don't want to do but do other stuff, look for stuff to resell online at great profit for kicks. do the same with houses, am somewhat OCD about the garage, closets and backyard, I look for new recipes to try and do so, and I read everything I can to learn new stuff constantly.

And smoke weed. Life is what you make it.

I've been struggling with some of this stuff as well. For me, therapy has been very helpful. I had a lot of irrational beliefs and an undiagnosed disorder (OCD) that would have kept me stuck no matter what I did. Not saying that's the case for you, obviously.

Concentrate on just being. Constantly chasing achievements, prestige, social acceptance, and novelty will just delay or distract from the deeper existential issues you're now facing down. One thing that helped me was getting away from musts, have tos, and shoulds when it came to how I approached my life. I do what I WANT to do now which has helped my enjoyment of life immensely.

Good luck.

There sure seem to have been a lot of these kinds of threads recently.

Read the book of Ecclesiastes. Follow the author's search for meaning and satisfaction, see what conclusion he reached, then reach your own.

You sound like a boring person.

You want excitement? Go get laid. Then go meet another partner. Then another. Try juggling 3 women and then you certainly won’t be able to say life lacks excitement. Especially if you knock one (or more) up.

Do all of this without the internet/apps. Life is lived in person. Stop being a boring person and go outside and meet others.

Welcome to life, brother. Enjoy your stay.

Social media is especially worse for those 14-35, as our lives have been based around the Internet for the most part. Envy and comparison was hard even in the '90s BEFORE the internet took off. FB/Instagram/LinkedIn (that's the worst one, IMO, especially with regard to careers) are horrible at times.