Life is not perfect. Establish realistic goals, and attempt to achieve them. Once you achieve small goals, make bigger goals and try to attain them. Love and respect yourself than indulging in anger and self-hatred.

Do you have physiological health problems that prevent you from working towards your goals? If so, find a doctor to treat your illnesses.

Sometimes, the inability to compete with others make you depressed. If this is your problem, work towards your goals for your own satisfaction than competing with others. What matters is how you feel about your own achievement. Contentment is the key to happiness, but this does not mean that you give up on trying to improve yourself. Worthlessness is when you have potential to achieve better, but don't have the courage to overcome your fear of unworthiness.

Perhaps our friends on the forum have other ideas to help you. Best wishes, Marie

Ok, midnight, I think I’m in the same boat with you. That’s pretty much how I’ve been feeling. My family and friends say, just start doing your art work, that diet/workout plan you talked about. Do the Mindfulness Stuff your therapist talks about. I’ve been trying, but I still feel like a slug and don’t stick with it. Which then starts the cycle of gloom and doom all over again. I think I need a life coach. Someone that can help encourage me to stay on track and not give in to the “dark side”. Self talk. Yes we all know, that negative self talk will only bring you down and leave you there. And positive self talk will help lift you up and help guide you to better places within yourself. It’s a bummer I struggle so hard with the positive self talk.
I’m sorry I have no words of wisdom, to help. Try to find at least one good thing a day that makes you happy. And relish it for as long as you can. My happy is usually having a pint of ice cream I front of the tv. But now I’m busting out at the seams, so I’ll have to look for something new. I wish you all the best. You are a good person. You made it here.

I can relate to most of your situation. I've spent my career doing research; a lot of which has not led anywhere. Not all of us are going to make some great discovery or win recognition awards. Actually you would be surprised how much research just gets filed away and forgotten, or maybe just referenced a few times. Now let me ask you a tough question. Is it possible that you are afraid of failing so you don't try? Something to think about. At any rate, your profile says you are only 32. You have plenty of time to decide on some goals and achieve some great thing. But you will also need to figure out why you're not already doing that.

Midnight, I got some sleep last night. So my mind is clearer today. I know that feeling of knowing you have a lot to offer the world, but not doing anything about it. Wishing that you could have or should have done something worthwhile enough to make a difference, or for someone or ones, to take notice and appreciate what you are offering. I’m a self taught sculptress. I did the craft fair thing in the 80’s, was told how wonderful I was and how far my talents will take me. Well that didn’t happen. My “regular” life took a different direction than I expected and my sculpting took a back seat. I dabbled at it over the years, but to me it was nothing to “wow” about. So here I was with this amazing God given talent, that I let fall through the cracks. So I firmly believed. Several years ago, when these feelings reamerged, and I told an acquaintance of mine about them, she said you don’t have to do any “wowing” to accomplish anything. She reminded me of all the happy faces, and compliments people had given me, after seeing and sometimes buying my artwork. I accomplished a lot in their eyes. I was able to create something that they liked, something they couldn’t do for themselves. Talking and sharing my ideas with other blooming sculptors, was an accomplishment in being able to teach someone something. A “wow” for them. I had to relearn and figure out just what my idea of accomplishment was. Was I expecting to much of myself, or was I just not ready in life to start wowing the world yet? and hey I’m not dead yet, there’s still plenty of time. I may not have made one big Wow, but I think I made quite a few little ones. This can hold true for any talent. Like in the world of plants, Some are early bloomers, some are late bloomers. And some are good whether they bloom or not. I’m sure if you think on it, you will see that you have accomplished more than you think you have. And don’t worry about the “time” thing. It’s never to late for anything, till your dead. I wish you all the best. and try not to be to hard on yourself.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way! I can completely relate, and it's been a life-long struggle for me. I feel like I'm wasting the talents I have with this dependable yet unfulfilling job I have. I should be writing novels, drawing/painting, making music, working with animals. But nope. Just barely living and thinking it's ok because it's dependable and easier than putting myself out there due to fear of failure. Many of the posts above have some great advice that I'll try out for myself as well. And remember - you are NOT worthless! I think we've all felt this way at times, but we are all beautiful and important and valuable in our own way. Like Andromeda8 said, it takes courage to overcome our fears, which is something I really need to work on, too. Thank you for having the courage to write about this here.