Human Beings Are Complicated. I Am Not.

"What do you want?" This is a question that, apparently, causes a lot of people serious confusion. From experience, this causes people to collapse into a ball of existential angst while doubting everything about themselves. Seriously, guys, calm down.
I don't stress about this kind of question because the long-term is made up of lots and lots of little short-terms. I know that seems like an obvious statement, but it seems lost on people who stress about the future. The kind of person who conflates any small issue into something large and uncontrollable. Here is a particularly personal example.
"I don't know what I want to do in life." This is a big thing to say. It implies such a void of meaning. My current theory on this is that if you break it into smaller questions, you can arrive at a solution. For example, here is how I left the useful and lucrative degree of mining engineering to become the most pretentious hobo in the alley with my communications degree;
a) I hate engineering. I'm gonna stop attending classes.
b) Shit, I failed everything and spent all my savings on liquor. Best I stay marginally employed for 6 months and spiral into shiftless depression.
c) It's impossible for me to find proper employment without a degree, but I won't make the engineering mistake twice. I'll do a degree in something I enjoy.
d) What do I enjoy? Well, it's writing and playing music, writing my opinion, writing shorter pieces in general and being the centre of attention.
e) I don't want to get a music degree, I'd much prefer just doing my own thing. There is no "being an attention grabbing wanker" degree, so I guess that leaves writing.
f) Journalism is punchy, short form writing, it's a job at the end of the degree, it opens a lot of doors for different styles of writing... sold.
And that's how I went from a useless engineering student to a pretty fuckin' awesome journalism student. If you don't tell the middle bits, it sounds like a huge arbitrary leap. In reality, it was a series of logical decisions based on my station in life at the time.
I tend to take this piecewise view on basically everything in life, and for the most part, it kinda works. I mean, reality is complicated enough, right? Why make it worse? It does make human relationships strange for me, because I view them as problems to solve... not to say I lack empathy, I guess I'm just a people-pleaser. But that's my advice; life is made up of a lot of short term events, so attack them one by one and take it a day at a time. And drink lots so you can't remember if you messed up, that's important too.