You despair at the thought that without a god and/or afterlife, this is a good as it gets. Which sucks, because you are not happy.

To me, not waiting for an afterlife gives me an excuse to take as much pleasure as I can in life now. I am very anhedonic, but there are some things that do bring me pleasure. Chocolate, for example. I will eat as much as I want, whenever I want, if I can afford it and it's fair trade. (I refuse to support slavery!) I don't really want to live a long life, so if I have or get diabetes, oh well. If I am fat, oh well. I do not let those things depress me. I enjoy the chocolate in the moment, and nothing else matters. If I do not gain pleasure in it, I put it away for another day.

I also enjoy helping people. That gives me a feeling that I can relive for a very long time. When I am sitting here feeling absolutely nothing, I can remember the woman I met near the Lincoln Memorial. She was pushing a shopping cart, and her feet were bleeding. She had on tiny pink flip flops with holes in the bottom. I told her I liked her shoes and asked if we could trade. Her feet were the same size as mine (lucky coincidence!), so I had her try on my shoes. She wanted to keep her own shoes, so I just gave her mine and walked away. Much like a serial killer's trophies, that memory floods me with feelings. When I begin to wonder if I am still human, I remember that day. I feel that day. I feel. That day has helped me perhaps a thousand times more than it helped that woman.

One does not need a god to do good works. In the absence of a god, good works became imperative. For your own happiness, good works are excellent medicine. I would argue that waiting for a paradise that even you aren't entirely convinced will come is not good medicine.