Ok now this is something I can relate too because I am literally going through the starting over phase right now. My reason? like many other people in this thread was heartbreak. I don't want to give her too much credit because in reality the ingredients were already in the pot she just lit the stove. I was living in NYC for my entire life and fell into a depressing loneliness for over a year after we broke up. I still dated while in the state and met another beautiful woman I fell for but that fell apart. I became untethered from realities and never really hurt anyone but I was about to seriously hurt myself. My best friend growing up died of a heroin overdose a couple weeks ago (another died while we were dating) and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. So I threw away about 80% of my belongings (the things you own end up owning you) packed a single bag and bought a 1 way ticket to Hawaii. I left everything behind, friends and family all who love me very much. They knew me well enough to know that this was exactly what I needed. I had lost touch with my universal truth, I had no self value, no self love. Fuck I was smoking 2 packs a day in Manhattan, that's at least $25/day addiction. Right now I'm just trying to pick up the pieces, getting lost on beaches, and hikes. Balancing on the wire of viewing my life from an objective serenity. I've decided to be alone for awhile and truly become comfortable and happy with myself. I already cut down on smoking to about 1-2 cigarettes a day. I now know that I got too much validation from whether or not I can make a woman happy. Every girl I had ever dated was happy while we were together but it always all fell apart due to my complacency or defense mechanisms. Truth is you can do whatever you want to a woman except bore them. I had a knack for getting boring or indifferent towards their feelings. Now I'm just living my life one millisecond at a time without identifying with my past or my future. Just finding value in the only thing we are ever truly given in our lives and that is the exact second we're living in. It also helps that everywhere I look I see something I've never seen before. Between me and the girl that caused my metamorphosis we're actually getting back to being friends. I witness myself getting anxious when we text each other, my heart always ends up racing whenever we communicate. I'll love her until the day I die and she still has so much power over me. I just have to remember to get busy living, because everything I know and love is 5000 miles away from me right now.