Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

My life turned at 26 when I developed schizophrenia. I was a startup enterpreneur and now doing open-source lol

You can find therapist from other countries if you are comfortable speaking with them in english through video call. It may not provide the same experience but it might be better than the alternative which is no help.

I would check out eastern europe or Asia. They will cost around $15-25/hour.

I recently watched a YouTube video in which Joe Buissink was interviewed. Joe BEGAN photography at 43 and became one of the most sought after wedding photographers on the west coast, charging up to $50,000 per wedding. I've loved photography for more than 20 years and even did some low-end wedding and portrait work over 10 years ago but was thinking that I was merely a mediocre photographer who wouldn't ever improve my skills to the point of being truly in demand until I watched that video. If you want to do something, DO IT. If you're not good at it today, PRACTICE. The only thing that can prevent you from improving and achieving is deciding you aren't going to try.

A good therapist will change your life. They will show you how your thinking effects your life and outcomes. You are holding yourself back. Go get some help, seek professional help, not comradeship on the internet.

You still have like 40 years of being awesome, it only takes 1 to turn it all around.

Hey man,

I am 40 and have a house and kids. I used to get shockingly depressed. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy got me out of it.

I have since made and lost and made millions. I don’t feel any happier than I was when I was making millions. There were days when I would look in my account and see $50K increase.

The stock market is an illusion it was all just fake. Everyone is in your position post 40 in tech. No one is getting rich right now. Just look around. Everyone is going through it.

It isn’t a realistic mindset to think there is something specifically wrong with you. It’s everywhere.

In this market you should be looking ahead to where you want to be when the market improves: that means surviving the next two years with a hell of a lot new skills, better health and most importantly better skills at controlling your brain and attitude.

You and I are too old to be negative. No one in any position of responsibility can afford the luxury of waking up every day and just picking whatever random attitude they feel like having. That is a teenager or a child behavior.

If you have responsibilities, which we do as adults. To ourselves and our community and our family and our society we can only afford to choose optimism.

Even if it hurts. Even if you have to look at it sideways and squint. Even if you have to grit your teeth.

If you have responsibility, you have to learn to put on blinders and view the attitude you choose every morning as being like a game cartridge you load in a game console.

Read about CBT, read the power of positive thinking, how to lose at everything and still win big, everything by earl nightingale.

The old advice for Men from the 1950s is the best advice.

The world is a mirror. It will show you whatever you are projecting internally.

I strongly recommend investing in nutritional experimentation. My personal finding is that multi minerals, flax and sufficient protein make a lot of despair go away.

You need to choose a frame for yourself. I’m having to process this myself.

My friends who all worked in big tech, realized at 40 that it never ends. It’s just awful politics and never getting to do what they want so they all quit and became entrepreneurs.

My most successful friend is almost 60. He told me everyone goes through it.

From My perspective, I realized based on listening to him that the worries never end. You will feel like this from 40 until you die. That’s a long time.

The solution is all mental.