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

I don't post here much because I tend to hate the comments. When someone has shared a blog where I referenced mental health once, I was called out for it as "one of those people" and that's messed up.

Yes, tons of people go through this feeling and you never know because they don't talk about it.

In addition to info above - I'd share the following. You don't need these things to be better, necessarily, and anxiety will create traps to overemphasize the feelings of importance you have (and frequency) about certain thoughts. Comparison is also a source of dissatisfaction.

I would recommend talking with someone who can explain the traps of magical thinking and explain some resiliency techniques, as well as researching this on your own (i.e. CBT) but also looking pretty seriously into mindfulness and some of the core concepts that got built up around Buddhism.

People think of it as a religion but it's basically 2000 years of practice built up around mental health and understanding why people are unhappy and how to change that, and it solves it just by changing perspectives about thinking. Ignore the religious parts and it's still just as solid. Once you start to experience greater space between thoughts and understand some of the concepts about attachment to ideas and wants, and can minimize the concepts of "self", you can have a completely new perspective.

Anxiety will create a way to show you that you need things and you can't get to the things you have, and you don't really need those things (you can still get them) and the stories aren't necessarily true.

One of the dangers of programming is it teaches you to predict failure/disaster, and I think some of this thinking is an occupational hazard (running startups more so!) where you think you can anticipate how the future will work out and try to prevent "outages" of sorts, and this is something you have to avoid.

We tend to value thinking and the idea that thinking solves all of our problems, but the foreground thinking we do is not the most accurate and best parts of our minds, and takes us out from observing the things around us.

Finally, depression is technically a disease that has a bit of a feedback loop in it. It's difficult to reason in that situation. Don't make yourself try and don't worry about having timetables.

I also recommend the exercise suggestion and having some easy regular things to look forward to, even if it's just a couple of classes at the gym. Even that kind of socialization is often enough.

On the entrepreneurship question, I didn't have those skills either and still did ok -- that's just you probably wanting to be authentic and not fake. But making it isn't all you think either. Lots of people with a lot of wealth and success can still be unhappy, people with wives and kids can still be depressed.

Hence I think really diving into the mindfulness aspects and trusting in neuroplasticity is transformative - things can get better, even if they only get 1% better every day along some sort of Xeno's paradox curve, they are still getting better.

Even some basic supplement changes can make a big difference - vitamin D, adoptogens, etc. Rather than treating it like an experiment where you want to find one solution, it's reasonable to try a lot of things to make changes at once.

Another analog is burnout is kind of a form of brain damage (that can manifest about worrying about other things) - it takes a long time to recover from, so give yourself some credit and empathesize with having whatever issues, but realize they are also not "you".

Have you considered looking into a career in CAD support? I was a manager of a CAD support team for a while- my team was cohesive and did a variety of different things and made connections/were close to their customers. A blend of ME/IT is perfect for it. Look into moving to Poland and maybe Canada as well, a lot of EU companies seem to be outsourcing to Poland and Canada seems to be increasing their immigration quotas

100% second that.

Psychiatrists are real doctors with scientific, comprehensive, rigid education in STEM.

Last thing you want is a pseudo PhD from Berkeley who majored in psychology and studied "human rights" as her thesis.

So sorry I replied to the wrong thread. I left another comment on your here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34053767

Recognizing there is an issue to address is the half-way point. You are half-way to where you want to be. Celebrate that fact. Few people get that far.

I think the problem you are having is related how you perceive yourself - your positive self-image has been destroyed and replaced with a negative self-image. Please read Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. It is a fundamental life-changer that posits our actions and thoughts are a result of how we perceive ourselves, and that this perception is the result of our upbringing and experiences. This isn't just a self-help book. It is the grand-daddy of all books ever written that attempt to build a construct around the most complicated thing in the universe. I'd go so far as to say that book is the foundation for two generations of therapists and self-help personalities. I'm over-simplifying it, of course. Read it. If does nothing else for you, the epiphanies it creates will be satisfying and give you a much-needed perspective, for it seems obvious to me that your problem is mostly related to your mindset.

It is never too late to achieve any goal or dream so long as you are still willing to chase them. Many people don't start a family until they are in their 40s. Some of the most successful businesses were started later in life. Some people don't find happiness (true happiness) until their 60's. This is life. Its different for everyone and there is barely any reason to it so don't try to understand or deconstruct it. Know thyself and nothing more.

I was foolishly trying to find happiness in work or in the many companies I started; even if some were successful, it was all empty until I became aware of meaningless things. I didn't start a family until 38 and didn't find true happiness and real purpose until the moment my first child was born. In my view, this is the meaning of life. If humanity exists for a singular purpose, it is to have children. That doesn't mean you have no purpose if you, by choice or circumstance, have no children. Many people find purpose outside of our natural purpose.

Absent of that experience, the focus should be self-improvement in the areas of mind, body and soul. Improve yourself and others will gravitate to you. Inside of all of us there is a light. Let your light shine. Your light unconsciously gives other people permission to shine.

Ideas for entrepreneurial projects do not come from within. They come from outside and concern themselves with the needs, desires, and pains of others. If you try to sit around and think of them, you will not discover them. You need to look outside of the box, start with a customer in mind and work your way backwards through who they are, what they struggle with, and what they say to themselves about it (internal dialogue - the key to most any business is to get in between the conversation that takes place inside of the customer's head.)

Lastly, if you ever wanted to just talk, I'm a great listener. Good luck to you.