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

There are far too many positive comments about psychologists here.

39 here. Been seeing psychologists since I’m 23. Moved to Australia, came back, created a company, successful, donated thousands to charities even before creating my company. But am I any happy? No.

Got fatter around 35, dropped sports, and Covid was the end of it, it’s like a billion people willing to ruin the lives of people who already struggle socializing and have suicidal ideation, by shunning them down home.

Went to HP. Did a few, ahem, crimes. Quite a few. Yes, it was revenge, for my sisters who are voting for all the laws against people who succeed financially, and against people who struggle socially. They call them “being social” but it’s only being social for people they choose. As a man I love giving, and hearing that male white men should be shunned from the economy and from families, it’s the most blocker of my life. There’s no way around it, feminists win every time, the only thing men have is they work a lot and offset the feminist game, until my company will be taken over and will serve “a social purpose”.

I’m a bit back on my feet, I moved again, still have no steady friends but at least I have good employees and the startup is thrilling.

Psychologists aren’t the panacea. It’s worth trying but they don’t do magic. Sometimes the world is fucked up and you just need to pull through it. 90% of life is putting one foot ahead of the other, and some people have it worse than you.

I wouldn’t say 43 isn’t the end of it, but for the time I’ve been seeing psychologists and opening up and taking about my feelings, well they still didn’t give me the thing I needed the most since I was 15, an appropriate level of success with girls.

So instead of giving, I’m taking back now. It’s no good, but it levels the unfairness.

> Life has no 'given' meaning

Careful [0].

The conclusion that life is meaningless as such is what follows from materialism by necessity. What is often unappreciated is that bad metaphysics leads to bad ideas, in this case that life is meaningless. And why is materialism at fault? Because it denies telos. Without telos, life is, indeed and quite literally, meaningless. But why should that trouble us if we, the world, all of it, were as the materialists say it is? Needs don't exist in a materialist universe because need implies telos (a need is always for the sake of something), and we suffer when needs aren't met, so where is this suffering about there not being any meaning in the first place coming from? So clearly, telos is real and materialism is, for this and other reasons, wrong. Otherwise, it makes no difference how you live, or even whether you live or die. Why should it bother you? It's all meaningless!

Another source of "meaninglessness" is moral in nature, specifically, that somewhere in our lives we pridefully rejected meaning because it opposed something illicit we wanted to do. Telos is the basis of morality, after all. This is something Aldous Huxley has written about. To quote him[1]:

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.”

Now, this sort of stuff about "consciousness" is like an existentialist opiate that temporarily soothes the pain of half-baked nihilism, but it is fragile b/c it is incoherent. Everything is meaningless, but I can invent meaning ex nihilo b/c "consciousness"? It sounds like we've quietly retreated from materialism into some kind of strange dualism where everything is meaningless but somehow "consciousness" is now pregnant with meaning. This may be the cunning of reason, leading us back slowly to the telos of human nature through a series of metaphysical halfway houses.

That's the theory. Practically speaking, people say one thing, but implicitly mean something else (materialists don't believe materialism with any real integrity because it is impossible). So when you say that "consciousness" gives meaning, you may in practice simply mean "This is the meaning I perceive" which may very well be the objective meaning. Or, it could be a way of maintaining one's refusal to conform to objective meaning and therefore objective moral duties by retreating into the virtual reality of subjectivism (this never ends well).

> happiness is one of the things that gives meaning to human life.

This is exactly backwards. Happiness is the result of satisfying the end(s) of human nature. Happiness is teleological and therefore presupposes meaning, not the other way around.

Of course, we are not guaranteed complete happiness in this life, but Kant, in a stoically severe bit of insight, said we nonetheless ought to strive to be deserving of happiness. This is the life of virtue.

[0] https://thomism.wordpress.com/2022/12/07/meaning-simpliciter...

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/465563-i-had-motives-for-no...

There are many things that you can do. The threads cover most of them. However, I do have to emphasise that you can't do this alone. The cartoon idea of a long warrior going out on his own and building his empire is not realistic. You need a network of people with a good intersection of interests and ambitions (e.g. male, profession, interests, cultural/religious backgrounds etc.). There are ways to develop this. Finding small groups in your neighbourhood etc. are options.

I think for me, the hardest part is reconciling two things: 1) maybe being _too content_ or satisfied with life's mundanity — the idea of being settled down and spending most of my free time at home with my dog, playing video games, reading news, watching interesting videos, and occasionally reading a good book — with the occasional social gathering with friends, whether that's hosting a small party, or going to a fun local festival or event, and 2) finding a woman who is okay with what could be considered a relatively "boring" lifestyle. Most I end up meeting and dating are stir-crazy, I find later.

I obviously enjoy getting out of the house, but it's seldom. I go on hikes, explore local events a small few times a year, and play in a recreational volleyball league once or twice per year in seasons.

Despite all of this, I once had a woman tell me she "doesn't want to live on the couch" in response to my overall sedentary lifestyle. That's completely valid of her to think that, but I for one don't mind how much time I spend at home engaging with mostly solitary hobbies while I'm not working. I'm also pretty stubborn and unmotivated despite my overall contentment and satisfaction with life.

I want to find a wife who is content with a mostly simple, settled life with a little adventure sprinkled in between, but not so much I start to feel home sick, and it doesn't take much. XD

I had similar dark thoughts as I approached age 40. I had suffered an emotionaly - and financially - draining marriage that cost me seven years, and a house. After retiring from the miltary at 35, I moved back in with my parents. What I thought would be my post-retirement dream job (laser engraving) only lasted a month. The next job (commercial computer technician) while vastly expanding my computer knowledge, only lasted 13 months. I didn't know what to do next.

Due to the security clearance I had in the military, I couldn't seek out mental help without risking the loss of my clearance and special programs access, so instead I would privately write down what I was feeling. This went on for months, then years. I'd go back and read through it, reliving the darkness. Then, one day at my parents' home, I decided it was time to move on from the pain of the past. I took all of those pages of dark thoughts and one-by-one, burned them all. The smoke blackened my face, but when I washed the soot away, I was a new man.

Secure in my third job (K-12 computer tech) I broke out of my shell at age 40, dating women anywhere from 20 years younger to 20 years older. Without expecting it, I connected with a student's mother (that's closer to my age) at the student's graduation party. We got married the following year, bought a house the year after that, and have been together now for 21 years. I'm 62, and loving life.

You can do it, brother. You can get though this. Seek therapy if it's available - or start writing those thoughts down. Then, when you think you've written enough - burn that baggage, and move forward. Good things can come when you least expect it.

PS: I've lurked at Hacker News for years. Your post inspired me to join and reach out to you.