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

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631–640 of 767 posts

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

#631
1. Exercise daily.

2. Then choose Tony Robbins or David Goggins, and go deep.

I wrote an article, originally written for founders ==> but choosing one of these paths (whichever resonates most with you) will ABSOLUTELY transform your mindset, if you actually commit to it. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-i-start-startup-ask-on...

3. I also recommend a spiritual practice, if that calls to you at all. Most of all, sending you peaceful + warmth ==> hang in there, and you are not alone. Check out "The Untethered Soul" to start.

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

#632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100%. It can help some people, but it's not a panacea. I have known people that went to therapists for years and didn't really make any progress. And some people arguably get worse. For example, what's the benefit of a therapist that gives you the illusion of making progress and you stay in a poor relationship longer than you otherwise would. That actually happened to someone I know. They stayed in a relation…

It's easy to find a therapist. It's much harder to find the right therapist for you.

10000%; I thought therapy was pretty ineffective until I found a therapist that is a good fit, at which point I realized that a lot of therapists are just straight up bad at their jobs.

Therapists that are well matched to their patients are capable of truly incredible stuff.

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

#633
Don't know how accessible or affordable therapy is where you live, but you certainly need someone to talk to.

I had a midlife crisis in my 40's. My career was going nowhere, I was trapped in a job I hated. I felt I was wasting my life.

What kept me going was the sense of obligation I had to others who depend on me. If you have nothing or no one to whom you owe service, then you can change that. Find a partner, or volunteer yourself for charitable work. By helping others, you also help yourself.

I made a point of enjoying the little things in life. Exercise. Walk in the sun. Go fishing. Grow tomatoes. Buy a friend a drink. Whatever, just sneak the little pleasures when you can.

I set some goals. Not boring goals like to make money, goals to achieve something meaningful, that engaged my interests and (modest) abilities.

Things got better. My 50's and 60's were some of the most rewarding years of my life. (I'm 69 now). I achieved some things I'd never thought I could achieve, just by pluggin' away.

Life is hard. John Stuart Mill wrote that most people have a limited capacity for happiness. I think that is true. But the strange thing is that by relieving yourself of the obligation to feel happy, sometimes it happens anyway.

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

#634

Quoted post unavailable.

Terry Crews had a clip where he talks about the exercise habit, and how he (not sure if he did this or suggested this) would go to the gym for the time he allotted for exercise each day, even when he didn’t want to. And if he didn’t want to work out, he’d read a book in the locker room or walk at 1mph. A friend of mine did this, and eventually built an exercise habit out of it because, “why not, I’m already here?”. Obviously if funds or facilities aren’t there you could just change into exercise gear and go to a park to sit. Eventually you’ll move.

So OP, give yourself protected time and protect it.

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

#635
The only thing it’s ever “too late” for that I’m aware of is becoming an elite level professional athlete in some sports, or un-assisted pregnancy & childbirth (note the specificity there). Pretty much anything else is just a matter of deciding to do it. Good luck!

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

#636
Have you considered moving to a big city, even if it’s not in the US, which I know is your preference? It won’t fix all your problems but having more opportunities professionally and romantically might change your outlook somewhat. You’re in the prime years to catch all the people exiting their first marriage, but not if you’re in a town with a dozen people in it.

I also fall into patterns of depression even though I’m married and doing fine professionally. I know someone here said that therapy is a very “American answer” but the fact is that for most of us the depression comes first and the reasons come later. You very well could get everything you want and be worse off because now you have no answer for why you feel the way you do. At least now you have some goals to work towards.

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

#637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THANK YOU I know "see a therapist" is generally meant well, and therapy can definitely help, but people are way too quick to suggest it, and suggest it as a must . It can communicate that a person is broken when their situation can be due to any number of things besides brokenness. I think most people know that therapy is an option, and I think many also underestimate the difficulty in not only finding an adequate th…

Whatever man. Nobody is implying that therapy means you are broken. It’s about growth and self actualization. Lots of people use "therapy" for performance optimization for example: sports psychology.

That's really conflating two distinct things. Therapy is by definition the treatment of a pathology. A particular area of psychology doesn't necessarily have anything to do with pathology or malfunction.

> It’s about growth and self actualization.

I don't think the majority of people seeking therapy are doing so merely because they want to self actualize. Self actualization and growth may be a part of therapy, or be a next step as roadblocks are overcome, but implying that therapy isn't about addressing problems seems naive or disingenuous. Performance optimization really has little to do with what people actually mean when they're suggesting "therapy."

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

#638

You need a partner. I'm only speaking from my own perspective but I used to think I was born to be a loner but having a partner awakens something in you, love basically. It's wonderful and it gives you a will to go on. And I know it's a slog to meet someone, trust me I know. But you just have to do it. You have to make an effort and weed through dozens of weird dates before you meet someone. For me it came completely…

> You have to make an effort and weed through dozens of weird dates before you meet someone. > I had resigned myself to enjoying life, was at a computer festival and suddenly there she was. What you recommend seems to be the opposite of what worked for you.

It has worked though, I had just taken a break from that at the moment.

Out of personal experience here in Sweden I'd say out of 5 women I met on dating sites, 1 seemed like a keeper. That is after chatting for a while, the number is probably 5 times that for how many I've had contact with through dating sites.

So I'm not very active, because I just think it's so soul crushing.

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

#639
1) don't worry about the things out of your control

You cannot control many things in life, and trying to is a fruitless waste of time.

2) work on the things you CAN control

the main one is you. work on yourself. improve your health - aerobic exercise 6 days a week, keep your weight healthy. eat well, not junk. sleep enough, not too little, not too much. exercise your mind, professionally and creatively. put stuff on your calendar (including downtime) and do it.

3) make some goals.

you can meet someone. I have several friends in their late 50's and 60's who have met someone and married. There are lots of ladies around your age that want marriage and/or kids.

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

#640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be much more convinced by a modern meta analysis The problem is that I’m a physicist so I see a wiki page with a bunch of quotes from people of all disciplines including a physicist who was famously a huge sceptic of psychiatry and I think of all the physics pages that have all these “opinions” that are wrong Very few of those quotes mention evidence of outcomes of psychoanalysis but only mention very specifi…

> I would be much more convinced by a modern meta analysis There are many modern meta analysis assessing the (in)efficacy of psychoanalysis and comparing it to other approaches, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (which is the gold standard nowadays) and other approaches, which back my arguments. I am not really interested in going more deeply about this, but I encourage you to research it, if you are interested. T…

>There are many other troubling issues with this practice.

Which? Serious question!

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