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

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

#691

Post by oshirisuki »

work out, you don't necessarily need to spend money on it (I may be assuming money's a concern for you, maybe it isn't?) if you are suffering from depression, you could also consider therapy, if that's a viable option

interacting with people in some way, specially family (if you have any left), is likely to improve your mood

you don't mention where you live, but given that you know English, if it's not something undesirable, consider teaching it, while having some sort of qualification/certification might be useful, what's important is that you know it to teach it, at least in a "getting people to talk" way

another job option that seems viable (at least to my mind) is becoming a teacher of what you studied

for the "wife and kids" thing, I don't think I could give advice, I myself have been single for over a decade

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

#693

Post by moonraker »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #4

You need to see a therapist. Your problem is largely on your outlook on where you are in life. This is not meant to be a buck up or shut up comment, it's just that you can't improve your life until you change your outlook on things. You won't be able to move forward on things until you confront your feelings and accept your position to move out of it. To answer your question, yes. My 30's were a mess with a divorce,…

I just want to add 2 things to kemiller's helpful comment:

1.) Just talking to a therapist who you feel heard and understood by (whatever their method: CBT or any of the others below) will be a massive help - you'll feel less alone and the challenges and mindsets you wrote about will begin to feel less all encompassing. The world will be a less frightening place.

2.) I think Deutscher's post is one of the most courageous personal posts I've ever seen on a message board/social forum (certainly the most courageous in 2022). One of the hardest things for anyone to do is to admit their life hasn't/isn't going the way they expected and instead of lying to themselves, they do the incredibly brave thing of admitting they need help.

Anyways, I just wanted to commend Deutscher for that (hopefully before my comment gets buried hours after the original post)

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

#694

Post by philosopher1234 »

svnt wrote: post #658
philosopher1234 wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does because it demonstrates its effectiveness. How can an effective discipline be scientifically discredited?

It does not demonstrate the effectiveness of psychiatric treatment by any reasonable standard. The control group is corrupted, the control-treatment pairs for comparison were selected by the researchers, and the provided “psychiatric treatment” includes > In addition to weekly individual sessions the inpatient program at both groups contained two 75 min group sessions each week. In addition, VITA had shorter group me…

The very same Wikipedia article cited at the top of this thread includes links to several meta analyses demonstrating psychoanalysis’ effectiveness. The evidence is not conclusive, because it is apparently difficult to study psychoanalysis, but it falls on the side of it being effective.

Very far from discredited, as you seem to want to claim (with no evidence). Difficult to study != disproven

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

#695

Post by n_t »

Lot of good comments already, but then different personalities respond to different things so suggesting another approach. Stop thinking about success or career or even your happiness, instead invest in "fulfilment" of your life. That could mean different thing to different people, but I recommend doing something for someone else - no expectations, no desire for recognition, no desire for any returns! just do it! Take it as a challenge! Just one simple thing, with nothing in it for you! That might mean help a student with class/project/direction, or help an elderly in tech support, or help no-name mom-pop store with their tech support. Essentially, find something or someone local and help them with whatever you know. Don't overdo it, don't go completely out of your way, don't analyze what and how of it. Just do whatever you can in a manageable way.

If you go that far and feel satisfied, then start looking for more engagement and what else you can do, but this time with more involvement. If it sounds cliched or bookish, don't bother about it and try other suggestions. Key is to find what clicks with your personality and not necessarily what world's view is about life.

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

#696

Post by bogomipz »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #437

Quoted post unavailable.

>"Especially you who seem to be in decent health (you're not american so I assume you're not morbidly obese or other issues)."

Obesity is a global epidemic.[1][2]. It's has been a global issue for a very long time now. This is not new. It's odd that such an advocate of exercise doesn't understand this.

>"You appear debt free? Guess what, you're richer than most american."

It also seems odd and gratuitous that you felt the need to make two negative comments about America in a post about the benefits of exercise. It's even odder still considering you are responding to someone who clearly stated they prefer to go back to America and that they were actually happy there.

[1] https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113312

[2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and...

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

#697

Post by nextaccountic »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #4

You need to see a therapist. Your problem is largely on your outlook on where you are in life. This is not meant to be a buck up or shut up comment, it's just that you can't improve your life until you change your outlook on things. You won't be able to move forward on things until you confront your feelings and accept your position to move out of it. To answer your question, yes. My 30's were a mess with a divorce,…

> a kid who had a unknown behavior problems they said was autism

In the end, it wasn't autism?

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

#698

Post by JBlue42 »

Agree with those mentioning seeing a therapist but, until then, here are some books that have helped me and were written by practicing therapists.

"Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey" - James Hollis

"What Matters Most" - James Hollis

"Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart" by Gordon Livingston. I've been finding his other books equally good or better. "The Thing You Think You Cannot Do" covers fear and courage, like the courage to lead the life you want.

If you have Netflix, there's a new documentary called "Stutz" where the therapist discusses some of the tools he teaches. It's 90 minutes long and might be even more digestible than those books.

Give those a chance. See this as an opportunity to get to know yourself better. Try not to be too hard on yourself (easier to say than do - my therapist still gets onto me after three years together when that part of me comes out).

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

#699

Post by cipheredStones »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #493
unrealp wrote: post #212

I am 42, single, similar situation. I was in a pretty dark place around 38 or so. I happened to read "man's search for meaning" by victor frankl and it honestly helped A LOT. When we are young and nature is working for our benefit, we should search for happiness. Beyond that, we need to search for meaning. There are 2 meanings implicit and third one you can pursue. 1) Search for meaning is meaningful itself. 2) Human…

> 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,…

> 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.

What on earth does this mean? How does the existence or nonexistence of "telos" - the idea of "purpose" being a real thing that exists in the world - affect the fact that if I don't eat I die and if I don't talk to my friends for a long time I get sad?

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

#700

Post by yibg »

ws404 wrote: post #404

Bro you are are on the right forum. My family has a healthy dose of depression passed down. I can read it in every word you're writing. It's just a chemical reaction, you can defeat it but it will be tough. Achievement cures depression. Any achievement. Dead time exacerbates depression - i.e. watching TV, playing mindless games, porn, hell even reading sometimes (if it's trash and you're just reading to escape your r…

+1 to this. I don't know if it was depression for me but definitely been a period where I was in a rut. Everything seems to be going badly, relationships, romance, career. Because so many things needed "fixing", I didn't know where to start and was always overwhelmed. Then I try to change everything and end up not making much progress anywhere.

What eventually got me out was just focusing on 1 thing in my life and make it better. That one small achievement fuels the next one and so on. Positive feedback loops (and negative ones) are powerful.

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