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How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

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How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

#1
I am in my mid thirties. My life is messed up. Nothing like chronic disease or criminal stuff or drugs. I just don't do much. I am socially and vocationally extremely alienated.

I am not in much psychological pain. I just don't do much.

I hate to see my life go to waste.

I have so far not found a therapist, friend, or mentor who is of any help.

Anybody else having dealt with similar issues, how did you start living your life after wasting years asleep at the wheel?

People say mid 30s is not too old but those people are usually working with more than I am.

Re: How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

#2
Don't be to hard on yourself, most people come to feel the same way in their 40s, sometimes known as a mid life crisis.

The good news is once You get through this period of life, things generally get better, possibly the best and happiest years of your life.

In the meantime I suggest You start working on a plan for the rest of your life. We either make and follow our own life plan to our benifit or get sucked into following someone else's plan to their benifit. IMHO those are the only two choices we have.

Re: How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

#3
It's never too late to figure out how to be happy. The Stoics nailed it, lots on them online, such as The Daily Stoic and a book, I think now still free online, Guide to the Good Life by Wiliam Irvine on the history of stoicism and an account of applying it to his own life.

Re: How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

#5
Sorry to hear about it. That's really tough stuff. I eventually became a coach after going through some tough struggles of my own [0].

In the past I have coached people who felt like what you describe. Usually they fell into one of two categories: 1) Low energy or 2) Stuck with gobs of problems. But I think most were also a mix of both with one being more immediately prominent.

(Strangely, the low-energy ones were often drawn to some energy source as a job or hobby. For example, one of them who came to me wanting to talk about low energy--not my usual thing--was actually an energy expert...for work)

For the low-energy crowd, one opening move I always recommend is tracking and logging. Develop or find a method to track your day and the positive energy flow into your day. Even a scale from 1-10.

Next ask yourself: How can I move this number up by one point?

Pretty soon your next problem will be: How do I keep track of the things that reliably move me up by a point?

For the Stuck with gobs of problems group, it is often vital to continually bring the problems to the surface for examination, usually starting with the day-to-day stuff. You can do this in a journal, in a spreadsheet, whatever you like.

I always recommend that Stuck people also relate the feelings attached to those tasks/situations/projects. Otherwise those feelings tend to relocate themselves to embarrassing situations at work or in other places in life.

People who are Stuck are often interested in BJJ, dungeon crawlers, pretty much any up-close-and-personal hobby with lots of little tricks to deploy.

For that reason: Start developing your set of tricks ASAP. A common one is the development of a proprietary system of organization for all the Stuck Stuff.

> I have so far not found a therapist, friend, or mentor who is of any help.

I'm gonna be straight up with you here and share that this can sometimes be a giant flag to somebody like me. (I won't say red, but it's a flag) I have learned that the flag reads either:

"I need to learn to solve my own problems; mostly I believe in my own problem-solving capacity. I'm sorry but I may also be picking apart your words like a critic/skeptic; can't help it"

Or

"I need to share my own perspectives on why and how everything sucks; after that I will pretty much figure out the rest and mysteriously vanish."

If this is you, you may want to try looking at these outside resources as more of a periodic kickstart or accountability check-in for yourself, as opposed to a lasting therapeutic fix or cure.

Good luck to you.

0. Chronic obesity, chronic depression, chronic severe anxiety, marriage troubles, frequent deaths in the family, member (leadership cadre) of a fundamentalist religion, etc. Overcame all by roughly age 40, but everybody's different...

Re: How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

#6
I feel like in America at least its very easy to effectively disappear into a lame meaningless life

Or worse

Prob true in a lot of societies

I feel like books are always a good starting point

I like the advice to folks who are thinking about starting uni late

"What else are you going to be doing in five years?"

Something like that

Point being

Why not just start now? You'll lose nothing etc

How to fix a lame life prob not easy

Books

Therapists

Helping people

No shortage of people who need help

I feel like different cities towns geographies can make a big difference too

Sometimes moving forces you to be more active than you'd like to be

Which creates a larger 'luck surface area'

And maybe you get lucky and find someone to help

Then

Before you know it

You're on your way to a meaningful life

Re: How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

#7
It’s very hard to say without being you, but try stuff out.

Depending on your COVID situation it could be travel, speaking clubs, perform a comedy gig, etc. anything that is wild or uncomfortable

At the same time what are you passionate about? Maybe there is something you can study and really get into?

If you are a coder like many of us I think learning more coding things like a other framework this isn’t the answer. That’s just my experience. It’s a never ending meaningless thing, a set of tools to solve problems. Maybe that is just me after too many years!

Also try exercising etc.

What I have come to realise is what you believe and feel, while it feels absolute can be fleeting. Some endorphins can make a lot of difference to how you see things.

Re: How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

#8
To be honest if I wrote down aspects of my life it might seem awesome but it depends on how you look at it. Do I have any impact on the world? No. Do I have a large and thriving social circle? No. Do I help or improve the lives of the friends I do have? No. Will anyone remember me after I pass away? No.

But that is normal. At a rough guess I imagine >99% of people to ever have lived are completely forgotten and their lives have no impact other than having kids.

At the end of the day we're all just animals on a floating rock in space. If you can optimize for your own happiness then you're doing great.

Re: How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

#9
As cliche as it is to say – the answer to your question is probably within yourself. You feel like you're wasting your life, because you have aspirations. They may not be immediately apparent but they're there. And unfortunately I can't tell you what they are.

Uncovering them will take reflection & time. While you do that work of finding them, don't be so hard on yourself. Chances are you've had more of an impact on the world than you give yourself credit for.

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