Ask HN: How do you deal with getting old and feeling lost?

"And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time. Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines."

What I'm trying to change now is reset and restart small. Because I now compare myself to all my successful peers, I've forgotten that it takes small steps to build something. So rather than looking at the the final outcome I'm looking to focus more on small and short tasks. There is no going back to my 20's but I can have better and healthier rest of my life.

I would add reading. That has helped me a lot to calm down.

Re health: I recently discovered a great blog with in-depth articles about how to lose weight: https://physiqonomics.com

PS: Don't get distracted by the seemingly arrogant profile picture. His content is really good.

That's typical behavior you see on social media Twitter. People say something reasonable, but then someone replies "how wrong!! this does not apply in edge case XYZ!", yeah, obviously. Just ignore it if you believe it doesn't apply to you.

My father died when he was 59 and had lifestyle-limiting illnesses for the last decade of his life. Bearing this in mind, I went down to a three-day working week aged 56 and then fully retired two years later. I’ve looked after my health but six months ago had an unpredicted episode of Ventricular Fibrillation for genetic rather than lifestyle reasons. I was fitted with an ICD and quickly got back to my physical health but under UK law had to surrender my driving license and I’m now stuck waiting for my application for a new one to work through our bureaucracy.

On balance I wish I’d fully retired slightly earlier.

Coming back to other points that are made here, I found in my last few years at work that the technology was ‘same-old same-old’ and that I found working with talented youngsters (sometimes as a formal mentor) the most rewarding part of my job. Perhaps I was just lucky, but I helped four younger people to go past me on the corporate ladder, and in turn they all looked out for me later on. I was also able to work in an environment where I was viewed as a principal customer-facing techie, rather than having to remain totally corporate. This in fact reduced my career-development options (as I was out on site with the customers rather than being highly visible to my bosses) but I viewed this as a positive.

For me, (accidentally) having a kid has catapulted my life forward a bit in terms of feeling comfortable in my shoes.

What I came here to add, is something I'm often thinking about these days: you need to figure out what role money has in your life. How much of it do you want, and why?

Yes, I realize this is a gross subject, but I think, at least in the US, we are not sufficiently honest about this.

I think it's OK to want more of it, or lots of it. Or less of it. Or an average amount. But you need to own that decision and reach a place where you're genuinely comfortable with what you have, or want.

Then you can figure out what you're going to do with your time. Are you going to work towards getting lots of money? Then every act needs to be in service of that goal. Do you just want to be rich at retirement? Do the math -- carefully -- and make sure you will be rich at retirement, and figure out exactly what income you need to achieve that. Are you happy with a modest income and wealth? Huzzah, you can relax.

Once you've admitted to yourself what role money has in your life, then you can go about figuring out your hobbies or workout routine or spirituality, or whatever. But I am increasingly of the opinion that savage honesty about how much money we need to be happy has to come first.