Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 890 posts

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

#261

Post by j4yav »

alangibson wrote: post #79

This is almost exactly my life, shifted by a decade. The problem is that by 35 you can't get by on novelty anymore because you've seen some version of everything there is to see. The worst thing you can do is pine for the good old days. They aren't coming back. And they weren't that good anyway. Your best times are ahead if you can successfully adjust. What worked for me was putting down roots. I resisted it mightily…

If you’re out of novelty in the world by 35 I think that’s more on you than the world. There’s really so much out there - complexity in every direction and at every focal length. If you want to center your life around novelty-seeking you can do it until well past the point where your body will fail you. Travel and education are good ways to find new horizons, but they are everywhere around you all the time. Seriously.

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

#264

Post by dhimes »

xwdv wrote: post #237
readingnews wrote: post #196

I do not mean to tear down OP, but you are 35 and have $500k in savings. You lived in other countries, had startups and worked at a big company. You are not lost, you are one of the 1%. It sounds like you did a lot and now "normal" life that the rest of have to go through seems sucky. It is. I have years of experience, not 1/5th your savings, have not traveled and now I am actually too old for "big company" to hire m…

Although life starts for a lot of people at 35, I envy those people who are able to start much earlier. These are the people who have their first relationships in high school and college, find their life partner in early twenties, get the right job, a house, kids, keep their friend circle, invest money as early as possible, god damn. They live perfect fuckin lives and it’s all because they bravely jumped in and embra…

Sometimes they also get lucky. IMHO, to actually find the right partner for you in your early 20s is damn lucky.

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

#266

Post by orborde »

hownottowrite wrote: post #217

Mourning the loss of one’s youth is pretty typical. You lose a step. You didn’t do what you hoped you would do. You wasted your time. So forth and so on. Don’t worry. It gets better. This is all part of the process of life. My recommendation is that you read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” I’m 52 here. I was a prolific programmer in my 20s. A go-go ma…

Why do you still work with the useless partners?

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

#267

Post by hughrr »

csee wrote: post #151
hughrr wrote: post #132

I’m in my late 40s. Just gone through 15 years of absolute shit with an ex partner and financial chaos. Decided I’d fix it in 2019. Three important things to concentrate on: 1. Health. If that’s off, fix it first. Everything depends on health. Sort out your diet, physical fitness and health and mental health follows. I’m fitter than all my peers and both fitter and healthier than I was in my 20s. Can run a half marat…

What is your personality type? Are you extroverted? Would points (2) and (3) differ for someone who is introverted?

I went from introvert to extrovert over the space of a couple of years. Fear prevented me from making lots of critical connections in life. Turned out this was silly and putting myself in uncomfortable positions led to lots of great experiences which I look back on when I need motivation and to get over the hump that stopped me doing stuff before.

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

#268

Post by mikeuxinnuendo »

You sound like a genuinely productive individual.

This might sound like complete bullshit, but have you spent any time to try and gather your thoughts in a constructive manner to identify where your feelings are coming from, and where or how you might find excitement and joy again?

You won't find all the answers this way, but it could help you find some direction. Personally I might guess that you need to explore other opportunities and find new passions in life to truely get out of your current state of mind. That might involve travel, as others have suggested, to open your mind to other possibilities, since we often pigeon-hole our focus towards what's already in front of us.

I've been through something similar twice in my life, and as I say, it took both mindfulness and a bit of exploration to find my way out. Sending yourself off to uncomfortable and unknown situations, to discover what else there is to life, for you. We need goals in life to feel like we're achieving something, striving for something, like we have something to live for. Have you lost sight of your goals? Do you still have any as of this moment that you are passionate about?

One last fortune cookie I might offer: Believe in yourself. We all fall down at some point, it's how we handle that fall that really matters, and if you can pull yourself back up, new horizons await.

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

#269

Post by josefrichter »

jart wrote: post #141
dr_faustus wrote: post #103

I was in similar spot with around 30. My advice: 1.) Start dating. It might be a drag and maybe embarrassing at times, but obviously not being a loser having saved up half a mil in 10 years, you will probably find someone. Don't buy into that Hollywood "soulmate" crap. More likely than not there is already someone you know or at max someone one graph edge away which will be a perfectly fine partner for the rest of yo…

(3) is a very negative way of looking at things. Do you think Bill Gates did it on his own? You don't have to be famous in order to play a small part of something impactful that's larger than yourself and will be respected for generations.

I think the point is that you shouldn't try so hard to "change the world". We are far too often told that you can change the world, you can be anything you want to be, keep looking and don't settle, and it brings a lot of misery to a lot of people who feel they are losers just because they're not changing the world..

We the HN readers are generally some of the luckiest people in the world because we were born smart enough to be able to work in a profession that is generally very well paid. If OP has $500k he is in fact probably among top 1% of the richest people on this planet.. If you're less lucky and work as a truck driver somewhere in poor country, then life is extremely hard...

I would agree with you on one thing: no matter what your conditions are, you can e.g. go out and start picking up trash and cleaning up your neighborhood. I am sure it is meaningful, someone will appreciate it sooner or later, someone might even join and help. And if not, at least you have cleaner neighborhood.

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

#270

Post by jkhdigital »

subpixel wrote: post #148
alangibson wrote: post #79

This is almost exactly my life, shifted by a decade. The problem is that by 35 you can't get by on novelty anymore because you've seen some version of everything there is to see. The worst thing you can do is pine for the good old days. They aren't coming back. And they weren't that good anyway. Your best times are ahead if you can successfully adjust. What worked for me was putting down roots. I resisted it mightily…

The big difference is that settling down gives you things to care about deeply. Your family, the community your kids will grow up in, the experiences and skills you want your kids to grow up with. Absent that, my life was one long drawn-out example of “fear of missing out” and I flitted from thing to thing, place to place. Just make sure you marry above your station, emotionally.

> Just make sure you marry above your station, emotionally.

This is one of the most pithy bits of marital advice I’ve ever read, but easier said than done! Emotional maturity seems to exhibit a very pronounced Dunning-Kruger effect. Also, people continue to mature emotionally in adulthood and this can occur at very different rates.

Just as a vivid example, recovery from addiction/alcoholism can often create rapid changes in emotional maturity.

Post reply on HN