First, you have to know, not fear, know that someday you are going to die. Been through it. Lose the wife, lose the therapist, lose the drugs, get the muscle car.
Surely you meant upgrade the drugs?
Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
391–400 of 452 posts
Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
#392You never once mentioned what you enjoy to do for fun. What do you like to do for fun? Do that! Don't do it for the money tho. All you have really talked about is work. Is that all you enjoy? Then why don't you go do a very hard startup or start one? If not, engage in other activities. Best of luck.
Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but in reality they were the only ones that were silly enough to only think about work A lot of people find passion + work align. It's ok not to waste your time watching TV, sports, playing games, art, and all that stuff people do to distract them from life. It is ok for your hobby to be work. There are just enough people who aren't driven to work, that it bothers them. I can work 10 hours every day, and enjoy work…
> It is ok for your hobby to be work. I disagree and I also don't think watching TV qualifies as a hobby. Hobbies are something you set out to actively do and you're OK being mediocre at. Sort of like a pretend-job where there's no real pressure, only the joy of experimenting with it. Almost by definition, you want to excel at work. You're worried about promotions, being fired, hitting your goals, getting the comp nu…
I just call anything that isn't work - hobby. Just my shorthand for "not work"
Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's ok not to waste your time watching TV, sports, playing games, art Art?
Basically he's someone who only finds value by producing economic value for someone else. Their own wants, desires etc have no value to someone else so therefor should not be pursued. It's a pretty fucked up view of what life should be. I'm sure they're someone that views old people as having absolutely no value in life as well.
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Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's ok not to waste your time watching TV, sports, playing games, art Art?
Basically he's someone who only finds value by producing economic value for someone else. Their own wants, desires etc have no value to someone else so therefor should not be pursued. It's a pretty fucked up view of what life should be. I'm sure they're someone that views old people as having absolutely no value in life as well.
Lots of assumptions there ;) Maybe we as people all just like different things?
Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
#396It sounds like you've accomplished a lot already and are financially stable. You can always just buy health insurance yourself if you don't want to work anymore.
Is there anything that you want to accomplish still? What do you want to be the mark you leave on the world?
Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
#397Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
#398I'm in my late 20s, but I noticed that people live as if they are forever. They spend half of their life working for survival, preparing and planning for their (!) future. Some people die in the process and never live to see that future, but some people reach that point and become aware of the finite time that just elapsed. Having physical needs met is trivial in our society. Everything beyond is self imposed sufferi…
> Having physical needs met is trivial in our society. Everything beyond is self imposed suffering by comparing oneself to others
Sometimes we have dependants that cannot ensure their own wellbeing (e.g. children). Sometimes we have good reasons to believe that we will not be able to work in the future (e.g. health issues).
Ensuring that you and your loved ones will have a decent quality of life regardless of your ability to work in the future can be a strong motivator to push your own boundaries today.
Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
#399I may be barking completely up the wrong tree here, but the first thing that came to my mind here was the situation described by Alain de Botton in Status Anxiety: namely spending a lifetime pursuing goals and values belonging to OTHER people (e.g. parents, society, etc), rather than your own. Then you achieve all these goals only to realise, what now. Great book, well worth a read. As an aside (same caveat about bar…
Excellent book indeed. Was monumentally influential in changing my perspective on the world.
That is high praise. Could you elaborate a bit?
Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not a problem of therapy, but a question of meaning. We need meaning in live. And for a long time religion gave that. But we threw that out. We now try to get "profesional therapy help". But it hardly has any scientific backing, and no one but religion has been able (even though it fails often) been offer te give any deeper answer to the question to "whats the meaning of it all". The best solutions people lik…
I used to think this, but I no longer do. I'm also mid 40s. People say that religion gives them meaning, but I think what it really gives them is community . Especially with the pandemic, all of the "automatic" ways that we used to run into friends and acquaintances have dried up. It takes much more active effort now. While I'm surely projecting on to OP, I think it is very common for very career or goal-focused folk…
You might enjoy the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger. I think it underscores why people sometimes pine for the days that, on the surface, seem the roughest. Living in a poor community, or being in the military, or being in a conflict zone: they hyper-focus one's mind on the importance of community.