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Never waste a midlife crisis

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Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#51

Post by theduder99 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #12
xyzelement wrote: post #2

I wonder if the mid life crisis is a completely modern and secular malady. Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. Because they are too busy, but mainly because their life is oriented from the get-go around what is very meaningful to them

>it's very hard to imagine them going through one because they've outsourced most critical decisions to their faith. As Jung said, people don't have ideas, ideas have people. It's very easy to obtain meaning by getting in a sense hijacked by a very convincing set of beliefs.

sounds like Jung's idea has you.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#52

Post by sph »

rootusrootus wrote: post #48
sph wrote: post #27

Good advice, from a 36 year old middle aged man 3 years into a midlife crisis after a massive work-related burnout event. A couple more pieces of advice from me: * A midlife crisis has its own glacial pace. Be prepared to be upside down for a long time. * Be prepared not to be the same person you were before. Be prepared to learn there is no turning back. * If you're in a midlife crisis, your previous life was simply…

> 36 year old middle aged man You're not quite middle aged yet :). And 33 is way too early for a midlife crisis, surely? Maybe it's just garden variety burnout and/or depression?

It was being a little cheeky. And if a massive burnout whose first month was having daily panic attacks and 3 years to recover is garden variety, I am afraid to know what a serious one entails ;)

Depression was part of the baggage I was carrying around all my life. It's hard to say, given the state of things, but perhaps depression is one thing I was lucky to shed during this phase.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#53

Post by rootusrootus »

codq wrote: post #34
quickthrower2 wrote: post #23

Midlife crisis needs to be split into the "responsible for kids" and "not" categories. The "not" people can do wilder/riskier things, although I suspect on average they don't since fear of things massively outweighs "can you actually do it" factors. Probably the paper boxes we build are smaller than the metal ones outside of them.

Thank you. I turned 40 this weekend, and have spent the last few months if not years wondering who the hell I am, and thinking about all the cool projects, startups, languages and learnings I'd love to explore. However, I also have a 3-year old I'm taking care of who drains me of all my excess time and energy. I can't do any of this stuff. I'm exhausted at the end of the day, and with my 1-2 hours at the end of night…

> Maybe when he's older I'll have time for a midlife crisis.

If you're like me, yes. When I was 40, my daughter was 3, and I didn't have much time for worrying. Now both my kids are tweens and my direct day-to-day responsibilities as a parent have declined so much that I have plenty of time for a proper midlife crisis. It sucks more than I ever imagined, though I'm working through it and feeling a little better about the future.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#54

Post by tharkun__ »

codq wrote: post #34
quickthrower2 wrote: post #23

Midlife crisis needs to be split into the "responsible for kids" and "not" categories. The "not" people can do wilder/riskier things, although I suspect on average they don't since fear of things massively outweighs "can you actually do it" factors. Probably the paper boxes we build are smaller than the metal ones outside of them.

Thank you. I turned 40 this weekend, and have spent the last few months if not years wondering who the hell I am, and thinking about all the cool projects, startups, languages and learnings I'd love to explore. However, I also have a 3-year old I'm taking care of who drains me of all my excess time and energy. I can't do any of this stuff. I'm exhausted at the end of the day, and with my 1-2 hours at the end of night…

"mid-life" is such a varied but also changing term.

Many many moons ago said mid life crisis was when the kids were starting to get older, 16-ish or older even. Mid life crisis meant you suddenly had more time on your hands than you remembered what to do with.

Now mid life crisis is a couple of years into having kids more often than not it seems. That seems like a way different situation. On the one side you have kids that want to do their thing anyway and on the other you have a totally dependent on you and the family toddler.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#55

Post by TimesOldRoman »

sph wrote: post #49
neilv wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How close to Breaking Bad has it gotten?

Less like Breaking Bad and more that like meme of Pablo Escobar waiting in a melancholic mood. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pablo-escobar-waiting

I have had a couple sabbaticals, and that is me around day 12.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#56

Post by weard_beard »

johndhi wrote: post #43

This unfortunately falls into the same category in my mind as most advice: "you should ... X." My mind is sick of hearing the things I should do. I know I should be better and fitter and less wasteful but... I'm tired.

Same. My midlife crisis is hiding from the eyes in the dark outside the campfire instead of shouting at them like a maniac as I did in my 20s/30s. I bought a shitty boat and a steamdeck. Its nice.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#57

Post by sky_rw »

majormajor wrote: post #3
xyzelement wrote: post #2

I wonder if the mid life crisis is a completely modern and secular malady. Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. Because they are too busy, but mainly because their life is oriented from the get-go around what is very meaningful to them

> Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. I grew up in a church and will tell you right off the bat that neither church nor family prevents one. Googling will give you no shortage of Christian articles and resources around dealing with them. Nobody is immune to that sense of "everything looks peachy…

Going to church regularly does not mean you have a rich spiritual life.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#58

Post by jebarker »

rcme wrote: post #33
jebarker wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you've figured out what 20 year old and 30 year old you wanted, not necessarily what 40 year old you wants. I was shocked by the cookie cutter midlife crisis I had upon hitting 40 despite thinking I was doing all the right things before that.

My decision making has largely been driven by looking at those older than me and asking myself if that’s the type of life I want to live. If the answer is yes, then I use those people as role models. So I think my optimization strategy has been on a longer time horizon than just what I want in my 20s or 30s.

Did you ask those people whether they have the same desires in their old age as they did when they were younger?

EDIT: my question comes across as combative and snarky. I honestly hope your strategy works out. Just for me the life I now enjoy in my 40s is not one I ever thought I'd want and it was a rough fews years getting over that.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#59

Post by kgwxd »

xyzelement wrote: post #2

I wonder if the mid life crisis is a completely modern and secular malady. Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. Because they are too busy, but mainly because their life is oriented from the get-go around what is very meaningful to them

[flagged]

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#60

Post by lanstin »

verbify wrote: post #32
xyzelement wrote: post #2

I wonder if the mid life crisis is a completely modern and secular malady. Thinking to my religious friends who have 5+ kids, a rich spiritual life and deep engagement with community, it's very hard to imagine them going through one. Because they are too busy, but mainly because their life is oriented from the get-go around what is very meaningful to them

I grew up as an ultra orthodox Jew - where people have 5+ kids and there is a lot of focus on religious life and community. There are plenty of extremely bitter people who might love their kids but feel trapped by the lifestyle (they don't want to leave their kids, spouse but it gives them no space for anything else). And many of them struggle with meaning in life - the community, religion and kids don't solve that.

Different religion, but my ex-wife's family were all baptists and I've never met women as angry at men as the older women in that family. They had obeyed and submitted and got angrier and angrier as the decades wore on. Didn't help that, despite the strict religion, there was a good bit of alcoholism amongst the men.

They did have very good food at the family reunions, and a big family, but that's about the limit of positive characteristics I can enumerate. (Not that everyone was bad, a few cousins managed to join the modern world of loving-kindness and science).

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