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Never waste a midlife crisis

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Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#81

Post by PaulHoule »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #22
PaulHoule wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this book https://www.amazon.com/Passages-Predictable-Crises-Adult-Lif... which factually points out that most people go through several crises in their adult life. As a rule of thumb you have one every seven years or so. I had one around 30, another in my early 40s, and another at 49. If you read between the lines in Freud you could also get the picture that a psychoanalysis would be likely to span the dura…

Is there an alternative to Passages that has stood the test of time better?

This book is based on the same study

https://www.freepsychotherapybooks.org/ebook/wisdom-of-the-e...

it doesn't deal with the "voicelesness" of the "working class" (closer to the British idea of "working class" than the Marxist one, notably "working class" people in Britain frequently aren't working) but that voicelessness is a defining characteristic of that group. Anyone who finds a voice has left that class and can't really speak for it.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#82

Post by pmarreck »

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…

51 with a 2 year old son (my one and only kid, who was technically impossible, hence why he is "late", but then here we are...). He's awesome, but I'm in the same place (2nd paragraph). And, even worse since I'm 51. I have to practically physically claw back any time I need for myself. It's exhausting. I'm hoping to make enough money again by next year where my partner can quit her job and my son can enter a special program (that unfortunately has 51 weekdays off, which was too many for 2 full-time parents), and the division of labor will be different.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#83

Post by sph »

OO000oo wrote: post #77
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…

38 yo male now starting to think I don’t know what a midlife crisis is.

A midlife crisis is quitting your desk job to sell ice creams on the beach in the Caribbean. Getting to the point of doing it, not just thinking about it.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#85

Post by more_corn »

I’ve always thought midlife crisis was a weird thing. Nobody knows when they’ll die. Maybe you die in an avalanche at 24. At which point you probably should have reassessed your life and assumptions at 12. Or maybe you die in a car accident at 18. Or a house fire at 32. Maybe you’re gunned down by the husband of the lady you’re sleeping with at 74.

If there’s any benefit from a midlife crisis you should probably get on it today. Nobody knows the hour and manner of his end. You might have missed your midlife already!

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#86

Post by sph »

grassmannian wrote: post #74
majormajor wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Interestingly, it seems like some women's monastic communities (ostensibly the pinnacle of rich spiritual life and engagement with community) are much less likely to experience midlife crises, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/43682330 Figures 1 and 2.

I reckon nuns don't deal with a lot of Zoom job interviews after being laid off, pointy-haired bosses, relationship troubles, making ends meet, and paying rent. That helps a little.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#87

Post by sharkweek »

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?

I’d say in my social circle most people hit a crisis of self around 30 years old, and most were out of the funk 2-3 years following.

Most are doing well now as we hit 40, curios if is struck sooner for our generation.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#88

Post by BaseballPhysics »

OO000oo wrote: post #77
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…

38 yo male now starting to think I don’t know what a midlife crisis is.

IMO the term is so diluted as to be meaningless.

Burnout isn't a mid-life crisis.

Changing your career doesn't necessarily mean you're having a mid-life crisis.

Changing your personal circumstances doesn't necessarily imply a midlife crisis.

Every definition I know of includes a sense of existential angst, a feeling of regret, of lost potential, of questioning identity, of a fear of mortality.

But simply realizing you're unhappy in your life or circumstances and want to change them isn't itself indicative of a mid-life crisis by any meaningful definition I'm aware of.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#89

Post by sedatk »

moron4hire wrote: post #65

This is hustle porn. All of Kleon's books are hustle porn. A lot of, "you just gotta, like, do, man." Not a lot of whatever the hell that means for the millions of folks who exist in the long tail of every creative market, struggling day in and day out to try to escape the doldrums of their day jobs, but never making it. Year after year. YouTube video after YouTube video. New social media site after new social media…

On a similar note, I find the "don't waste it on a car, use your imagination" dichotomy quite shallow. Do whatever that makes you happy. You can buy that car if you want, and do great things at the same time too if that's your thing. Or, maybe you're happy with your car, and your work too. You don't owe anyone to be that designated person. You may need to own that car in order to truly process whether you need it in your life or not, or to feel having control over one part of your life, and transfer that perspective to the other parts. Human psychology is quite complicated, and usually you're the most informed person about yourself.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#90

Post by sph »

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.

Don't. People and peers on the internet are selling the bullshit idea that they're doing a lot and you're just lazying around. It's fake news. They're selling you a mirage, not by malice, but because everyone else is doing it. You keep hearing of the Ken Thompsons and Oppenheimers and you barely have the mental fortitude to plumb 2 JS libraries in a work day.

Stop pursuing the things you should do. Do less. Slave away on someone else's dream the last amount of hours possible to maintain a decent lifestyle. Until you reach a point where you find your innate creativity you thought you had lost in your teenage years shining in, driving you. That might require a massive lifestyle change.

But for the love of God stop listening and comparing to anyone. Working on your dream 1 hour a month is more than the vast majority of people do, and at the end of the day, you'll turn to dust like Albert Einstein did, whether you accomplished something or just played videogames all day.

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