301–310 of 461 posts
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You are saying it like divorce is a bad thing.
Yeah, ok, it's just something to joke about. Nothing's serious. Nothing matters.
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I thought the circumstances you describe are what leads to the typical midlife crisis. Not always, but people wake up and realize they're trapped in a life (kids, obligations, job) that sort of crept up on them, and feel like they need to let off some steam. A lot of (perhaps including the article's authors) modern "mid-life crises" are more what I've heard of as "quarter life crises" - you finish school, get a job,…
> I'd planned professionally at about 30 and then realized it wasn't what I wanted and had no idea what to do next. Oddly enough, I think this is what keeps me from being ambitious in a professional sense. I just feel like, based on everything I read, hear, and see, that we are all just donkeys chasing the metaphorical carrot tied to a stick. I swear, it's like the hedonistic treadmill is turned up a few notches too…
Something that is less analogical and more biographical: we are primates chasing and arguing over the shiniest and new type of banana. The analogical part left is what the "banana" might be.
As primates, we are unbelievably ill-equipped to handle the Internet. This dream of the Internet connecting us together turned into the nightmare it is because it taps into our primitive emotions, which ends up being most of them.
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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 kid…
I'm not sure I understand what exactly the advice is. Is it just "don't be afraid to do something risky, as you might regret not going for it"? That doesn't seem helpful to me, I can easily regret doing something I really wanted to do before. "I can be penniless or I can be bitter." Why not both? If I try something risky and fail and end up penniless, I'll be penniless and bitter.
That's true. I agree that taking big financial risks, especially later in life, is not necessarily the best advice. Risk is relative though. Plenty of people in this thread talking about programming projects they've been working on for years and have rewritten multiple times, never releasing anything. What would have been the risk in releasing something earlier? I have a friend who is a musician. He obsessed over ind…
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It's just inviting downvotes but I also agree with you. Therapy is a scam and no doctor can explain how or why anti-depressants work (also why they have people "try" many before finding the "right one for you"). But people are too cool for friends and family now and hearing hard truths so they pay someone to be told they matter and how to run their lives. I have seen different approaches to therapy being done to diff…
1) Length of therapy is strongly correlated to school. CBT and it's forks are relatively short and ability-oriented, where psychodynamic is very long with hazy endpoint. And generally CBT should be pushed much more, as it's faster, more goal-oriented, and less prone to, let's say, therapist biases. 2) Although I get the idea that people need friends and family, it's easy to forget that people with severe issues do no…
I honestly believe that a small amount of people are better off being medicated, keyword being very small (But I refuse to believe that a society with a significant % of people on anti-depressants is a way to live. Look at my country's statistics: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1020727/antidepressants-...
Most of my friends on them are just bummed out about their life but not enough to change their situation. Perhaps CBT is the answer, my big issue is that the majority of therapists over-prescribes, and that makes me lose trust in the whole thing.
It's like trying to see the good parts of cryptocurrencies, you need to ignore a lot of shit and in the end you wonder if its worth it.
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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.
What exactly is a panic attack? Like your just watching TV and suddenly convinced you'll die? Or was it like at work, something woukd happen and you freak out?
You can also hyperventilate and not really notice it in your breathing. That makes your hands curl up by themselves and then pins and needles. I only got that once, after that I learnt some breathing exercises.
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?
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"Studies indicate that some cultures may be more sensitive to this phenomenon than others; one study found that there is little evidence that people undergo midlife crises in Japanese and Indian cultures, raising the question of whether a mid-life crisis is mainly a cultural construct." I thought this was interesting.
Japanese salarymen often undergo a crisis when they retire and suddenly find themselves with tons of time and nothing to do. Not exactly midlife, but it's of a similar vein.
My midlife crisis at 40 was more like a midlife epiphany. We moved from a perfectly good and totally beautiful city (Bath, UK) into the arse end of nowhere in Devon to live in a shack in the woods with no running water and to be near the sea. We went with two small (8 and 5) kids (responding to those here saying it's not possible - it is!) and downsized from a busy city life to a quiet rural one. Our intention was to…
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True but if you make a decision that makes you a bitter adult then they have to live with that as well - as a role model for your kids no less. No easy answers unfortunately.
Fulfilment doesn’t feed your children or put a roof over their heads. The expectation is that men provide. The wife and kids would prefer a bitter provider over a happy “deadbeat”.