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Never waste a midlife crisis

austinkleon.com

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Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#321

Post by taneq »

grecy wrote: post #37
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Our "modern" western life is not fulfilling, healthy or enjoyable. Who is "our"? Western countries, especially Anglo countries, are comprised of a thousand thousand different cultures. Which among those are unfulfilling, unenjoyable, unhealthy? I'm sure some are nice. We're not all the same, not remotely.

> Which among those are unfulfilling, unenjoyable, unhealthy? I was thinking of the one where we go to jobs for 40+ hours a week that are not fulfilling, we don't get to spend much time with our families, we don't get time to sleep and exercise enough... and we have to do it for essentially our entire lives in the hopes we'll get a few years to be put out to pasture

Sure is pretty unfulfilling to be not independently wealthy

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#322

Post by nickd2001 »

kajecounterhack wrote: post #18
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…

Also, 5+ kids may seem helpful, but not because you won't face existential crisis with five kids -- you just will have more trouble finding time to process. Kids keep you very busy, until they don't. As an ex-church person: the "community" is pretty hurtful to a lot of people and isn't immune to high school clique / cult of personality type things, even if you discount other obvious harms (the experience of gay kids…

Its sad that you had such a negative experience of church, due to people's failings. Its not like that everywhere. There are church communities that are welcoming to people that are divorced, gay, etc. Sounds like you've been among people who lack of proper understanding of "love others as yourself" and "judge not lest thy be judged" which are fundamental to true Christianity (and other religions too). I'd advocate, don't give up, don't dismiss religion based on people's failings, but instead, challenge people

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#323

Post by taneq »

danielvaughn wrote: post #61

I turn 39 in a week, and I might be hitting something like a mid-life crisis. Though I'm successful by many metrics, there's so much I wanted to do by this point in my life that I've been feeling like a failure. For instance, there's been this side project that I first got the idea for in 2014 and have been actively working on since 2017, and I still haven't released it yet because I keep going back to the drawing bo…

A lot of us at this age were brought up to believe we could be anything, do anything, achieve anything. The subtext of “pick one or two things and you may achieve modest success” was perhaps not sufficiently emphasised.

Add to this that the definition of “do well” has morphed from “be one of the better accomplished kids in your school” to be more like “be in the top 1% nationally” (or even globally) and there’s a serious impedance mismatch there.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#324

Post by sph »

ozim wrote: post #237
sph wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought it is dumping wife of 20 years for silly blonde and driving red convertible one bought with use of shark loan because “you need to have it because you always wanted it” even if you couldn’t afford it.

It's the same thing. But it doesn't have to be as destructive or ultimately short-lived as that. It might an opportunity to radically change some things you have taken for granted your entire life.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#325

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

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?

isn't a midlife crisis is just a label for burnout / depression at the end of the day? everybody who is depressed feels like life is stuck and going nowhere.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#326

Post by heywherelogingo »

sph wrote: post #52
rootusrootus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[dead]

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#327

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

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.

> The "not" people can do wilder/riskier things

not going to help anyway. midlife crisis and other related mental problems can never be resolved by outward solutions. you can distract yourself for a while with exciting new hobbies (like getting a motorbike) but it will come back and even harder at that because then you will feel like it's even more hopeless as even this exciting change didn't really solve the underlying issue. but some people also just get used to being unhappy and that's about it for them.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#328

Post by sph »

soligern wrote: post #158
ctrlp wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Getting help from mental health professionals is just a way for that individual to foist their opinions onto you. Psychology is a highly subjective field whose studies have startlingly low reproducibility. You’re much better off finding someone in your circle that’s willing to listen to you and shares your values (though not everyone might have this available to them).

This, and the sibling replies are utter bollocks.

I might be the only person on earth that got something out of therapy, and I blame being and staying depressed my entire adult life because I listened to idiots like you. And trust me, I'm restraining myself here. We have a mental health crisis, a broken support system, male suicide at a all-time high, and your opinion is still mainstream. Shut up and listen.

--

Advice for the people struggling: don't be afraid to fire your therapist. Going to therapy should feel like having someone to dump your crap and feel they've listened to you with no judgment whatsoever. You should feel you talked to a better, non-opinionated version of your $favorite-relative. If that's not the case, get another one.

AFAIU there's a lot of approaches to therapy. What worked for me was having a person that listen attentively for 99% of the time. In 3 years they have never told me what to do, nor prescribed their vision of the world.

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#329

Post by deniscepko2 »

ctrlp wrote: post #125
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…

[flagged]

Anecdotal: but all of the psychology students i've met were far from being stable and had serious issues of their own. But its just my own experience and a stereotype i have now

Re: Never waste a midlife crisis

#330

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

boy is this text shallow and lazy ... no way this is accurately priced at floor(pi*100) points. also the guy is falling for survivor ship bias. very shallow.

having said that. midlife crisis is at the end of the day about facing mortality. so that's what you need to do. face it. realize you are going to die. you don't know when and there is nothing you can do about it except for living now.

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