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Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#741
post #549

Quoted post unavailable.

> you're not american so I assume you're not morbidly obese or other issues Had to slip in the insult, didn't ya?

"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."

a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#742

You need to see a therapist. Your problem is largely on your outlook on where you are in life. This is not meant to be a buck up or shut up comment, it's just that you can't improve your life until you change your outlook on things. You won't be able to move forward on things until you confront your feelings and accept your position to move out of it. To answer your question, yes. My 30's were a mess with a divorce,…

With every passing day, I am becoming more bitter, angry and disillusioned. I don't want to live like this anymore, but I don't know how to even _start_ thinking of ways to get myself out of this hole. The parent comment about therapy is correct (I regret not getting some myself), but I wanted to address this line directly. I was stuck being overwhelmed from 2003 to 2019 after the death of a friend, because I had a s…

Zack, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to articulate your thoughts. Your view is different, yet coherent. Printed up your comment for further study. Please write a little more if possible.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#743
You know, contrary to what others have said, you can debug yourself to a reasonable extent. It just takes shit ton of time and effort. And on top of that, you still might not get anywhere. For these reasons you might want to listen to what others have advised as it is a solid advice.

Warning: the following text is based only on anecdotal evidence and I am not a medical professional at all.

If I understand your situation correctly, your main problem are toxic habits you have formed, that of procrastination and then trying to excuse yourself. For every habit you have, there is a trigger. What you need to do first is to find the trigger(s). Get really good at noticing the triggers, first after you act on them, gradually try to do it before you act on them. Think about them. Ask yourself, what is their biological purpose. What is it that you are trying to compensate for (the answer is almost always dopamine), follow up with why do you need such compensation. Develop your own questions. Write the shit down. All of it. But do not ever be judgemental, only observe. This important, as judging yourself will prevent you from deeper introspection due to pain and clouded thoughts that are related. Do not judge yourself or your feelings. Just observe what happens. Gradually you'll see you have developed a habit of thinking instead of procrastinating. You can expand then your thinking to what would be more appropriate responses to your triggers and start mindfully executing them. The key is not to beat yourself to it, there will be setbacks and it is normal.

A side note, depending on your procrastination circumstances, it might be a good idea to refrain from visualizing big success in your head, esp. after small achievements. It just might spark the dopamine craving (and thus to procrastinate) and it might become far too easy to overcome.

What this approach does is it allows you to better understand yourself, your feelings. Procrastination might go away, it's just a habit and replacing a habit is actually scientifically examined process. One more thing is, as you become to understand yourself more, you also stop feeling hateful towards yourself.

Now, I am going to repeat, seeing a therapist is the best advice you could get, feel free to disregard the wall of text above. See multiple ones before deciding which one works for you the best. Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#744
I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties you've been facing and the challenges you've described. It sounds like you have a lot of regrets and are feeling overwhelmed by the sense that you have let the best years of your life pass you by. It's understandable that you would feel this way, but it's important to remember that it's never too late to make positive changes in your life and to find ways to move forward.

One thing you might consider is seeking out professional help, either through therapy or counseling. It can be very beneficial to have someone to talk to about your feelings and to help you develop a plan for moving forward. If there are no mental health facilities in your town, you might consider looking into online therapy or counseling services, which can be accessed remotely.

Another option might be to reach out to friends or family members for support. It can be tough to open up about your feelings, but the people who care about you may be able to provide valuable perspective and help you come up with ideas for improving your situation.

In terms of your career, it may be helpful to think about what you enjoyed about your previous work experiences and what you would like to do in the future. Even if you don't have current skills in your field of education or your previous work experience, it may be possible to gain new skills or to transition into a related field. You might consider taking online courses or seeking out job training programs to help you get started. You could also consider networking with others in your field or reaching out to professionals for advice and guidance.

Finally, it's important to take care of yourself and to focus on self-care. This can include things like getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet. It might also be helpful to set small, achievable goals for yourself and to celebrate your progress as you work towards your larger goals.

I hope this advice is helpful. Remember that you are not alone, and that it is possible to make positive changes in your life no matter how old you are. Please don't hesitate to reach out for additional support if you need it.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#746
Meditate. www.artofliving.org- their basic part 1 course is a great place to start, or the Sahaj samadhi meditation course.

Let go of the desires- they are at the root of the feeling of despondency. It’s not like fulfilling one’s desires is a path to happiness. Enough successful people are miserable for us to know that that is not the answer to the problem.

Your life is bigger than success and failure.

Stop thinking about yourself- what about me, etc. That’s the formula for depression. Start thinking of how you can make the world a better place. That will give you a renewed vision for your life.

And whatever goals you do set, action the small stuff first. Take a small goal, like, I will wake up by x time tomorrow. And just focus on that one goal. One thing at a time. Baby steps. Don’t overwhelm yourself with big goals and big plans, and then curse yourself for not living upto them. It’s a recipe for frustration. Small goals, and go for consistent accomplishment of said goal for a sustained period of time, like say, 7 days. And then increase gradually. Just do this much for now.

Finally- if you google this, there will be countless examples of successful people who were late bloomers. Some even in their 60/70s! Sometimes, things happen which are outside of our control and we can’t really blame ourselves for the way things turned out. So, don’t be hard on yourself. Be kind to yourself and, let yourself off the hook. Whether we succeed or fail, one day we are all going to be dead and gone. It doesn’t matter anyway. But first, to get outside of this pattern of self blame and frustration, take up small achievable goals, and be consistent in them for short periods of time. That will gain you some self confidence, and if you start meditating, a fresh bunch of ideas will simply flow into your life. All will be well. Trust and have faith that your problems are getting solved, and there is a power with you that is taking you through all the problems. You are not alone. You are never given something that you cannot handle. Have faith. Lots of love.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#747
You're about a decade older than me so take my comment with that in mind. It may not be useful to you. Your description sounds like someone who has a successful education, a close, loving family, relevant skills. You don't sound like a pity case at all.

IMO, don't give up on getting a wife or gf IF that is what you want.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#748
post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why so hostile to therapy? I have a great supportive network of friends and family, but even so a few times in my life I have seen a psychologist that gave me actionable advice that really helped me deal with personal hardships. An impartial trained professional can often see much more clearly what you’re blind to; friends mean well but sometimes their intuitive advice is actually the opposite of what you need to hea…

An impartial, trained professional...in what exactly? Therapists / psychologists are glorified life coaches. "Psychology" is a mess. All therapists can do is act as a programming rubber duck equivalent. What makes the psychologist more qualified to give advice to you than yourself? Maybe the misconception comes from this "training" idea - people think there is some magical solution in psychology and it's not all a ps…

Refreshing to see this point of view. I see therapy being recommended as a full solution on reddit all the time

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#749

I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties you've been facing and the challenges you've described. It sounds like you have a lot of regrets and are feeling overwhelmed by the sense that you have let the best years of your life pass you by. It's understandable that you would feel this way, but it's important to remember that it's never too late to make positive changes in your life and to find ways to move forward. One…

No, answers from ChatGPT are not helpful.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

#750
If I may intrude, the Internet is filled with charlatans creating subliminal content. Some use "Free" Audacity and Nyquist filters to build and hide complex subliminal messages in music, recording TV and more. Try a movie weekend, with a few plausible friends. Have various subliminal chants, embedded in movies, CDs and birds tweeting, calling you the Übermensch, and describing why. See what happens and report it here.
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