Mid-life Crisis... But not Mid-life

Sorry, I just need to rant!

I'm 26 and I feel like I'm going through what I can imagine what a mid-life crisis feels like.

I Don't know what I want in life anymore, I'm not happy with it, but it feels like it would be an exhausting journey trying to change it. I just feel stuck!

Can any one relate here?

a reply to: BloodSister

41 here and I think mines just starting.
I suspect it is just a phase but allsorts have been going through my mind recently mostly quitting my job and going on a walkabout for a few years across the planet.
You are 26 so go out do something different and meet new folk, It's what I must do also.
Good luck to you btw chin up .

well, its not a midlife crisis. thats just...life.
that feeling wont be changing anytime soon for most. its the whole grass is greener on the other side kinda mentality, people in creative fields wonder if they should have went into something technical instead, and visa versa.

not always, but its pretty common. I think it has to do with perception of time. when you are like 18, a year takes approximately 6 years...you feel you have soo much time to just do whatever, decide what you want to do, party, change the world, ascend this mortal coil into a demigod, etc.
then as years go by, suddenly a year only takes 2 years, then a year = a year and suddenly you feel you might be locked into a pattern.

wait till you hit 40 and a year takes about 2 months. you will feel panicked about final life paths, but with changes requiring about 200 years...

Yup. I'm 24. It's called a quarter life crisis. When I see my little brother who is 18i tell him all my glory days of high school stories like a dad or something, while thinking life sucks now... What's the point to try and change, my graves been dug lol. Plus it seems like everyone is an idiot and I only ever want to see or talk to maybe 4 friends.

Sorry you're going through it too. I'm sure it's just like everything, a phase. Hopefully...

Much love and good vibes though! Sometimes that's the best advice/thing you can give

a reply to: SaturnFX

I have noticed that time is just passing so quick.
I just got to tell myself I still have time to marry Nicole Kidman .

I guess its just the passing of the time torch. its funny reading about 25-30 year olds suggesting they are somehow old.
to a 40 year old, a 25 year old is like..the perfect age of both party times but also enough responsibility to land a job that pays for cool stuff.

I reckon a 60 year old grinds their teeth at 40 year olds complaining about their age, and a 80 laughs at the 60 year old suggesting they are over the hill.

I think it simply comes down to mindset at the end of the day. a 80 year old may be mentally more youthful than a 40 year old who has the exausted outlook and done trying to learn new things.

Yep, me too, I haven't got a clue what I want in life, have no drive for anything anymore, last few years have killed me emotionally.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring though?

a reply to: SaturnFX

Heck I'm 22 in my head and I found my first grey hair down there good god I got depressed about that, I catch myself in the mirror sometimes and I'm shocked.


So yeah OP get a grip you are 26 ffs in your prime so don't waste it.

Gosh! So sorry you are feeling so down. When I was 26, I was so full of ideas and energy. I started my first business a month before turning 26, and worked my butt off making it succeed. Oh, to be 26 again and know what I know now!

I hope you find the inner strength to get going. You're young and remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step...so get going.

a reply to: BloodSister

, but it feels like it would be an exhausting journey trying to change it.

Anything worth doing is not going to be easy. At 26 I was working a high stress/pay job and raising my first kid. I'd love to be that young again. There is a huge world out there, full of possibilities. Grab it before it gets away.

I'm a few years over 40 and I really don't feel any different or live any different than I did 20 years ago.
I did recently find my first white hair. It was on my nut purse.
It did make me take a moment to reflect on the fact that I am not going to be a kid forever physically.

a reply to: skunkape23

Yeah that moment where you think hold on I have gotten old lol.
I even have my hair kept seeing I can see the moment it went grey it is half not and half grey .

a reply to: BloodSister

Let me let you in on a couple of important, but seemingly innocuous secrets.

First of all, reflection, re-evaluation, a healthy grasp of the concept and the practice of introspection, are vital in order to get through what life throws at a person. They are analogous to the operation of defragmenting a computer once in a while. Computers require defragmentation because over time the data they need to access in order to perform functions, becomes fragmented. That is to say, that files which would need to be stored close together for efficient running of the machine, get pulled all over the place by various programs after a while, and the defragmentation pulls them back together, so that the computer can access them more efficiently.

In the same way, when you started your life, you may have had some basic framework in mind, maybe not consciously, but there all the same. This process you are going through mentally is not something which indicates there is something wrong with your life. It is natural to check oneself. It is necessary after all, to ensuring one does not wreck oneself.

Another thing that it might be wise to bear in mind, is that the plans, everything from well established goals, to the half formed thoughts and dreams that have driven you as far as you have gotten, whether you realise it consciously or not, are just exactly what they appear to be. Thoughts. We all have them, but it is important to realise that all human beings, no matter how entitled, no matter how well off, or lowly, have less agency in the course their lives will take ultimately, and the sorts of stumbling blocks and delays they might face along that path, than most people like to admit.

People see university graduates doing well, and they think to themselves "Oh, look at that go getter there! I wish I was that driven and focused". But people also see university students who are not doing well, and think to themselves, "What a shiftless, lazy bum. With their advantages, I would have been on Mars by now." Both statements are interesting, and flawed. They are flawed because success and failure are NOT part of a binary path system. There are not only two possibilities in any evaluation of success or failure, and by no means only one metric against which to measure that success or failure. Things happen, and even with the best possible planning, a driven and focused individual can come to ruin. Even with the worst plan, or even no plan, the most outrageous oaf can make a billion dollars. Trump, for example, is a halfwit by the standards of other halfwits, and yet that man could smoke cigars rolled with hundred dollar bills the rest of his life, and never notice the expense.

So what I am trying to explain, is that it is perfectly fine to not be where you expected, hoped, or even made solid plans to be at this stage in your life. It is even fine to never have had a plan in the first place, because God knows you can plan all you like, but it only takes a universe which contains a discernible entropic effect to scupper even the most detailed plan. In fact, where entropy is concerned, the more details and complexities involved, the more likely the collapse of the whole endeavour, but I digress.

The point is, while it is totally healthy to examine your position, you should not allow the results of your examinations to bring you low, or steal from you your vigour or confidence. It is important to know where you are, what you are doing now, but it is not necessary to get an ulcer over the things you have not yet achieved, and it will hold you back if you do. You can make any plan you like, you can form any expectation you desire, but if you allow those plans and expectations to shackle you, or enervate you, then they become what is called a "rigid model" in psychological terminology. The concept is simple to grasp. It is healthy, for example, to eat meals with regularity. Moving mealtimes around can be irritating to the gut in some circumstances, and keeping a regular flow of nutrients to the body and brain allows for improved regularity of all its functions, both digestive, and indeed neurochemically speaking. However, hulking out because you have missed lunch on a given day will likely get you arrested for assaulting a fellow diner with an eating utensil, and will mean you get barred from your favourite eatery for life.

In summary then, it is fine to have a plan. But because it is fine to have a plan, it must also be fine to fail to carry it out, because the plan is not crucial in the strictest sense. All a plan really is, if one knows how little in life is under ones actual immediate control at any given moment, is a thing one makes sure to grasp at, when the rare, and incredibly fortunate happenstance of its becoming possible, comes to pass.

I should explain also, that some people will tell you that everything they have, they have because they wanted it. Every success was because they, the almighty being that they are, decided it would be. Its is nonsense. For all our wisdom, our technology, our alleged sophistication as a species, we ignore fate, or what ever analogue for that concept makes most sense to you. Your successes should be praised, and failure avoided, of course. But those who seem to have it all, do not have it solely because of their hard work, or their focus, or because they have something internally that you do not have. It is because they were very, very lucky, because entropy, fate, the cosmic joke, has not yet found a punch line to suit them.

a reply to: BloodSister

It's just the passing to adulthood. You will realize that certain things matter over other childish ones. Example: Spending your paychecks every weekend and not caring about your credit rating. You must save and invest in you future.

Once you realize that you only have less than 30 more summers to spend on Earth, while still being able to enjoy the time, is a true midlife crisis. You've just realized that life is hard is all.

It doesn't get any easier.

Good luck.

-CN

a reply to: BloodSister

I Don't know what I want in life anymore, I'm not happy with it, but it feels like it would be an exhausting journey trying to change it. I just feel stuck!

You have been conditioned to strive for goals, be ambitious, successful, have lots of money, stuff, recognition.

All that goes against your inner "grain". The pull you feel that is failure to accomplish all these worldly goals is not you, its the conditioning. That guilt feeling of being a failure is false, let it go. Be glad you're inner guide and conscience are working normally.

Let that be your guide.

I had a mid-life crisis around 30 not 40. To me it was more difficult leaving my 20's than it was to leave my 30's. Hang in there you will find your way.

Let me just say pay attention to True Brit.

We all have expectations and goals in life but they don’t work the way we dreamed them. We move on.
I am trying to be empathatic with your situation because I have already been there done that.

I turn 70 tomorrow and I sit here with reams of legal pads and multiple pens, many unopened with a fear of being without the ability to write. But I don’t write.

I wanted to be a journalist…my ex talked me into being a nurse. I hated nursing.

I want to write and can’t.

What is your dream or compulsion? You don’t have to know now. It will come to you at some point.

70 and waiting for the impulse that moves me forward. Otherwise I have no idea why the hell I am still alive.r

This is not to diminish your concerns. Like I said it is all relative. Life goes on. This will likely come up again for you.

My very best wishes for you and your struggle.

a reply to: liveandlearn

70
Well done for putting up with it all for so long.
I hope in the next life you get your wish and become a writer.
If I could pick any afterlife it would be reincarnation because we get to have another go .

heck but you are only 70 dude still time to write.
Do as I'm doing and write your life story I'm dyslexic and mine reads rubbish but one day it will be a movie .

Oh and happy birthday you old bugger .

I've never really had dreams or aspirations.
I have just explored life like a jungle.
Sometimes the conditions are awful.
Here and there you stumble across a ripe fruit.
Snatch it up. Fill your hungry belly.
I have been occasionally amazed at the situations I have found myself in approaching things from that angle.
Things I would never have imagined I would find if I was following a plan.
Rich or poor. All the same to me.
I enjoyed my youth, now I feel like I have stumbled upon a mountain. I think I will climb it and see what is on the other side.
I will live while I am alive. I will die. Let's see what happens on the other side.

Be glad you have the ability to even have a midlife crisis. Some men live a life of no hope; only tedium and toil just to eat. No dreams, no ambition just backbreaking work in the fields.

Compared to those poor souls we live a life of constant party.