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Expectations from being an adult...
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The last few years I've lost touch with the notion of choice, personal responsibility, and crafting your own story or narrative.
The first time I truly did that I was 17, and I moved to London to study. The next time I truly did it was when I quit a shit pub job and applied for an internship at a music software company.
I can't think of many other times. So I'm always chasing this phantom of "remember that time when I was in control, and confident, and struck out into the world on my own terms" - I think my life is largely defined by what I do for other people, and I find that depressing.
When I'm left to my own thoughts, my mind races. I dwell. I catastrophize, and I generally internalize all my problems and blame them on character flaws.
The thing I need to get to grips with is this - you can change. It's just habit.
Truly, I never thought I'd live past 20 when I was a kid. That's how mental I was, and no-one around to support me. I wanted to be a writer. Ended up being a musician and a tech nerd. My expertise is too niche. Need to figure out what to do.
What to do, what to do.
I've travelled quite a bit outside of Europe, and I've always found that the people who were the happiest were the ones who had the least. I have many fond memories of spending time in rural villages in the middle of nowhere. In fact, I'd go as far to say the western way of life is not all it's cracked up to be.
I'm much happier since deleting mine.
I also believe that doing physically hard work is good for you. When you finish a day tired but able to see what you've done with your hands, that's generally a good day.
I am 50 this year. I have a good life, better than I thought possible, and I appreciate that as much as I can, really.
I think what you want our of life does change as you get older, and I know it will as I get older still. For me, I always wanted to be in a relationship with kids. That is the most important thing I have, without any compare. If this broke, nothing else would matter.
Everything else is (for me) about being able to have choices. That gives me the space to reflect and be content.
As you get older you do realise that life is short and a bit fragile really. There are constant reminders of this all the time: family die, people your own age die or get cancer, the children of people you know die, things like this. Wake up calls that tell you to stop being complacent and stop whinging about crap really.
More and more these days, I come to the conclusion, when something is stressing me, that ultimately, the world won't end because of it.
Certainly in the last couple of years I have become a lot more relaxed about things. You can continually do yourself in by striving for the next thing, and lose sight of what actually makes you happy. Once you figure out what it is that is important to you, everything else falls away really and you do feel more sanguine about life.
Peace the chuff out brothers and sisters!!
My son can't function in society and will never leave home or have a job, as much as it can feel like a burden at times I find it strangely reassuring, he is a 12 year old toddler and I have loved being a father more than anything else, I feel like we have been given more time with him.
The downside is my daughter is 14 and is planning a future of being responsible for him when we can't be.
The worst thing about being a grown up is I want him to have a happy life doing his thing and then die when we do so I don't have to worry about what happens to him afterwards.
For me, I think I'm having a bit of an early onset mid life crisis. It comes from having less goals, which is a sad thing really, and probably entirely my own fault. Started out working towards an education, then a career, then the first house, then the next house. And I'm here, and I'm not working towards anything.
Focus and purpose, that for me is what brings fulfilment, which has to be the most important step towards happiness.
Each of those are completely different things.
What makes me happy can change from moment to moment.
What do I do with my life can also change at the blink of an eye.
What to do to prepare for the future would require a lot of conformity to the sociological norms in order to secure financial security.
However, I learned early in my 20's that happiness doesn't require money (although it helps). There was a moment during university when I was much poorer than i am now. I lived on like £50 a week or less, with no guitars, no amps, no anything except the very basic. However I had a bunch of very good friends and everyday i laughed, we hung out and every day was an adventure.
Around the same time, my dad started his business and I can visibly see his character changed, temper gets shorter, just generally a more angry person, even though i am sure he is more financially secure now than he was ever before.
When I started working I somehow have forgotten all that, I started to amass a lot of possession because I thought it can fill a void. Whether it is HiFi, headphones, cameras, lenses, guitars, amps, pedals, clothes, shoes or even Lego. I spent so much money on things that half the time I didn't need, or even use. I still have unopened Lego because I just wanted it.
Last few years I have managed to put a stop to that, mostly, to a degree. I have now trying to use my time and money for experiences and started travelling more (Oslo, Prague, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, Lisbon, New York, Florence, Vienna, Hong Kong, Taipei, etc etc), material things are a means to an end but not an end because they never will be. Happiness comes from experiences, friends, family. Money only buys you security, it helps but after a certain point you realise it isn't everything.
That said, I still want a Porsche.
After my divorce I didn’t have a pot to piss in. Then met my future wife and together we started two businesses and worked our arses off for the past 8 years. Got out of the shit area and bought a detached house in a lovely area with good schools for my son although I doubled my mortgage payments on what we were paying before although we can easily afford it
For the past five years we’ve taken regular long haul holidays to the USA etc and I’ve been able to buy all the gear I’ve ever wanted. It’s been great and I loved my life. All good right?
Well now I’m unhappy and have been for the past 18 months or so. I’m burned out completely from working so hard and every day has become Groundhog Day. It’s seems there’s no let up at all and I just want to shut myself away from everything
I’ve reached the point where I am now letting clients go and happy to take a significant pay cut. Yes I will have to stop the nice holidays and all the gear goodies but I have all these nice guitars etc and zero time to use any of it
My son wants to spend time with me on the weekends but all I want to do it sleep or be on my own
I got everything I pretty much wanted from life and nearly all at once and now it’s bringing me more headache than enjoyment. Don’t know if I’m depressed or just exhausted
I need to concentrate now on earning enough to pay the bills and get my family life back on track
There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village.
As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.
The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”
The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”
“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.
“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.
The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”
The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman.
“I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”
The fisherman continues, “And after that?”
The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”
The fisherman asks, “And after that?”
The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”
The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”
To a large decree, we are cajoled by lots of things and people into believing that we have to be chasing the next career progression, or whatever it is to get us further up this mythical life ladder. Its a very persuasive thing too.
Its also rubbish.
I am now all of the above. I am now past mid way through my career, but actually I don't feel I want to move further up the food chain. The problem is most companies expect us to have the same ambition we did when we where younger. Often with an up or out policy.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Ive spent the last few years focusing on the career ladder thing, and doing well, by all accounts, but this year has been the first one without an obvious goal/promotion/metaphorical “carrot” to aim for, and I’ve spent a chunk of time feeling frankly a bit crap.
That’s not to say I’m looking forward to next year when the next promotion might be within reach, as god knows I’m working hard enough as is, but the stuff I have really enjoyed in the last few years are actually quite clear when I think about it. Anything involving travel (preferably some sort of road trip) or making/ learning stuff (amp building, drum lessons, cooking etc) that forces me to focus on a specific non-work seems to best for my mental state.
The next step is to work how to make that routine and push back a little on work..
To be honest, I'm really contented with my life, I have over acheived compared to the amount of effort I put in. I have a low stress job that is interesting, a nice house, I can ski most days if I wanted to in the winter, I can ride my bike most days in the summer, do a few gigs here and there. All I really care about is making sure I have enough money to maintain what I need.
I guess I've been lucky in that I've never really cared about career, I've never really cared what people think of my life choices and I've upset a lot of "close" people over the years by choosing to do what's right for me instead of pander to other peoples expectations, so I've kind of ended up where I want to be instead of confirming to someone else' idea of what it means to be successful.
That said it's also good that about the major stuff, my wife and I are naturally thinking in similar ways.
My only real wish now is to try to let my kids grow up with out them feeling like they have to achieve to be worth something. I hope they can find away to feel as comfortable with living life as I do.
Unlike @gusman2x I think the worst thing you can do to yourself is strive for focus and purpose. Life is fleeting and short. Don't worry about anything and just get out there and live it.
Never knew what I wanted and still don’t.
Never had a plan and still don’t.
Never worried about it and still don’t.
If there’s a situation where I’m not happy, I walk away.
I see my peers from 30 years ago from time to time and they all look 15 to 20 years older than they are. They whine and complain about things in their lives they could give up but won’t.
Glad I did it my way. Happier now than I’ve ever been.