Support for Mid-Life Crises? (exercising, eye, most expensive, ears)

[tripod]

Sorry didn't know where to post this. I'm in need of support since turning 40 (43-1/2 now). Would anyone know of any online or groups that meet in person to help deal wih issues relating to one's lost youth?

[ttz]

Easy. Just go out and buy the most expensive sports car you can find. When I turn 40 (in a few years) I am going to buy a Nissan GT-R.

[tripod]

Originally Posted by ttz

Easy. Just go out and buy the most expensive sports car you can find. When I turn 40 (in a few years) I am going to buy a Nissan GT-R.

Haha I just got rid of my Turbo'd Eagle Talon 4yrs ago when it burst into flames and do think about going back to another Fast + Furious turbo car but they're a PITA to maintain ESPECIALLY when you get to be over 40 when everything seems just a little harder


I felt like a 'Young guy' up until the day I turned 40 and now at 43+ I'm having no choice but to concede that my youth is lost forever and that I am in middle age and I do feel it. At 39 I could've probably passed for late 20's/early 30's and felt great mentally + physically but now I'm starting to look and feel older (more suddenly it seems) and the body has been changing even though I've been working out with the same weight set with the same basic routine since age 22. (I guess you can't stop those chemical + hormonal changes everyone goes through in mid-life) Within the last couple years it seems my father has become my grandfather and just realized I'm eligible to move into some retirement communities in a little over 6 yrs at age 50 I guess I thought I'd live forever until turning 40 and now the end seems inevitably clear and uncomfortably close even if I live to see 70 because in 16yrs I will be approaching 70 which just seems rediculous because almost yesterday that was my grandfathers age and looking a lousy 16 yrs BACK in time is a blink of an eye to me when I was <gasp> still in my 20's.

To me there's the VERY YOUNG (pre-pubescent), THE YOUNG (age 13-39), MIDDLE AGE (40-59), OLD (70-89), and REDICULOUSLY OLD (90+) On some levels I just see YOUNG + OLD with the dviding line at 40.

Is this type of thinking just normal mid-life crappy thinking or am I in need of a team of shrinks?!? Hope I didn't depress anyone else besdes myself just now.

[Robhu]

Dont bury yourself before you're dead. You may have many good years left.
I know the feeling of lost youth. When I hit 40 I knew my life was probably more than half over. The body didn't have the endurance and hang overs hurt more than they used to.
Don't dread the future. Look foward to it and adjust your activities to your aging body. There are still many things you can enjoy.
When I turned 60, I went out and bought another motorcycle to celebrate. I have 3 now. I still ride. I'll be 63 this coming January and now my life is maybe down to a few years instead of decades. No use sitting around worrying about it. It is what it is and I'm going to do as much as I can untill it's over.
My philosophy is life on this earth doesn't last forever. Dont live in the past. That doesn't get you anywhere and you can't turn back the age clock.
So you might as well do what you can still do and enjoy it for as long as you can. We will never be young again. But we might have many years yet to enjoy being alive. It takes some adjustment but it is doable.
You can't turn back an old clock but you can wind it up again. Some of those old clocks tick for a long time before the spring breaks.

An event happened today that got me thinking.
My wife has an identical twin sister who's husband was just diagnosed with a fast progressing form of ALS. (Lou Gehrig's disease)
I think he is about 3 yrs older than me. Six months ago he was healthy as a horse. Now he has maybe months left and has already been set up for Hospice. He isn't expected to have the 1 to 5 years left that most people have after being diagnosed.
But then, the twins grandmother lived to be 3 months short of 100 yrs old.
You just never know. Many people die young in tragic accidents or illness. Or war.
Thats why I just live for and try to enjoy everyday. There may be a fews days left or many days left. My youth was gone long ago. I can't bring it back. But I can still live for as many tomorrows as I have left. I plan on living untill I die instead of grieving about what I can't change.

PS, I hope I didn't depress you. I'm just trying to say life is for living and thinking of the past isn't productive. Each day is a bonus. You may have many days, years, bonuses ahead. And your midlife concerns are normal. We all go through that for awhile and then go on with the business of living as well as we can for as long as we can. Plan for the future. You just might have a long one.
Doesn't do any good to be thinking you don't.

[coyoteskye]

I think you need to change your mind.
You have ideas / perceptions about age and your boxing yourself in and limiting yourself with those ideas.
But it is true ... mortality is a reality.
And the awareness of that is difficult to deal with.
But denying it doesn't help.
But accepting that death happens doesn't mean packing it in and becoming a zombie 'cause you think your good life is over.
Perhaps there's something in you that needs and wants to make a change in your life and create a new way of being in the world.
To continue to evolve is key.
Young people are still open ... they haven't closed down due to rigid ideas about life and its possibilities.
You can "recapture" that openness.
Remember "the springtime and blossoming of youth" ... when life seemed endless and expansive and continually out in front of you.
Even with the awareness that death happens, you can bring that openness into your consciousness.
Old people tend to harden and become rigid and set in their ways of thinking and being.
This is antithetical to being "young" ... to being open and spontaneous and flexible.
Change is enlivening especially if you do some changing on the inside first.
Then outer change isn't superficial but rather a reflection and expression of something deeper and truer ... as opposed to buying a sports car or finding a much younger woman (for example) and becoming a caricature of a middle age man.

[tripod]

Thanks guys for the support

One thing I did change starting 16 mths ago was to commit to exercising/working-out continually until the end I hope. Starting at age 22 I started working-out but it was for the warm weather only like from april to october and then would let the body go to pot all winter where I'd start out again in the spring completely out of shape. Well up to age 40 I could whip myself into decent shape in 10-12 wks but now that's an impossibility so the plan is to go non-stop with the usual mix of walking/cycling/weght-training/stretching etc and take my cue from guys like Chuck Noris, Clint Eastwood, Jack Lalaine, and all the regular joes in their 60's and 70's who keep in good shape by just doing some kind of exercising and eating reasonably healthy. So that's one big adaptation I've made so far to help offset getting older and sure glad I made that decision.

[Huckleberry3911948]

right here uncle bunkys 12 step for mid life crisis, im good enough and im smart enough and doggonit people like me.
pick up your toupee and red sportscard applications at the door and have a seat. meantime i will start the share by talking about what
its like to be the oldest living fencer on the coast.