Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I absolutely LET life pass me by. I married at 16 and had five children. I almost never worked at a job. I have not had a Friend since I was in the ninth grade.
I have been married 47 years now. Both my husband and I are loners and homebodies.
So yes it passed my by but I allowed it too.
Was not having a friend for all of these years your idea or did your husband convince you that you did not need any?
Was not having a friend for all of these years your idea or did your husband convince you that you did not need any?
My husband has never convinced me of anything. It was not a deliberate choice, but marrying at 16 and he was 18 we didn't fit in with our friends at the time nor with those married couples which were older. and as the years passed and having kids, I never really went out much or to places where I would have met people.
I have a few aquaintences from church, but that is it and they are not friends in the common sense.
I look back on 18-22 and wonder what I did other than chase women. I didn't get serious about my education until I was 21-22 and was 24 when I graduated back in 2010 during the hellish recession. Had I graduated on time in 2008 before TSHTF maybe things would be different.
I don't think I missed much after I entered college but I was so serious minded and focused on things that I missed a lot early on in high school years. No sports...I didn't drive until my early 20s and never really enjoyed a social life until I went away to school. After that I have no regrets.
I know people who plan every stage of their life and are disappointed when the cards don't fall into place. I don't think that you can really expect that. The economy, war, illness, bad luck, and other adversity can get in the way. Sometimes it would be good if life passed you by. In my experience, it seems an eighteen month horizon is pretty much the limit. In a year and a half you might be experiencing something totally different than you are today so enjoy what you have.
Some people actually do lead interesting, fulfilling lives. If I could, I would give you a thumbs down for your comment.
But instead, I will give you a chance to double down:
...
It was a lighthearted 'joke', and hunterseat took it as such. The comment was not meant to be taken seriously. I'm glad you have had a busy, satisfying, interesting, and fulfilling life. You've done well. No complaints or regrets on my end.
I'm sitting in the office today. I work from 9-6 - left the restaurant this morning at 7:35 and it's still dark outside, fought traffic and got in here about 8:35. W
... Repeat ad nauseum in the darker months.
It's hard to not feel some of the days are just "rolling" into the next with no obvious purpose behind any of the days.
If you don't like your job, you should try to find another one. If you need to stay with your job, see if you can find some aspects of the job that you like. Take initiatives, find a better way to do some tasks, challenge yourself to be more efficient, more creative. Volunteer to take on new projects. Look around for opportunity to move within the company (up if there is an opportunity, lateral to broaden experience etc.).
Many people have similar work experience like you but still find ways to make the best out of it. See you can change the work schedule to avoid rush traffic hour. Optimize your time, alter or adjust your routine so that you can find new or interesting things to do before or after work. Many people (include myself) get up early to get some physical activities (go to the gym, go rowing, jogging etc. before going to work) or to do outside activities (including taking classes, joining meetup groups, volunteering) after work and weekends.
Life purposes do not have to be big things. You can set small goals to accomplish new things at work, at home, for your clubs, communities etc. Broaden your experience, your social circle, expand your contact group to open the door to new opportunities. IMO, it's very commendable that you seems to be more serious and thoughtful than many of your peers. Retrospect is needed to learn, to grow, to improve. However, IMO again, too much retrospection in combination with resignation is not good for person at any ages let alone at your age.
In fact I'd offer the inverse of the OP's "regret". I was too rapid in my academic progression as a teen; skipping a grade, then graduating from college too soon. Always doggedly forging ahead, I was motivated less by scientific curiosity or the desire to create, than by filling squares, getting ahead, getting praised. In so rushing, one fails to internalize the subtleties of human interaction, becoming not so much introverted and aloof, as inept and bereft of "emotional intelligence". This produces a lifetime of difficulties. One such difficulty is in romantic relationships – which perhaps among all other comparable pursuits, must be done aggressively and promptly in one's youth, without delay. I don't advocate for neglecting one's education in favor of partying; or at least, not entirely. But as we get older, it becomes even harder to party than to study, because the latter can be done individually, while the former requires social-capital, which is much more problematic to create later in life, if one didn't suitably prepare while young.
Indeed, I'd argue that the greatest regret is not about missed opportunities or a feeling of improper prioritization, but rather, a feeling of being trapped in perpetual planning for the future, without really being in the present. One ends up waiting and waiting, biding one's time in preparation and investment, in setting aside immediate enjoyments to hopefully facilitate greater ones, when one is more mature, more ready, more receptive. Does this time ever arrive? Aiming for the apex, we eventually find ourselves on the other side, obliviously having passed over it.
What you've described seems like a variant of what I deem "Little Professor Syndrome."
There are varying manifestations of it.
Here's one. So, instead of getting advanced in school or graduating school early, at about age 10, you think "I'm not cool enough." So, you start hanging out with a combination of bad kids and cool kids if they will have you. Jr. High is a rough road and Freshman year of HS is no picnic. But then, you figure out how to find people who sell weed, black market alcohol, porn, etc. You become a quasi burn out / punker (this was the transition time between those two styles). You actually find a degree of acceptance with the cool kids but never really become a true core part of that clique. Meanwhile, you get decent grades, take some AP classes and get into a halfway decent university in SoCal.
You head down there saying to yourself, I'm gonna hit the big time. You still enter into a science program since you are still enough of a Little Professor to experience revulsion at the idea of being a Psych Major and living in a frat. But you also become a respectable partier and general young-athletic-rocker (aka "YAR"). You have at least a few women but you don't end up attracting any of the "MRS Degree" types (aka "Husband Hunters"). So, by the time you get your bachelors, you leave school unattached.
You go into tech because there is no parental support to get a Masters and money is tight.
You stumble through an early career phase, hindered by the "Grey Ceiling" (few upward mobility prospects). You bounce from ill fated relationship to ill fated relationship. During this time, you jump for a job opportunity "back home" in the Bay Area, even though you never were feeling it there and still don't.
Now into your mid 30s you start to have the male version of "Old Maid" anxiety.
At some point you get married. It is a problematic one.
I don't feel that life has passed me by, I just feel after doing a "been there, done that"existance, it's lost it's luster, imagination, humor, and the sense of discovery that I sought when I was younger.
Maybe it's just my adrenal glands not pumping out quantities of adrenaline like it used to when I pursued my passions but life seems so bland now.
I almost feel like I'm ready to get in the mode of looking for places to poop when I'm put out to pasture.
I don't feel that life has passed me by, I just feel after doing a "been there, done that"existance, it's lost it's luster, imagination, humor, and the sense of discovery that I sought when I was younger.
I almost feel like I'm ready to get in the mode of looking for places to poop when I'm put out to pasture.
LOL, yep I know, remember when being able to buy something you needed was so exciting. How about saving hard so you could buy that. Sadly now, the only thing I want to do is get the ... out of this state and see the country, see some of the world, experience different things but I can't because of my family situation. If's funny how stuff has lost it's luster. I think what me and you are experiencing is depression, for different reasons though.
I don't feel that life has passed me by, I just feel after doing a "been there, done that"existance, it's lost it's luster, imagination, humor, and the sense of discovery that I sought when I was younger.
Maybe it's just my adrenal glands not pumping out quantities of adrenaline like it used to when I pursued my passions but life seems so bland now.
I almost feel like I'm ready to get in the mode of looking for places to poop when I'm put out to pasture.
I feel a lot of "been there, done that"—I no longer feel the urge or passion to create artwork, and although I still write a lot I don't any longer have the drive that I once did to publish. I don't feel like competing on any level for anything. Does engaging in healthy competition help create "luster"? I don't know. My imagination is still pretty much intact, though imagination without action doesn't really go anywhere. There are natural supports for the adrenal system; maybe I ought to look into them (again).
Taking the bus today just to wander around the next town over and "be free and be me" was interesting. On the half-hour ride, with my hands off the wheel and my mind free to observe, my life seemed to pass before me and I felt my age and how weird it is to be this age when just yesterday I was so much younger and so much more engaged on many levels. "Peace and quiet" doesn't cut it for me though; I seem to want something to shake up my world. The last almost-three years have been being a novice grandparent, and now that is becoming a bit more routine and while I still love it, I'm reaching for something Just Me. Still exploring, trying to discover what that is.
I've had (and am very much still having) a good life. Sure, I'd have done some things differently but then I wouldn't be the woman I am today. Mistakes are lessons.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
