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Dude, you are only 32! And you said you got it together at 28.
Seriously, you are ahead of about 80% of the population.
Here's a thing counselors might have one do. Write these things you are sorry for on a pieces of paper, let it all hang out.
Get a bowl or pan with water in it. And then burn them. Dropping them into the water. You are getting rid of this by burning and washing it out of your life. Make your own ritual. Do one at a time. Say a prayer or I'm letting this go! And mean it.
Today is a gift, yesterday is in the past. Let it stay there.
Well I wouldn't say I totally got it together at 28. I feel I only started and am just getting it together now more so, which is why I had a huge mental breakdown over it lately, and had to take time off work, cause I was too angry and depressed to function.
Even though I can change now, I still get jealous of other people's pasts.
I get jealous when having conversations with other people. They all sit around and talk about 'good times', all the time, and I feel I got nothing to share and feel so empty compared to them. I was never a jealous person much, but these past couple of years, it's just hit me really hard all of a sudden.
I know making new memories is hard, but I don't want to have to make so many memories, to the point where I have to wait five to ten years before i can feel i can have a normal conversation with other people, or so I feel.
I know making new memories is hard, but I don't want to have to make so many memories, to the point where I have to wait five to ten years before i can feel i can have a normal conversation with other people, or so I feel.
Do what I do: Meetup. I, too, feel like my 20's have passed me by, due to circumstances that are beyond the scope of this thread. So I'm making up for lost time by joining Meetup groups and attending their events. People in these groups, despite being well into their 30's, still party like they're 21, only with maturity and rationality added in. Is it perfect? No. But it still provides a great party outlet, and lets me meet cool, interesting people. Basic elements are still there: late nights out, dancing, alcohol, and silly group selfies.
What do you LIKE about yourself? What do you think are your best qualities? Whatever those are .. focus on those. The manifestation of those is the core of 'who you are' - not any mistakes you may have made while younger (we have all made them, many of us probably many more than you have).
Believe in yourself and your ability to do better now and in the future - don't reflect on what you did wrong in the past (unless of course you committed a number of murders and are now incarcerated - which I doubt!).
If you don't even know the best qualities you have .. spend some time thinking about them. Then go out and do things that will reinforce them for yourself. You just don't like yourself - and that means you are not self-confident. You can overcome that with a bit of active effort. Don't allow yourself to sink into a cycle of depression or in 5 years you will still be saying exactly what you are saying today - and you will be 5 years older than you are right now. Today is the day to start and move forward.
I went to university in my 40s. I bumbled around for years not quite being able to identify where I really belonged career wise - I was good at almost everything I did .. it just didn't all fit together till I was also in my late 30s when I suddenly figured out where I belonged and how everything I had done before actually equipped me well to do what I did from that time on ... I had only been 'apprenticing' up until the point.
Sometimes my friends will try to cheer me up, by talking about things that happened to them in the 20s, but at least they tried, and things went bad. I didn't even try, so it's my choices that make me upset, and not the consequences that were outside my control, like them more so.
The 20's were the worst years of my life career wise. What a hot mess.
I don't feel like I got it together till 35 when I quit fighting the I'm not meant to work for anyone. And started my own business.
My dad used to say to me, living in the fast lane, going no where fast.
Big part was my fault, fighting being who I was meant to be. Now I've had 25+ years of great success.
Although some of my friends and I tell stories of our 20's, LOAO and toast to the past. It part of why we are who we are today.
Well; my entire life has been like 3 different people's lifetimes rolled into one. I'm an ASD/ADD adult too; if that matters.
About 50% of my bizzare past is my own "fault". I swear; nobody can nosedive like I can ... it's a sight to behold, really.
The other 50% I can only attribute to the fact that random chaos just seems to gravitate towards me. Now I'm old enough to have reached that stage where I can look back & laugh.
Your lucky you plateaued at 28! When I was 28; unbeknownst to me ... I was only getting started.
One benefit to being me is that I noticed I'm really good at picking myself up & starting all over from scratch (now if I could only figure out how not to fall in the first place) ... I'm literally the Queen of Comeback.
I think I'm lucky that I'm "this way" ... I can see the world from a perspective that nobody else has. I can see value where others don't. And that has to be worth something.
Two quick thoughts which you might wish to ponder and use for the motivation to be the very best you can be.
I consider myself a decent person who always lived by the mantra that "you meet the same people on the way down that you dumped on on the way up". Simply put, I didn't burn bridges or behave in a hurtful manner, no matter who I was dealing with.
Enter the divorce from hell and all sorts of nasty criminal accusations. While going about fightinging the allegations (thankfully I had a "good past") I met with a shrink. He said "Ted, you are not walking around with a sign on your head which says you are a bad person. You are what you present yourself to be be today." OP, there is a message in that for you.
Second item: Daughter who is bright, but screwed around for two years in college and all but got herself thrown out. Her grades reflected too much of a "good time" and too little of intense academic focus. In the last two years she got her act together....and just last week was admitted to Medical School--a not so easy task if you know anything about it.
OP, you can get your act together and be what you are today. You can be better each and every day. You put one foot in front of the other, and take one small step, every day. THAT is who you are today. You are a series of positive accomplishments with a tremendous story of having overcome a significant deficit.
I did it. You can do it too. It is no one's business what hurdles you faced to get to be the successful person you are today. That is what counts; not what you were a decade ago. Anyone who would think otherwise is shallow and not worthy of your time.
I am very glad you referenced shallow people. These are the same that defame character, and will ruin lives if you can. They LIE because they feel they can. Ans frequently, there is zero consequence to their attrociousness.
Dude, you are only 32! And you said you got it together at 28.
Seriously, you are ahead of about 80% of the population.
Here's a thing counselors might have one do. Write these things you are sorry for on a pieces of paper, let it all hang out.
Get a bowl or pan with water in it. And then burn them. Dropping them into the water. You are getting rid of this by burning and washing it out of your life. Make your own ritual. Do one at a time. Say a prayer or I'm letting this go! And mean it.
Today is a gift, yesterday is in the past. Let it stay there.
I've heard that said. A friend told me: "Write it all in a letter. Then don't mail the letter."
Doesn't work. The feelings of guilt and self-loathing remain.....
Im 34.5 but I have exact same situation as OP. Probably up until same.. Age 30-33. Didn't decide to make a change until after June 30th, 2016.
Well I wouldn't say my friends are shallow at all. Quite the opposite. They are humble, it's just when they talk about this and that, from their past, I get jealous, cause I feel I have nothing of my self to share. It was so bad a couple of days ago, that I had a mental breakdown and had to take time off work.
And now tonight, I am going to a business party event where I am suppose to meet some contacts, who I again, am jealous of, and want to make a good impression and make some good contacts. It's hard putting on an act like that when feeling so down, and going into it with a desperate, jealous rage, wanting to catch up to the world.
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