Specific midlife crisis issue: playing "what if" with your life?

[Anonymous]

This thread reminds me of a Star Trek the Next Generation episode, titled "Tapestry." Captain Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) is given an opportunity to time-travel back to his youth and make different decisions, but then it changes his present and future. He chose to avoid getting in to a bar fight in his youth, and then he travels back to the present to find out he is no longer a Captain and he now has a safe, boring job on his ship where he won't get noticed and will never get promoted. Also, this episode came out 31 years ago, so I'm clearly middle-aged now.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tapestry_(episode)

[Anonymous]

I read and watch a ton of books/videos on near-death experiences--it brings me peace when I am in a headspace of regret.

Links

UVA School of Medicine
https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/our-research/near-death-experiences-ndes/

https://www.brucegreyson.com/about/

https://www.nderf.org/

https://www.youtube.com/@cominghomechannel

https://iands.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Long

I also know people in my personal life who have had near-death experiences. They didn't have a book to sell me, a website to promote or research to fund.

Also, when I view events of my life symbolically ---I spot all sorts of beautiful coincidences around me and deeper meanings that weave the regrets and successes of my life into a beautiful, imperfect tapestry.

Peace.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you ruminating on these thoughts -- any thought -- again and again, is what's not healthy. Your problem is not about middle age, your life path or any particular decision.

Is the OP ruminating or just thinking, daydreaming? Maybe it's typical for the age and current life circumstances of the OP or maybe it's an active imagination. For example, OP mentioned thinking what if they had become a doctor and imagines what that life would have been like. That doesn't necessarily mean they hate their life or are having unhealthy thoughts.

I read about an author, maybe Stephen King?, who uses "what if" in their story creation. What if X happens? And builds the story from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s not an age thing so much as a mindset thing. It’s common to think that the grass is always greener.

For me, it comes back to self acceptance. I accept that I’ve done the best I can with what I have and others haven’t had to live my life, so comparing myself to them is a purposeless activity.

For me it's an age thing. When I was 25 or even 35, I didn't think "what if I did this for living" or "what if I lived in that city" or "what if I had another kid." I contemplated those things as real options because they were.

By 45, many avenues in life are closed off to you. I think for women, in particular, the end of your fertility is such a firm closure on an era of life where you are making choices about the kind of life you will live. In some ways this is reassuring. But it's also scary. There's no going back.

Oh sure, you could move to another city or go back to school for a new degree or find a new spouse. But these changes cost more the older you are. I have always been someone who embraced the challenge of a new city or a new job, but the older I get, the more obstacles there are. And being a parent changes the math on everything. The degree to which my options are prescribed by how they would impact my children is dramatic.

So midlife "grass is greener" is different in quality than what you might experience when you are younger. It's less about envying what someone else has and more about realizing you are far less free in your choices than you once were, and that can make it harder to make a big change even when it's clearly what is needed. Very different in quality than the way people might envy friend's lives in earlier stages of life.

I agree. I can’t stop asking how I got here or why I thought this is what I wanted. And I got everything I wanted, but what I want at 45 is not what I thought I wanted at 30.

This so resonates. My high school self would have been AMAZED at where I am now, my amazing spouse, nice home, fun and comfortable job.

But I realize how limited my understanding of the world was when younger, and choices I made had impact on impact on my spouse and children (mostly that I followed a passion job rather than maximizing income, which means my spouse is stuck in a job they really don't like, and my kids likely will need loans for college).

I think when you are younger, you think you have time to pivot or improve things, but now at 48 my options for changing my life are so limited or would be extremely disruptive for my family. And I have had health scares, and mortality seems even closer (and to be honest my parents died in my 30s, and I already started thinking about how to ensure my children would thrive without me -- but in my 40s it feels even more immediate), and that drains my motivation for somethings, like "why learn to play piano now if I'm going to be dead soon anyways"...

OP's original post really resonated, I think many of us have these "what ifs"/near regrets at this age when the die is cast. The PP who says nothing is set in stone hasn't tried entering a new career field in their 50s or contemplated moving a teenager in the middle of high school just because the parent has midlife malaise?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread reminds me of a Star Trek the Next Generation episode, titled "Tapestry." Captain Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) is given an opportunity to time-travel back to his youth and make different decisions, but then it changes his present and future. He chose to avoid getting in to a bar fight in his youth, and then he travels back to the present to find out he is no longer a Captain and he now has a safe, boring job on his ship where he won't get noticed and will never get promoted. Also, this episode came out 31 years ago, so I'm clearly middle-aged now.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tapestry_(episode)

That episode dovetails nicely with the Inner Light episode where he lives an ENTIRE lifetime in his mind, with wife and children, on a doomed planet. He knows exactly what he gave up to live the Captain's life...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have journaling and find this particular advice very pollyanna usually - but it might help in your case: Start keeping a gratitude journal.

A trick my therapist taught me that I've found VERY helpful - for a different kind of thought pattern I found upsetting: When your brain starts doing this "ooh, look at that house, her husband is so handsome, you've never won a writing award" nonsense - acknowledge the thought, and then tell your brain, "Hey, thanks brain. Very helpful right now. Appreciate it, jerk."

It's a way to acknowledge that your thoughts are your thoughts but they aren't "real" - you don't have to give these dumb, harmful thoughts SO much real estate. Just be like, yes, I am having these thoughts. And I have lots of other thoughts, too! Brains are thought-producing machines and they don't always do it in a way that is maximally helpful.

Also remember - yeah, you don't have to be happy all the time. Sometimes you can be jealous, upset, petty, whatever. And that's part of being human.

To the extent that your feelings here are revealing wants or goals you didn't realize you had - can you work toward those goals? Do you actually want these things? To the extent they're not - yeah, acknowledge them, focus on what you're actually happy about and grateful for, and move on.

OP here and this is helpful, thank you. I too hate journaling! My therapist had me start journaling last year and I feel like it's made it worse, like it gives me an outlet for thinking about these things and what I'd like is to cut short these thought processes because they are so unproductive. I like the idea of just talking to my brain like "ok, thanks for weighing in." Like an annoying friend who points out unhelpful things you can't do anything about.

I am PP - and yes, exactly! I have a super fun fear of driving over bridges, and I use that trick with myself now when I have to go over a bridge. Does it cure me of the fear? No! Heck no. But it gives me something to do and sort of takes a bit of the SERIOUSNESS out of the picture.

Maybe instead of a gratitude journal you can start a btchy unhelpful thoughts journal. Just for you, as a place to vent or whatever. Like take the pressure off of yourself to be happy and perfect all the time. Sometimes you want to be a little mean and sorry for yourself! Why is that so bad? Just make sure no one ever sees it!

OP again. This made me laugh. Truthfully I don't feel sorry for myself! My life is great in so many ways. It's more like I'll go out to dinner with a friend who is a doctor and he'll talk about how much he loves his job, and I'll come home and find myself thinking, "huh I wonder what would have happened if I'd put all the time and energy and effort Bill put into becoming a doctor to the same, if I'd have that kind of job satisfaction." This is a weird and ridiculous thought because I literally never had ANY interest in becoming a doctor, it is 100% not the job for me, and also, my job is actually pretty good. But it's just this weird trick my brain plays on me that results in me up at midnight wondering if maybe I didn't try hard enough at life or something, even though I'm comparing myself to I don't really even envy. I mean -- med school, internship, residency, fellowship, long hours, plus you know, all that icky body stuff. I don't want that! So why on earth am I suddenly oddly wistful that it's not something I did? It's so weird, and as someone who has never really experienced much envy or jealousy as an adult, I don't know what to do with it.

That's why I'm suddenly getting why people do weird things at midlife. I think your brain plays these weird tricks on you and tries to convince you that what you have isn't good enough and people get frantic. But I have an amazing family, a great partner, a nice house, a solid career, nothing I want or am going to throw away. Instead I'm just having this isolated yucky feelings of like, I don't know, missed opportunity or something? I know it must be common because there is so much ink spilled on midlife issues, but I'm almost embarrassed to be going through it myself. I guess I thought I'd avoid it because my life is mostly pretty great save for a few bumps in the road that could happen to anyone.

I just had a birthday, can you tell

I’m a guy, but I get this line of thought. I’m an introvert, but pretty smart. Sometimes, I see my extroverted peers do their leadership thing in their executive position and think that I could do that. Why didn’t I do that? They’re no smarter than me. But then I think about keeping up that persona all the time, and I have to admit that it’s not me.

Similarly, I have a friend who went to a prestigious college, got a medical degree and is doing great. But, he practices alongside doctors who went to state schools and who get paid the same as he. He’s bitter. He also knows people from college who are in the C-suite of BigTech, have lots of stock options, and are loaded. He says he could have been one of them. But, the reality is that he wouldn’t have been them because he never once considered tech.

My takeaway is that it’s natural to take a midlife pulse on your life, and part of that is a comparison to others. It just is. Sometimes that leads to woulda, coulda, shoulda, but I’ve always found that none of those options were truly live options for me. Ever. All that leads me to think again about who I am, and what brought me to where I am. It makes me happier with my journey, and recenters me on what’s important to me.

Finally, like OP, I have it pretty good, and I know many family and friends who have it worse. Divorce. Special needs child. So, I’m working on zooming out for the big picture, realizing what’s great about my life, and practicing gratitude. I know, it sounds corny, but it does give me a sense of fulfillment (I have accomplished a lot), reminds me that the glass is half full, and that my next goals should be true to who I am.