How to make peace with your lot in life

[Anonymous]

I am one of the generation of women who was told growing up that she could do anything and everything and that she was the best. I thought by now I'd have a thriving and successful career as a doctor or some prestigious organization such as the UN. I'd be married to a well to do man and live in a beautiful house with a baby on the way.

Instead my life is so...ordinary. I have a normal middle manager job at a nobody office and am dating a very average guy with a boring job. We live a very middle class life. I'm thankful for my health and life but...I feel so disappointed.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in Germany due to my father's career. By the time I was 21 I had traveled most of Western Europe, lived for a year on my own in France, and spoke three languages in addition to English. I was attractive, intelligent, and thought I was destined for great things. I wasn't, it appears. It's just the way life turned out, but I'm disappointed with the way it did, and to be honest, with myself. You're not the only one, OP.

[Anonymous]

No one to blame but yourself. You either have to get over it or figure out a new path. I was once in that position but went to grad school to change my path and am now on the path I always planned for myself.

[Anonymous]

I suppose if I took a survey of some random number of random people, a good percentage would say my life is mediocre. It's certainly nothing like I thought it would be when I looked into my future at age 15.

But I'm immensely pleased with how it turned out for me and immensely grateful to realize I have everything I want and then some. The best is that I'm NOT DEAD YET, so I've got plenty of opportunity to plan for some extraordinary things in the future.

Go get the life you want, OP. That promise isn't dead yet, either.

[Anonymous]

Weird! You have to be a millennial. I don't mean that as a pejorative but rather you were told all those things. I am a GenXer and was told the best I could hope for was an Associates degree from a Community College and a job as a secretary. My parents expected me to go to college but the details were up to me.

I think it is really damaging to "oversell" life. We all can't be rockstars. Most of life is really boring. My DH is well known in his field and has been on a magazine cover but he hates his job. Jobs are usually boring!! Whether you're a big shot or a worker bee. Being an adult isn't sexy and exciting most of the time. Sorry. You need to find something that makes you happy. Travel? Art? Parties? Hiking? And do it. Life is what you make it.

[Anonymous]

I was a star student...and an average adult.

I am disappointed that I didn't live up to my promise as a child, but I try to be happy with what I have.

I'm 40 and not even a middle manager, so there you go. My boss is 30. My career has taken a twisty path and I am now working 2 PT jobs.

But I have 2 kids that my husband and I can clothe, feed and house. We are still married after 14 years. We live in a nice house in a safe community with good schools. We're in generally good health and have decent health insurance.

Would it be nice to have more money, be able to travel more, etc, etc? Yes. But, so many people struggle just to get what we have - lots never will. So, I try to be thankful for what we do have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am one of the generation of women who was told growing up that she could do anything and everything and that she was the best. I thought by now I'd have a thriving and successful career as a doctor or some prestigious organization such as the UN. I'd be married to a well to do man and live in a beautiful house with a baby on the way.

Instead my life is so...ordinary. I have a normal middle manager job at a nobody office and am dating a very average guy with a boring job. We live a very middle class life. I'm thankful for my health and life but...I feel so disappointed.

How did you think you were going to get here? Did you study medicine? Economics? Foreign affairs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Weird! You have to be a millennial. I don't mean that as a pejorative but rather you were told all those things. I am a GenXer and was told the best I could hope for was an Associates degree from a Community College and a job as a secretary. My parents expected me to go to college but the details were up to me.

I think it is really damaging to "oversell" life. We all can't be rockstars. Most of life is really boring. My DH is well known in his field and has been on a magazine cover but he hates his job. Jobs are usually boring!! Whether you're a big shot or a worker bee. Being an adult isn't sexy and exciting most of the time. Sorry. You need to find something that makes you happy. Travel? Art? Parties? Hiking? And do it. Life is what you make it.

I agree with your assessment here. I am a somewhat older millennial (30). I have a degree from a good school, I have a nice job that pays very well, I own a house, don't want for much, etc. I have the life I dreamed of when I was younger! And yet it seems like - maybe because of social media? - everyone is always doing more, being more. I think it's just this sense of missing out on something but we don't know what or why. I struggle with it, honestly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am one of the generation of women who was told growing up that she could do anything and everything and that she was the best. I thought by now I'd have a thriving and successful career as a doctor or some prestigious organization such as the UN. I'd be married to a well to do man and live in a beautiful house with a baby on the way.

Instead my life is so...ordinary. I have a normal middle manager job at a nobody office and am dating a very average guy with a boring job. We live a very middle class life. I'm thankful for my health and life but...I feel so disappointed.

How did you think you were going to get here? Did you study medicine? Economics? Foreign affairs?

This is what confused me too. Did you go to medical school or get that economics PhD from Harvard or Princeton? Bc if you didn't, how did you plan on being a doctor or a higher official in the UN, respectively? Was medicine just a dream as it is for so many high school seniors who then get to college, take their first college science class and decide that sociology is more their speed?

[Anonymous]

Even if you were a doctor with a baby on the way, that would suck. Morning sickness, having to work long hours. Be glad for your lot in life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am one of the generation of women who was told growing up that she could do anything and everything and that she was the best. I thought by now I'd have a thriving and successful career as a doctor or some prestigious organization such as the UN. I'd be married to a well to do man and live in a beautiful house with a baby on the way.

Instead my life is so...ordinary. I have a normal middle manager job at a nobody office and am dating a very average guy with a boring job. We live a very middle class life. I'm thankful for my health and life but...I feel so disappointed.

How did you think you were going to get here? Did you study medicine? Economics? Foreign affairs?

This is what confused me too. Did you go to medical school or get that economics PhD from Harvard or Princeton? Bc if you didn't, how did you plan on being a doctor or a higher official in the UN, respectively? Was medicine just a dream as it is for so many high school seniors who then get to college, take their first college science class and decide that sociology is more their speed?

I was premed with a biology degree. I thought a was going to medical school but never got around to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am one of the generation of women who was told growing up that she could do anything and everything and that she was the best. I thought by now I'd have a thriving and successful career as a doctor or some prestigious organization such as the UN. I'd be married to a well to do man and live in a beautiful house with a baby on the way.

Instead my life is so...ordinary. I have a normal middle manager job at a nobody office and am dating a very average guy with a boring job. We live a very middle class life. I'm thankful for my health and life but...I feel so disappointed.

How did you think you were going to get here? Did you study medicine? Economics? Foreign affairs?

This is what confused me too. Did you go to medical school or get that economics PhD from Harvard or Princeton? Bc if you didn't, how did you plan on being a doctor or a higher official in the UN, respectively? Was medicine just a dream as it is for so many high school seniors who then get to college, take their first college science class and decide that sociology is more their speed?

I was premed with a biology degree. I thought a was going to medical school but never got around to it.

Why didn't you "get around to it"? What were you doing instead? Med school is a sacrifice for everyone -- no one wants to study 24-7 from ages 22-26 and then another 3-6 yrs of working non stop in residency -- yet that's what people do when they truly want to be doctors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am one of the generation of women who was told growing up that she could do anything and everything and that she was the best. I thought by now I'd have a thriving and successful career as a doctor or some prestigious organization such as the UN. I'd be married to a well to do man and live in a beautiful house with a baby on the way.

Instead my life is so...ordinary. I have a normal middle manager job at a nobody office and am dating a very average guy with a boring job. We live a very middle class life. I'm thankful for my health and life but...I feel so disappointed.

a reality of life that somehow a young man or woman never gets until it is them. we all live lives of quiet desperation.

but not that your awareness of what life is, it will even get worse. focus on living, live for the moment. it is the only thing that has meaning to me.
?
He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach -- that it makes no sense. And when that happens the happiness is never spontaneous again. It is artificial and, even then, bought at the price of an obstinate estrangement from oneself and one's history . . . . Stoically he suppresses his horror. He learns to live behind a mask. A lifetime experiment in endurance. A performance over a ruin.
American Pastoral, by Philip Roth, p. 81. (1997)

[Anonymous]

I don't know the answer OP. I was a popular, attractive, kind, smart, and athletic person. People used to tell my parents they wished their kids were like me. Everyone expected that I'd have some brilliant career and marry some amazingly hot guy who made millions.

Truth be told , I was miserable. Now I'm an RN at a job I love. DH is an attractive guy who programs/codes for a living . We are upper middle class. My life is completely ordinary and I love it.

[Anonymous]

OP why are you dating an average guy? That's a choice. If you don't like it, change it.