I'm beginning to understand the mid-life crisis thing

Mate you don't have problems, I'd love to be 28 again with only your problems.

Pfff, 48, bald, finally bought a nice car and am banging a hot 24 year old chick. Live is good.

jamin your lightly-suppressed gay side really comes out when you obsess over your looks. Not that there is anything wrong with that...except for the part where there is.

Semaphore Slim wrote:

I'm 28 and am experiencing a version of this idea. I'm much wiser and fitter than I was at 20, but I look much older and uglier and my age (the number) is ticking up. I see how this creates an identity crisis for people.

For basically everyone I know, life was much better in their 30s than their 20s. Sorry mate, maybe do some work on your physical and mental health.

Let me go through a mid-life crisis for you young man. I am 35 years of age have always taken good care of myself. In college which for me was 2001-2006 running wise... I ran solid performances:

800m: 1:52

1000m: 2:24

1500m: 3:45

Mile: 4:04

3000m: 8:16

5000m: 14:17

10,000m: 29:05

Up to age 31 I was able to run a 5000m with little training in the 15:10 range still. I felt on top of the world. I was in great shape had a great family, perfect credit score, and a great military job in which I was pending OCS orders based on all of the things I was doing. I felt like everything was falling into place my wife and I were in the process of closing out a home purchase on a beautiful 3,500 Sqft home in Escondido, CA. In the military with my job and advancements I was breaking the six figure mark. My family was very happy so was I everything was just falling into place.

On July 31, 2014 I went to the gym to do a treadmill 6 mile run before I had to get a few things done on base. About 4 minutes into my run I had intense radiating pain down the left side of my body and my chest locked up. I was on my back and taken to Balboa Medical Hospital. The doctors delivered the devastating news to my wife that explained I had suffered a cardiac incident. I don't like to use the other word for incident in this case because it causes me a lot of anguish and fear. I was told my military career was now over and I would have to look for work elsewhere. I took an internship because it was the best I could find. My job was a 60% pay cut from what I was making.

My mid life crisis began when I realized our life went from all of these dreams and things falling into place to living in an old 600 sqft apartment with one bathroom no ac and filing bankruptcy. I lost everything. I remember one day in 2016 waking up to go to work and thinking my car got stolen only to find it had been repossessed. I thought about suicide on multiple occasions and realized it would kill the remainder of what was left of my families barely being able to hold onto. I had nightmares every night about July 31, 2014 and still cant get my near death out of my head. I felt like I was in an incredible hurry to play catch up and get back to were I was financially only to fall further behind. I started gambling heavy to think I can get my old life back. I started driving through really nice neighborhoods and would walk into open houses just to feel like I was still able to afford that beautiful life I use to have.

It took me nearly 3 years of talking to specialists to learn to just let it go it was never coming back. You see my life started feeling like a high school freshman trying to hold on to the lead pack of the NCAA Division 1 XC Nationals impossible and unbearable. Today we drive beater cars I work two jobs my wife also works and we make more than we did on active duty the issue is we are trying to pay off the damage that was caused by everything even after a bankruptcy. My daughter still goes into fits of rage at 8 years old and like me and her mom try's to find the life we use to have but I keep telling her you wont find those people or that life out here you just can't think about it anymore. My goal now is to promote move down to one job and buy a house. The goal is to one day look at the suffering I went though that lead to my crisis and use it to motivate others let them know you can get through anything it is up to you.

So that is a mid life crises...

That’s not a mid life crisis that’s life. It beats you up.

One day you’ll laugh at today’s struggles trust me

AndyDufresne2 wrote:

Semaphore Slim wrote:

I'm 28 and am experiencing a version of this idea. I'm much wiser and fitter than I was at 20, but I look much older and uglier and my age (the number) is ticking up. I see how this creates an identity crisis for people.

For basically everyone I know, life was much better in their 30s than their 20s. Sorry mate, maybe do some work on your physical and mental health.

And why was that?

Semaphore Slim wrote:

I'm 28 and am experiencing a version of this idea. I'm much wiser and fitter than I was at 20, but I look much older and uglier and my age (the number) is ticking up. I see how this creates an identity crisis for people.

So, you're say you bought a bike, started to swim and have looked at doing an Ironman?

You're in a different crisis. Midlife crisis is the guy above with the sports car and trophy girlfriend he can finally afford. I'm not sure whether your crisis has a name but it's common enough for people in their 20s to have trouble settling into their identity as an adult.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

I felt better at 30 than I did at 20, 40 meant I felt better with myself as a person and realized my faster days were behind me. I'm looking forward to 60, gray hair and all. Life becomes richer when you age.

Midlife crisis is not a synonym of serious crisis.

If you experience even the heaviest hardships but you're not a middle age man you go through some serious crisis.

For midlife crisis "midlife" is the key here. It happens at some age, circa over 40's as a result of accumulation of life experiences which MAY but don't HAVE TO be particularly traumatic.

You're not having a midlife crisis, you're hitting the male biological clock (typically this is around 28-30). This happens when all of your friends are getting married off and you feel abandoned. You need to stop measuring yourself by what time you are running (unless you are a pro) and try to spend more time doing things with others. Join a running club, hiking club, coed soccer team, etc. You might have to go slower than you are used to, but the relationships you make will ultimately make your life more meaningful.

A mid-life crisis is just some made up BS for people that have lived their lives within a pre-determined, socially acceptable confines and never really ventured outside those guide lines or practiced healthy self reflection, awareness, and future planning. They also may have difficulty accepting the disappearance of their youth and associated feelings and the impending march of getting older. Then they finally acknowledge that growing itch to do something different or change up their life drastically or buy some ridiculous and expensive new toy before they lose the opportunity. They may or may not act on that itch, and their life may or may not undergo some serious upheaval.

What Semaphore is experiencing is the realization that he is no longer a young stallion with seemingly endless possibilities, and the perceived reality of the potential boredom, physical decline, repetitiveness, hopelessness, directionless, stagnation, and paralysis of the long slog of adulthood. There is comparison anxiety as others seem more accomplished, happier, richer, further along. Things no longer happen as you naturally progress through life, things now only happen as a result of your actions. Meaning, significance, purpose, status, advancement, and recognition are now things that you must grapple with, rather than the world determining it for you.

I don’t have a specific formula for addressing this type of personal crisis. The first thing you can do is examine what really eats at you more than anything else and re-arrange your mindset and habits to address those things. For Semaphore, I imagine it is relationships with women and other social relationships and career situation. Those are big things to address if they haven’t worked out in a satisfactory manner by your late 20s.

When you feel that itch to do something different with your life, scratch it and listen to what it says. It’s often a signal that you need to switch things up a bit.

Also, run (or practice whatever) more. That’s the answer to pretty much everything. We are mostly the products of our routines and mindsets.

You gotta chase your dreams, don't let others decide your life.

Well said!

Semaphore Slim wrote:

I'm 28 and am experiencing a version of this idea. I'm much wiser and fitter than I was at 20, but I look much older and uglier and my age (the number) is ticking up. I see how this creates an identity crisis for people.

If this is true you are f-cked! (Says the 52 year old)

Damn dude, spot on! So what's a guy to do when you work a comfortable corporate job making solid money but nothing nuts, living in NYC around all that hustle and bustle? Join the bustle, live the city life, and save up while keeping good habits? Then pull the trigger at some point and take the jump into the unknown once you've "hedged" a good amount? I have this desire to just jump off and put myself in uncomfortable situations as a slap in the face to wake up. The week in, week out is just making time fly too fast. And for me, "drinks" after work, a trip to the beach for a weekend, and one "big" (2 weeks) vacation a year isn't enough to allay the feeling of ennui.

Semaphore Slim wrote:

I'm 28 and am experiencing a version of this idea. I'm much wiser and fitter than I was at 20, but I look much older and uglier and my age (the number) is ticking up. I see how this creates an identity crisis for people.

at 28 you don't understand, and if you don't have kids yet you really have no clue....you only have a clue when you get there, myself included, and it's not really about what you are talking about, for the most part