[poutsara]

My career is great. I worked hard and continue to do so. Projects I set into motion years ago are coming into fruition, surprisingly. I’m doing what I always wanted to do. I make good money, finally. It’s fulfilling. I got incredibly lucky many times and somehow succeeded when statistically, and intellectually, I should have failed. All I can say is, that I’m good at knowing when I get lucky and then running with it.

My health is good. I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been. I’m mid thirties.

I live in a great place. It’s not that far from where I grew up but economically and culturally I might as well be on the others side of the world. I go back to my old neighborhood at least once a week. It’s a working class neighborhood at best. My parents are still there. I got friends there. I’ve been going to the same barber for twenty years. It was home and still is in many ways. Part of me wants to live there again. But I don’t think that’s going to happen, and if it did, I would want to move, and that bothers me.

My parents are the best. They are humble and modest people, and they don’t even know that. Their main happiness in life is their children. They are getting older. I want a legacy, if not for me, then for them. Is that how I’m supposed to feel?

I’ve traveled a bit, lived abroad for some time too. Not as much as most of you on here, but enough. I’ve learned from traveling that I like it in America the best. But that discussion is for another time.

I have a live-in girlfriend now, a recent thing. Her idea. As I type this, she is at the gym working out. Afterwards, she will come back here and cook dinner. She is a good cook. She cooks every night. When my mom was sick not long ago, she cooked dinner for my whole family, and not just once. She is cute., not stunningly beautiful, but cute and wants to stay that way. I think she makes my life much easier rather than harder. She is a handful of years younger than me. I know that she wants marriage eventually. She has her problems and I have some doubts but that’s my nature. I always thought that I wanted marriage. But I wonder, is this it?

I sit here and think about my life as it was up to just a year ago. Things were up in the air back then – my career was moving forward but was far from secure. There were a thousand uncertainties. I had a crappy apartment. I had very little money. I still went out a lot. I dated a lot. I felt my life was a hustle - but there was excitement. I liked being the underdog. It was fun proving what I could do even if the only person keeping score was me. I feel that’s over now and it’s depressing me.

I’m where I always wanted to be and thankful for that. Still I think, is that it? This is it? That’s all there is?

I'm making this post for my own benefit and to see if I'm the only one who feels this way.

[peterthephoenix]

I'm thinking that happiness comes from growth and fulfillment (the feeling like you're working towards your capacity).

Now that you have financial security, health and a great girlfriend on the plate, what other dreams do you want to achieve? It seems hard to believe that those three things, albeit important, are your lifes work.

[poutsara]

(11-10-2014 10:00 PM)peterthephoenix Wrote:  

I'm thinking that happiness comes from growth and fulfillment (the feeling like you're working towards your capacity).

Now that you have financial security, health and a great girlfriend on the plate, what other dreams do you want to achieve? It seems hard to believe that those three things, albeit important, are your lifes work.

You are right, they are not my life's work. That would be too easy.

I'm realizing that that goal of working towards one's capacity is a goal post that is forever moving into the distance on the horizon, by definition, unachievable. And that's where it should be.

[RoastBeefCurtains4Me]

I am 50. I am unable to father children, so I have none. I've never have grandchildren. I would have loved to be the old patriarch, standing in church with my 4 grown, married children and my 15 grandchildren as the newest is baptized. I feel like I don't have anything to live for. Not in the sense of being suicidal, which I'm not. I mean I don't have anything to devote myself to. All I can do as I age is to try to enjoy hedonistic pleasures and to distract myself with interesting work, hobbies and travel. Not very meaningful.

I know that marriage and family is fraught with risk nowadays, and even if you avoid the worst pitfalls, you don't receive the respect that a father and head of the family would have received in past generations. Still, I feel like leading a family, raising children to become solid citizens with good families of their own, and being a pillar of the community is a highly meaningful and worthwhile way to spend your life.

I think maybe there is a way of doing this, of threading through the difficulties in life and still achieving the dream of being a patriarch. I think you have to use red pill knowledge to lead your woman and lead your children successfully. I think you have to create a community of like minded people, so your wife and your children are sheltered from the harmful social environment of the wider world. To some extent, the red pill community online is an extension of this, but I think you'd need to somehow build a local red pill community as well, to give your family a social and cultural foundation.

People are starting to wake up and recognize the decadence and evil of the so called "progressive" social model. If you could form a healthy family unit, and contribute your energy to creating a healthy community and fighting the progressive cancer, this could be a good and worthy life.

[Travesty]

^ Find a good woman and adopt some children. There are plenty that need dedicated parents.

[WanderingSoul]

A friend once told me the only thing to look forward to in life is change. I think that's largely true. Change brings you excitement, and that's what everyone needs in their life. Pleanty of people are happy with a wife and two kids and a corporate job, at least for a while. Then their lives become mundane and they resent it. Change gives you excitement in life. Something new and unknown. Maybe now that you've met your old goals, maybe you need some change, whatever that may be.

[Tactician]

From Dune by Frank Herbert:

Quote:

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.

From Gay Science by Nietzsche:

Quote:

What is the seal of having become free? - To no longer be ashamed before oneself

I just want to keep going, following my 'instincts' / 'conscience' until I feel like I've done enough and had a good run. Don't know if I'll ever get there, but at least it's fulfilling to try. Best of luck to you!

[Days of Broken Arrows]

Here is what you have to watch out for:

To be human is to struggle. To live and survive is a struggle. So once you get to a point where you're not struggling, you sometimes will create problems -- since that's the nature of the human mind.

For most of us, there needs to be a battle somewhere and if it's not external it often manifests as internal.

This is why the idle rich spend so much time engaged in petty battles with each other. They don't have to fight to put food on the table, so they invent fights. Put them on the street penniless and all the family squabbles would go away real quick.

The problems you see at this point are not things that would have bothered you ten years ago when your main concern was how to earn a living. So be careful not to let petty problems or a general feeling of dissatisfaction consume you and drag you down. I did this and to a large degree it's what collapsed my marriage and my life.

Granted, there were troubles there already. But I think I found problems where there were none and felt the need to "transcend my environment," which was totally unnecessary and all in my mind. The problem wasn't within the environment -- it was within myself.

I really wish that as I was setting in motion the things that undid my life, someone could have given me a slap and said "Hey, idiot: it's not so bad -- ten years ago you'd have killed to be here! Look at the positives instead of worrying about negatives that aren't even there."

I would strongly recommend you rein in your feelings and try and view your life now from the perspective of ten years ago. It's instructive to remember all Shakespeare's leading tragic characters had a flaw that dragged them down by the final act. Maybe he saw this element of human nature and sought to explain it in that manner. If you still feel unsatisfied, create a struggle you can manage, like learning a new instrument or fixing up the basement.

I agree it is about "getting there." But once you get there, you can always create positive, tangible mini-struggles to challenge yourself in a good way.

[poutsara]

(11-10-2014 11:01 PM)RoastBeefCurtains4Me Wrote:  

I would have loved to be the old patriarch, standing in church with my 4 grown, married children and my 15 grandchildren as the newest is baptized. . .

Yeah, I see this. I want this for my Dad. Maybe me too some day, but I can wait. He can't.

Quote:

People are starting to wake up and recognize the decadence and evil of the so called "progressive" social model. If you could form a healthy family unit, and contribute your energy to creating a healthy community . ..

I think that's what I want. I miss the game though.

[poutsara]

(11-11-2014 12:02 AM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  

Here is what you have to watch out for:

To be human is to struggle. To live and survive is a struggle. So once you get to a point where you're not struggling, you sometimes will create problems -- since that's the nature of the human mind.

For most of us, there needs to be a battle somewhere and if it's not external it often manifests as internal.

I hear you. It's our nature to struggle, it's about trying to stay in a state of constantly becoming. Kazantzakis talks about this in many of his writings. Others have said it this way: you go up, plateau, and you go feel down. The only way to change this is to be continually starting new curves and, in this way, always remain in a state of becoming.

(11-11-2014 12:02 AM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  

The problems you see at this point are not things that would have bothered you ten years ago when your main concern was how to earn a living. So be careful not to let petty problems or a general feeling of dissatisfaction consume you and drag you down. I did this and to a large degree it's what collapsed my marriage and my life.

You are right. I was aiming for the place I'm at now, ten years ago. Fifteen years ago, believe it or not, I was aiming to be at the place I was ten years ago.Interesting that I got both places. Somehow though I feel different now. Maybe I'm not sure where I want to be ten years from now. Or maybe I know where I will be, and don't like it as much as I thought I should.

(11-11-2014 12:02 AM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  

I really wish that as I was setting in motion the things that undid my life, someone could have given me a slap and said "Hey, idiot: it's not so bad -- ten years ago you'd have killed to be here! Look at the positives instead of worrying about negatives that aren't even there."

What undid your life? I ask not to pry but to learn how to approach my own life in it's current course and make informed decisions.

Quote:

If you still feel unsatisfied, create a struggle you can manage, like learning a new instrument or fixing up the basement....I agree it is about "getting there." But once you get there, you can always create positive, tangible mini-struggles to challenge yourself in a good way.

Yeah, and I do this, to some extent. For example, weight bench marks at the gym. Learning instruments. I think I need a bigger struggle though, key is, I should make it external - and out of the home. Needs to be career related I think, and big, and be for the long term.