[silviophonic]

Came across this sad tale of a guy who woke up one day at the age of 46 and realized he wasted his life.
It bears repeating: seize the day, every day, don't get stuck in a routine just because it's comfortable, and don't turn out like this guy:

http://elitedaily.com/news/world/man-wri...fe/841316/

(TIFU means 'Today I Fucked Up')

Quote:

TIFU my whole life. My regrets as a 46 year old, and advice to others at a crossroad

TIFU. More like more whole life really.

Hi, I my name’s John. I’ve been lurking for a while, but I’ve finally made an account to post this. I need to get my life off my chest. About me. I’m a 46 year old banker and I have been living my whole life the opposite of how I wanted.

All my dreams, my passion, gone. In a steady 9-7 job. 6 days a week. For 26 years. I repeatedly chose the safe path for everything, which eventually changed who I was.

Today I found out my wife has been cheating on me for the last 10 years. My son feels nothing for me. I realised I missed my father’s funeral FOR NOTHING. I didn’t complete my novel, travelling the world, helping the homeless. All these things I thought I knew to be a certainty about myself when i was in my late teens and early twenties. If my younger self had met me today, I would have punched myself in the face. I’ll get to how those dreams were crushed soon.

Let’s start with a description of me when I was 20. It seemed only yesterday when I was sure I was going to change the world. People loved me, and I loved people. I was innovative, creative, spontaneous, risk-taking and great with people. I had two dreams. The first, was writing a utopic/dystopic book.

The second, was travelling the world and helping the poor and homeless. I had been dating my wife for four years by then. Young love. She loved my spontaneity, my energy, my ability to make people laugh and feel loved.

I knew my book was going to change the world. I would show the perspective of the ‘bad’ and the ‘twisted’, showing my viewers that everybody thinks differently, that people never think what the do is wrong. I was 70 pages through when i was 20. I am still 70 pages in, at 46.

By 20, I had backpacking around New Zealand and the Phillipines. I planned to do all of Asia, then Europe, then America (I live in Australia by the way). To date, I have only been to New Zealand and the Phillipines.

Now, we get to where it all went wrong. My biggest regrets. I was 20. I was the only child. I needed to be stable. I needed to take that graduate job, which would dictate my whole life.

To devote my entire life in a 9-7 job. What was I thinking? How could I live, when the job was my life? After coming home, I would eat dinner, prepare my work for the following day, and sleep at 10pm, to wake up at 6am the following day. God, I can’t remember the last time I’ve made love to my wife.

Yesterday, my wife admitted to cheating on me for the last 10 years. 10 years. That seems like a long time, but i can’t comprehend it. It doesn’t even hurt. She says it’s because I’ve changed. I’m not the person I was. What have I been doing in the last 10 years? Outside of work, I really can’t say anything. Not being a proper husband. Not being ME.

Who am I? What happened to me? I didn’t even ask for a divorce, or yell at her, or cry. I felt NOTHING. Now I can feel a tear as I write this. But not because my wife has been cheating on me, but because I am now realising I have been dying inside.

What happened to that fun-loving, risk-taking, energetic person that was me, hungering to change the world? I remember being asked on a date by the most popular girl in the school, but declining her for my now-wife. God, I was really popular with the girls in high school. In university/college too. But i stayed loyal. I didn’t explore. I studied everyday.

Remember all that backpacking and book-writing I told you about? That was all in the first few years of college. I worked part-time and splurged all that I had earned. Now, I save every penny. I don’t remember a time I spend anything on anything fun. On anything for myself. What do I even want now?

My father passed ten years ago. I remember getting calls from mom, telling me he was getting sicker and sicker. I was getting busier and busier, on the verge of a big promotion. I kept putting my visit off, hoping in my mind he would hold on. He died, and I got my promotion. I haven’t seen him in 15 years.

When he died, I told myself it didn’t matter what I didn’t see him. Being an atheist, I rationalized that being dead, it wouldn’t matter anyway. WHAT WAS I THINKING? Rationalizing everything, making excuses to put things off. Excuses. Procrastination. It all leads to one thing, nothing. I rationalized that financial security was the most important thing.

I now know, that it definitely is not. I regret doing nothing with my energy, when I had it. My passions. My youth. I regret letting my job take over my life. I regret being an awful husband, a money-making machine.

I regret not finishing my novel, not travelling the world. Not being emotionally there for my son. Being a damn emotionless wallet.

If you’re reading this, and you have a whole life ahead of you, please. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t leave your dreams for later. Relish in your energy, your passions. Don’t stay on the internet with all your spare time (unless your passion needs it).

Please, do something with your life while your young. DO NOT settle down at 20. DO NOT forget your friends, your family. Yourself. Do NOT waste your life. Your ambitions. Like I did mine. Do not be like me.

Sorry for the long post, just had to get it out there.

TLR I realised I let procrastination and money stop me from pursuing my passions when I was younger, and now I am dead inside, old and tired.

[Beyond Borders]

(12-13-2014 09:48 PM)silviophonic Wrote:  

TLR I realised I let procrastination and money stop me from pursuing my passions when I was younger, and now I am dead inside, old and tired.

Fuck this guy.

He's 46. His life is hardly over.

He needs to stop being a pussy and go leverage what he's learned for a more exciting second half. Or third or whatever.

All this whining and saying he's too old and tired. Excuses.

That was his downfall in his 20s and that's his downfall now.

He doesn't want a better life. He just wants to feels sorry for himself and others to feel sorry for him.

Sorry, Bud, but you gets no sympathy from me.

[Prophylaxis]

Being risk averse is the fastest way to mediocrity.

[The Lizard of Oz]

(12-13-2014 09:51 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(12-13-2014 09:48 PM)silviophonic Wrote:  

TLR I realised I let procrastination and money stop me from pursuing my passions when I was younger, and now I am dead inside, old and tired.

Fuck this guy.

He's 46. His life is hardly over.

He needs to stop being a pussy and go leverage what he's learned for a more exciting second half. Or third or whatever.

All this whining and saying he's too old and tired. Excuses.

That was his downfall in his 20s and that's his downfall now.

He doesn't want a better life. He just wants to feels sorry for himself and others to feel sorry for him.

Sorry, Bud, but you gets no sympathy from me.

Fuck this reddit whining.

Any man who at the solemn age of **46** still talks seriously about his worthless 20s projects of writing a "utopic/dystopic book" and traveling the world to "help the poor and homeless" as if such utter inanities can occupy a mature man's mind for a fraction of a second deserves to be beaten into pulp and then kicked in the face.

If it is really true that he just found out that his bitch had been cheating on him, he should be thinking about how to kick her the fuck out while protecting the valuable assets that he earned from his unjustly maligned "9-7 job" that he speaks about with the casual ingratitude of the thoughtless loser and whiner that he is, not ruminating about his father's funeral or whatever this jackass considers to be of importance.

There is no whiner like an Xer whiner -- worse even than the boomers, though that hardly seems possible. Fuck them.

But props if this is a troll -- I have enough faith in humanity to believe that that is a strong possibility.

[L M McCoy]

(12-13-2014 09:51 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(12-13-2014 09:48 PM)silviophonic Wrote:  

TLR I realised I let procrastination and money stop me from pursuing my passions when I was younger, and now I am dead inside, old and tired.

Fuck this guy.

He's 46. His life is hardly over.

He needs to stop being a pussy and go leverage what he's learned for a more exciting second half. Or third or whatever.

All this whining and saying he's too old and tired. Excuses.

That was his downfall in his 20s and that's his downfall now.

He doesn't want a better life. He just wants to feels sorry for himself and others to feel sorry for him.

Sorry, Bud, but you gets no sympathy from me.

This is why I love BB. Some douche is having a teary eyed moment and pouring his heart out..the atmosphere has changed into a depressive yet serious state. Readers are reflecting and reminiscing when suddenly a "fuck this guy" comes out of nowhere.

[Espresso]

(12-13-2014 09:51 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

All this whining and saying he's too old and tired. Excuses.

That was his downfall in his 20s and that's his downfall now.

Great observation from BB.

I do think it might be too late for him though. But NOT because he's 46.
But because he can't just suddenly change. He didn't become the man he is overnight, it took him many years, decades even, to get to the place he is now. The repetitive behaviours, ingrained thought patterns, decision making, the formation of him as an individual. Similarly, I don't think it can be undone in a short timeframe either. He can't just start thinking and acting differently, and do what you might do for example, if you found yourself in his shoes at the age of 46 with your mindset and past experience. It will be a long walk back, and I don't think he is prepared to walk it by the sounds of it.

[The Lizard of Oz]

The real waste of life is not working a "9-7 banker's job" or whatever this fool thinks is his problem.

The real waste is being a whiner and an ingrate who still imagines -- at 46 -- that ludicrous banalities and cliches like writing a worthless novel or traveling to "help the poor and homeless" are the things that make life worth living.

The real waste is working a banker's job for years and not being enough of a man to have a thousand different thoughts, impressions, and feelings about that job and all the myriad things and people that it involves. The waste is buying into the idiotic cliche that such a job is necessarily "empty" or "soulless", as if it is not a part of life that accrues depth and interest over time if one only allows it to, and keeps one's eyes and one's mind open to what life truly is, to its everyday modest charms and possibilities.

The real waste is being so foolish and conventional as to believe that the true depths and subtleties that make life worth living are only contained in the exotic locales that one has failed to visit or in some thin and conventionally defined literary achievements imagined in one's youth -- as if a very young man could ever have anything of real interest to say.

There is no greater vice than ingratitude -- not because it is morally wrong (which it is) but because it so cognitively evacuating. In the search for a thinly imagined ideal, it hollows out and reduces the actual lived life, depriving it of the true and rich meanings. This is where the real waste lies, in the ingrate's turning away from life, in losing the world. How terrible.

[kaotic]

^^^^^^All of the responses is why I love this forum. Some GREAT wisdom here.

[VolandoVengoVolandoVoy]

Troll.

[Beyond Borders]

(12-13-2014 10:23 PM)Espresso Wrote:  

(12-13-2014 09:51 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

All this whining and saying he's too old and tired. Excuses.

That was his downfall in his 20s and that's his downfall now.

Great observation from BB.

I do think it might be too late for him though. But NOT because he's 46.
But because he can't just suddenly change. He didn't become the man he is overnight, it took him many years, decades even, to get to the place he is now. The repetitive behaviours, ingrained thought patterns, decision making, the formation of him as an individual. Similarly, I don't think it can be undone in a short timeframe either. He can't just start thinking and acting differently, and do what you might do for example, if you found yourself in his shoes at the age of 46 with your mindset and past experience. It will be a long walk back, and I don't think he is prepared to walk it by the sounds of it.

I understand your point.

But every step in life starts from right now. If he chose to, he really could change his mindset. It has been proven again and again that personality is malleable, even later in life.

And there is no past. Like everything in life, it's a figment of the imagination. And only focusing on it makes it and its effects real. The more you ignore them, the less of a hold they have on you. This is the weakest link in psychotherapy - it makes far too much of a fuss of your personal history when ignoring it and pretending it has no bearing is often a far swifter path to freedom.

You blow something up enough, and there's no escaping it. Your illusions become your reality.

People have turned their lives around when older than him and from worse positions. This guy could too. He doesn't want to, and unless that changes, you're right that there is no hope.

If I was him, I'd actively seek out stories about people my age and older who completely transformed their lives. That's where his salvation lies.

[alexdagr81]

dude needs to make friends with either Prozac, Celexa, Lexapro, or Zoloft.

[The_CEO]

The fact is we're all gonna be 46 or whatever age anyway, 9-7 job or not, and moreover 6 feet under sooner than we would like it.

So yes: carpe diem.

Don't waste time looking back except for the lessons you draw from it and move on.

[Onto]

This is more of the same feminine bullshit that is spewed all over the media for the past 30 years. That's feminine, not feminist.

Bad Dad isn't in touch with his feelings and emotions. He isn't passionate enough and doesn't help the homeless.

Feelings, emotion, passion, giving all your time and resources to the masses. These are all feminine words and ideals.

There was a time when it was more than enough for man to do well at going out into the world to contend with the others in order to earn the means necessary to provide for his family. That is the bieng masculine, and the wife would take care of the home and caring for the kids. That's a true division of labor.

Nowadays, our feminine culture has convinced men they should feel a sense of fault for that and look at themselves as emotionless wallets. In essence, psychologically castrating themselves, and the men of this country are buying into it!!!! It makes my blood boil like nothing else. When are men going to wake the fuck up and take back this country before we lose it for good?!

Some may laugh and say it will never happen and men will always have the upper hand. They are blind, it's already been lost.

And that ungrateful wife and son probably never thanked him for their food, clothing and home.

[enderilluminatus]

Seriously, fuck this guy. Divorce the whore and spend the rest of your life doing whatever the fuck you want to do.

[Quintus Curtius]

This guy is just whining because his wife has been banging someone else.

Nothing is stopping this wuss from quitting his job and going to Tibet to contemplate his navel. Or he could quit his job and become an ambulance driver in some combat zone somewhere. Or he could spend 6 months overseas doing whatever, and find some new purpose in his life. Would be the best thing for him, to lose EVERYTHING.

He needs to hit rock bottom. But he won't, because he doesn't really want to improve himself. He wants to attention-whore on reddit.

Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.

[Wahawahwah]

(12-13-2014 10:41 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(12-13-2014 10:23 PM)Espresso Wrote:  

(12-13-2014 09:51 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

All this whining and saying he's too old and tired. Excuses.

That was his downfall in his 20s and that's his downfall now.

Great observation from BB.

I do think it might be too late for him though. But NOT because he's 46.
But because he can't just suddenly change. He didn't become the man he is overnight, it took him many years, decades even, to get to the place he is now. The repetitive behaviours, ingrained thought patterns, decision making, the formation of him as an individual. Similarly, I don't think it can be undone in a short timeframe either. He can't just start thinking and acting differently, and do what you might do for example, if you found yourself in his shoes at the age of 46 with your mindset and past experience. It will be a long walk back, and I don't think he is prepared to walk it by the sounds of it.

I understand your point.

But every step in life starts from right now. If he chose to, he really could change his mindset. It has been proven again and again that personality is malleable, even later in life.

And there is no past. Like everything in life, it's a figment of the imagination. And only focusing on it makes it and its effects real. The more you ignore them, the less of a hold they have on you. This is the weakest link in psychotherapy - it makes far too much of a fuss of your personal history when ignoring it and pretending it has no bearing is often a far swifter path to freedom.

You blow something up enough, and there's no escaping it. Your illusions become your reality.

People have turned their lives around when older than him and from worse positions. This guy could too. He doesn't want to, and unless that changes, you're right that there is no hope.

If I was him, I'd actively seek out stories about people my age and older who completely transformed their lives. That's where his salvation lies.

Seconded.

All I got from his rant was self pity.

"I screwed up but you guys don't. Dont waste your life. I couldve been so much more but because I blame my 20 year self, my circumstances, everything else... I could not live up to my HUGE potential"


Here's the thing : Wasted potential is the commonest thing in the world.
It takes effort. It takes discipline. It takes passion. and yea, some talent. But mostly the others.

This is no different than a guy saying "oh, I couldve totally aced the exam if I'd studied. never slack in college." or a gambler saying "I couldve been a millionaire if Id invested all the money I pissed away. Never gamble."

Gimme a break. He's 46, not on his deathbed talking to his grandson.

My father is 55, dealing with a drug addled brother, an obnoxious wife, working 14 hours a day to do the thing he loves while raising one other son and still finds life pretty good.

This fuck up was a golden opportunity for the guy to burn everything and channel that anger into something positive for himself. Instead, this guy goes online and rationalizes his errors away.

News flash old guy: most of us know not to waste life, its not exactly debatable.

Its better to learn from people who've actually achieved something instead of participating in the collective mourning of wasted opportunity.

[rhr]

(12-13-2014 10:57 PM)Onto Wrote:  

And that ungrateful wife and son probably never thanked him for their food, clothing and home.

This is important. The real problem is not that he "wasted" his life in a "soulless" 9-7 shit job, the real problem is that he has never been appreciated (!!!) for doing so.

He sacrificed himself for the wellbeing of his wife/family and never got as little as a Thank You for it.

This is the real issue, but what bothers me is the "blame the victim" mentality prevalent on this forum! Just like in the 58 year virgin thread, the environment in which these men live is never considered. BLAME THE VICTIM - the easy and convenient way into deluding yourselves into believing you have more control over your lives than you really have...

[Jevioso]

Ray Croc didn't have his breakthrough until he was in his 50's.

Let go of the past and reinvent yourself; that's what life is about. When you think you can no longer take control and conquer fate, your spirit dies. All that's left is a miserable zombie.

[scorpion]

Not sure why so much venom is being spewed at this guy. He says flat out, "Don't be like me!" He knows he fucked up. He just doesn't want others to make the same mistakes he did. If this guy was made of the stuff that would allow him to totally reinvent himself on the other side of the world at age 46, he would have done so, and his post would have had a much different tone and message. But he didn't do that, because he's not an alpha-playboy-badass who's in total control of things and making life his bitch. He's just an average guy trying to steer others away from his mistakes. Whatever his shortcomings, his intentions were clearly good.

And who among us does not have regrets? Who among us has never felt powerless at some point in his life? Who among us has not felt the sting of betrayal from a woman, or even worse, the sting that accompanies a betrayal of oneself, the belated realization that we've squandered our own potential in one way or another?

I see very harsh judgment being cast on this guy, when all he has done is prostrated himself before others and laid his life bare as a warning. He's a pathetic figure, indeed, but that does not mean he deserves scorn or ridicule, especially since he clearly is not looking for pity. He seems legitimately earnest in hoping that others will heed his warning, so that perhaps his wasted life will at least serve the purpose of steering other men away from the course he took.

It's important to take wisdom in life from wherever you can. It's often the case that knowing what not to do can be extremely valuable information that can save you a lot of heartache, money and wasted effort. Learn from the mistakes of others, lest they become your own. And while not every hard luck case is deserving of pity, one should be similarly judicious in doling out judgment and ridicule, because life is long and hard, with many twists in the road, and we never know where we may end up ourselves. Because to quote the great Everlast, "God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his shoes, 'cause then you really might know what it's like to sing the blues."

[Veloce]

(12-14-2014 01:32 AM)scorpion Wrote:  

And who among us does not have regrets? Who among us has never felt powerless at some point in his life? Who among us has not felt the sting of betrayal from a woman, or even worse, the sting that accompanies a betrayal of oneself, the belated realization that we've squandered our own potential in one way or another?

Everyone has regrets. But I'm reminded of that age-old player wisdom, "Better to regret something you did, rather than regret something you didn't do."

This fool is making another crucial mistake: he is applying value (or lack thereof) on his life based on shit that he didn't do in his PAST. Because he hasn't lived a fulfilling life, he's making the moronic assumption that those of us that have phenomenal memories in our past are somehow immune from feeling regret, boredom, ennui.

The danger of romanticizing and dwelling his wasted youth is cementing his sentiment that "it's over" and he missed out.

Time is an illusion. There is no past. There is no future. The future is the dream that's in your head, but it requires ACTION in the PRESENT to create that future. The past teaches us lessons on how to live in the PRESENT. The only use of abstractly conjuring images of the past or future is to make decisions in the PRESENT. Dwelling on the past or future in some clouded fantasy only reinforces wasting time.

There's a possibility that this guy is just getting his first microgram of red pill. He's Kevin Spacy in American Beauty. His wife has been cheating on him and he feels nothing.

His post is incredibly pussified, but if he can harness just a bit of anger and productivity in his addled mind, he could easily make a few changes and start living the life he's always fantasized about. Go let him help the homeless of the world. One of two things will happen: It will be as fulfilling as he imagined, in which case good for him for pursuing his dreams and whatever makes him happy. Or; it won't be what he imagined and his disillusionment will make him pursue another path. Either way it's a win/win scenario and a much more authentic life than his current driveling despair.

[Sonsowey]

He could just bail on the family that leeches off him without loving or supporting him.

He could go do erything he wants now.

[Quintus Curtius]

^^^

Scorpulus:

You're giving this guy too much credit. I agree with your sentiments, but this guy is not worth a lot of sympathy.

The reason we're spewing venom at this guy is because he IS looking for pity. He is. The entire statement reads like one long whiny, whimpering brain-dump.

I mean, for Christ's sake, just read the fucking thing...it makes me want to reach through the computer and smack his fucking face.

46? You're not even that fucking old, you goddamn wuss. Get off your fucking ass and re-create yourself.

Nobody likes a quitter. And there is not a single word there along the lines of "I'm going to keep trying, I'm going to keep fighting..." Nothing. Just total, abject defeat. Total, abject surrender.

This guy never learned some basic lessons of life when he was younger: Life is one long litany of victory, defeat, victory, and defeat.

When you get your ass handed to you, you pick up your fucking ass, throw it over your shoulder, and keep moving.

And that is life, in one form or another.

Keep moving, at all costs. Forward, forward, forward...until you drop dead in your 80s or 90s. And that is life.

So, we don't want to hear the moaning, the bitching, and the whining, UNLESS you are trying. That man who is trying, who is still in the game, who is still putting in effort: that man I will idolize.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.


Q

[Beyond Borders]

^ Couldn't have summed up what is so irritating about his writing better myself.

To reiterate the above, he's not even pretending to want to try again, when there is no reason he cannot. He probably had similar reasons for not doing the things he wanted when he was younger.

I'm too busy. I don't have money. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. My wife won't let me. My parents didn't give me this or that.

I made some of the same excuses as a youngster, so I'm certainly not immune.

Venom aside, I do hope he pulls it together. But only because I'm sentimental like that. His story is instructive, to be sure, and I'd be happy to give him mad props if he expressed a desire to try to make something of what's left of his life, which could be a quite substantial portion. But as Quintus points out, the entire tone of his post suggests the opposite.

As for now, I get more what-not-to-be out of his present mentality than I do out of his sob story past.

Everyone starts somewhere, though. Let's hope this is the first step towards waking up.

[PeruLover12]

(12-13-2014 10:29 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

The real waste is being a whiner and an ingrate who still imagines -- at 46 -- that ludicrous banalities and cliches like writing a worthless novel or traveling to "help the poor and homeless" are the things that make life worth living.

Can't agree with this part of your post at all. Why is writing a novel a worthless banality or helping people less fortunate than yourself if that's your desire?

This guy's problem was not his choice of dreams, just the fact that he never had the backbone to achieve them.

[Beyond Borders]

^ Agreed.