[Pilgrim37]

(08-12-2011 12:01 PM)Ajiaco Wrote:  

A lot of modern society is obsessed with youth. The media seems to cater to nothing else sometimes. But the older I get (nearing 30) the less I miss my youth. The disorganization, the flakiness of other young people, the drifting, the lack of knowledge about how the world works, the mistakes...I feel a lot more comfortable in my own skin with every year I age. I spent a lot of my 20s just sort of messing around, not wanting to choose anything that would limit my options, but I think it helps you get over your quarter life crisis when you have a vision and a means of pursuing it, even if it means giving up on other things. Narrow it down.

YMG, you seem unsure of where you really want to be, and what you really want to do. You have a lot of ideas, and it seems like you need to pick a place, and pick an idea that stimulates you, and just give yourself a few years to go after it letting nothing stand in your way. Maybe you will have to party less, or have less money in the short term, or spend less time with chicks, but you will be building something. I think a lot of that aimless feeling in our twenties comes from not wanting to limit our freedom by making any sort of binding choice, but we don't realize that this itself is a binding choice that may leave us older and still drifting, and past the point where we can start from scratch and give it our all again.

Check out some related materials here, that might help you sort some things out in your head related to drifting in your 20s and the need to make decisions and reduce the choices available to you:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/opinio...15532.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_...hoice.html

Great post Ajiaco.

He's right buddy.I feel this more every day.
You should enjoy life but you will enjoy it more when you also commit to certain things and build something.
If you don't start making your own choices and decisions,sooner or later life starts making them for you by cutting down your options 1 by 1...and it happens slowly ,so you don't realise till it's too late!

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"

[Screwston]

Shit, I'm 24 and feel great. I've had so much fun from 18-23. It took me a while to find myself but now I see the light and I'm focused on getting there. Just remember "men age like wine and women like milk". ymg - why don't you try some things for your hair like Rogaine? That or keep it buzzed.

[Vitriol]

(08-16-2011 08:01 PM)Amour Fou Wrote:  

I am no fan of having ridgid plans for the future and live life as if I'm just ticking through a list of achievements. There are no scripts in life, and the less notion of a script you have, more authentic and fullfiling your life gets, as you start living by your own terms and rhythms. Allowing for you own particular and private processes to occur.

The answers and inspirations for the future can only be found in the intensity of the present, allowing for spontaneity and some level of uncertainty in life. If you overthink your plans for the future, you enclose yourself to a narrow and repetitive perspective that doesn't allow for the randomness of life to cast out its gifts upon you.

Up until a couple of years ago I was extremely mechanical and goal oriented and it was actually making me kind of miserable. You really don't feel alive when you treat life like a to-do-list that needs to completed as efficiently as possible.

Most of us posting on this forum are probably more intelligent and talented than at least 90% of the human race. Take advantage of this fact and just be guided by your intuition, intellect, and what you've learned from previous experiences. Don't get obsessive or put yourself down over certain milestones you think you should have by a certain age. Life isn't that predictable, and if it was it would be way too boring.

I'm a total pessimist, but things always end up turning out at least a little bit better than I expect them to. Hell, if I would have told the 18 year old version of myself where I am now, I probably wouldn't have believed all the shit I'd experience and accomplish.

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

[FilMor]

(08-25-2011 10:28 PM)houston Wrote:  

Shit, I'm 24 and feel great. I've had so much fun from 18-23. It took me a while to find myself but now I see the light and I'm focused on getting there. Just remember "men age like wine and women like milk". ymg - why don't you try some things for your hair like Rogaine? That or keep it buzzed.

wouldn't rogaine be bad for you? i always thought that if you are receding you are better off buzzing it or balding it, there's plenty of alphas with receding or bald heads anyway.

[Samseau]

(08-26-2011 01:23 AM)FilMor Wrote:  

(08-25-2011 10:28 PM)houston Wrote:  

Shit, I'm 24 and feel great. I've had so much fun from 18-23. It took me a while to find myself but now I see the light and I'm focused on getting there. Just remember "men age like wine and women like milk". ymg - why don't you try some things for your hair like Rogaine? That or keep it buzzed.

wouldn't rogaine be bad for you? i always thought that if you are receding you are better off buzzing it or balding it, there's plenty of alphas with receding or bald heads anyway.

My roommate, a doctor, uses Rogaine. Says it doesn't work for all men, but, when it does, it performs miracles.

[madcaptravels]

i found this thread incredibly uplifting. i thought i was the only one going through this. I am 27, and feel an immense drive to get moving, instead of putting things off like investing, starting a new website, dreaming, making things actionable and chunk-sized...

also, another thing i have found helps me is an 'try it list'. for example, try eating thai, indian, nepalese, try different races of girls, but in a list form, a sort of 'to do' wish-list.

[AVisitor]

I thought I'd provide a little counter-point to this discussion

I'm currently 31 and the last couple of years have been the worst so far in my life. To anyone who says "life begins after 30" it certainly doesn't feel that way to me, in fact it's more miserable than ever before.

I had a lot of fun in my early 20s and also in the first 5 years after college (22-27), thanks to having a good network of friends/buddies from college who I hung out with. That was a very awesome social time for me, filled with partying like crazy, girls, travel, and a busy calendar. I also had a couple of opportunities to enter into serious relationships but I declined them since I was in the party mode.

Somewhere around age 27 I started noticing that my social contacts/friends were disappearing for various reasons. Most of my buddies had moved out of town by that time, and I became completely alone (and still single). I tried to make some friends in my late 20s but it's not the same, it's a lot more artificial and doesn't work. I tried keeping in touch with my college friends but that didn't work either.

The result is that, apart from my personal hobbies/interests/family, I've been completely and utterly lonely and depressed for the past couple of years (28-31) with no social connections and no dating to speak of. I think the loneliness and the boredom are what really gets to me, not even the fact that I'm single per se. Don't get me wrong, I have a great job and an awesome salary, so the career part is going perfectly for me, I'm not talking about that; rather, I'm talking about women and social life. When I get home from work, I have absolutely nothing to do, and when I look at my phone or my Facebook account, I have no one to even call or message!

Interestingly, I see the same thing happening to other guys my age, many of them are desperate and lonely and still single. (Could be the Washington DC area, which has lost a lot of girls in the past few years and isn't conducive to dating)

I, and many others, may be going through a "quarter-life crisis" but it's a little later than 25, I was still pretty well-adjusted at 25. The loneliness crisis started happening around 27-28 for me, so I would describe it as a "late-20s/early-30s crisis." Looking back, I'm beginning to regret that I didn't enter into the serious relationships that I could have in my early 20s, because the experience I'm going through now I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, and there's no end in sight.

[chyamor]

Every morning this is all you need to tell yourself

Be luck your eyes opened, because a few thousand people around the world didn't get that opportunity this morning.

You can bitch all you want about getting old, but it sure beats being dead.

[Brian]

(12-14-2011 11:22 AM)AVisitor Wrote:  

I thought I'd provide a little counter-point to this discussion

I'm currently 31 and the last couple of years have been the worst so far in my life. To anyone who says "life begins after 30" it certainly doesn't feel that way to me, in fact it's more miserable than ever before.

I had a lot of fun in my early 20s and also in the first 5 years after college (22-27), thanks to having a good network of friends/buddies from college who I hung out with. That was a very awesome social time for me, filled with partying like crazy, girls, travel, and a busy calendar. I also had a couple of opportunities to enter into serious relationships but I declined them since I was in the party mode.

Somewhere around age 27 I started noticing that my social contacts/friends were disappearing for various reasons. Most of my buddies had moved out of town by that time, and I became completely alone (and still single). I tried to make some friends in my late 20s but it's not the same, it's a lot more artificial and doesn't work. I tried keeping in touch with my college friends but that didn't work either.

The result is that, apart from my personal hobbies/interests/family, I've been completely and utterly lonely and depressed for the past couple of years (28-31) with no social connections and no dating to speak of. I think the loneliness and the boredom are what really gets to me, not even the fact that I'm single per se. Don't get me wrong, I have a great job and an awesome salary, so the career part is going perfectly for me, I'm not talking about that; rather, I'm talking about women and social life. When I get home from work, I have absolutely nothing to do, and when I look at my phone or my Facebook account, I have no one to even call or message!

Interestingly, I see the same thing happening to other guys my age, many of them are desperate and lonely and still single. (Could be the Washington DC area, which has lost a lot of girls in the past few years and isn't conducive to dating)

I, and many others, may be going through a "quarter-life crisis" but it's a little later than 25, I was still pretty well-adjusted at 25. The loneliness crisis started happening around 27-28 for me, so I would describe it as a "late-20s/early-30s crisis." Looking back, I'm beginning to regret that I didn't enter into the serious relationships that I could have in my early 20s, because the experience I'm going through now I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, and there's no end in sight.

this sounds like something I could have written a few years ago. the best advice I can give to you is get out of the house most nights of the week, and pick a few hobbies that you always wanted to try and pursue them. when i say get out of the house it could be something as simple as going to starbucks for an hour to read or having dinner at a bar by yourself or hitting the gym. i was always used to doing things in groups w/my friends but they all moved, got married or whatever. at that point if you are able to adapt and start doing things by yourself it will make you much happier then sitting around at home by yourself from the end of work until bedtime.

[PDX]

(12-14-2011 11:22 AM)AVisitor Wrote:  

I thought I'd provide a little counter-point to this discussion

I'm currently 31 and the last couple of years have been the worst so far in my life. To anyone who says "life begins after 30" it certainly doesn't feel that way to me, in fact it's more miserable than ever before.

I had a lot of fun in my early 20s and also in the first 5 years after college (22-27), thanks to having a good network of friends/buddies from college who I hung out with. That was a very awesome social time for me, filled with partying like crazy, girls, travel, and a busy calendar. I also had a couple of opportunities to enter into serious relationships but I declined them since I was in the party mode.

Somewhere around age 27 I started noticing that my social contacts/friends were disappearing for various reasons. Most of my buddies had moved out of town by that time, and I became completely alone (and still single). I tried to make some friends in my late 20s but it's not the same, it's a lot more artificial and doesn't work. I tried keeping in touch with my college friends but that didn't work either.

The result is that, apart from my personal hobbies/interests/family, I've been completely and utterly lonely and depressed for the past couple of years (28-31) with no social connections and no dating to speak of. I think the loneliness and the boredom are what really gets to me, not even the fact that I'm single per se. Don't get me wrong, I have a great job and an awesome salary, so the career part is going perfectly for me, I'm not talking about that; rather, I'm talking about women and social life. When I get home from work, I have absolutely nothing to do, and when I look at my phone or my Facebook account, I have no one to even call or message!

Interestingly, I see the same thing happening to other guys my age, many of them are desperate and lonely and still single. (Could be the Washington DC area, which has lost a lot of girls in the past few years and isn't conducive to dating)

I, and many others, may be going through a "quarter-life crisis" but it's a little later than 25, I was still pretty well-adjusted at 25. The loneliness crisis started happening around 27-28 for me, so I would describe it as a "late-20s/early-30s crisis." Looking back, I'm beginning to regret that I didn't enter into the serious relationships that I could have in my early 20s, because the experience I'm going through now I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, and there's no end in sight.

You're on a forum where men proactively hunt women, travel, take risks, and constantly enrich their lives. It sounds like you're just sitting around waiting for things to happen, so I'm not suspecting you're going to get much sympathy.

Get out there.

[Vicious]

AVisitor:

You've been relying on society's constructs to supply you with opportunities. This entire forum is dedicated to the people that will not be limited by such "random" functions. Get out of the house. Go to the gym and start saving up for a week or two in an exotic country.

[dk902]

(12-14-2011 05:50 PM)Vicious Wrote:  

AVisitor:

You've been relying on society's constructs to supply you with opportunities. This entire forum is dedicated to the people that will not be limited by such "random" functions. Get out of the house. Go to the gym and start saving up for a week or two in an exotic country.

Agreed.

Whilst your story does ring a chord with me and most guys, this forum is dedicated to guys working around life's problems and I think the main mantra would be if it had one is:

"If I want something, how do I go about getting it?"

I was going through a similar phase not long ago, due to my life choices, i.e. always wanted to go out and specifically hunt for girls and dedicated to lifting weights etc, when other fall at the wayside. - I would find myself going out alone, lifting weights alone, because you know what? Most people are just fucking average and can't be bothered to make changes in their life.

You don't need them. You get used to doing things by yourself, and it makes you more self-reliant and gives an unbelievable amount of self-belief. When you have rock solid confidence in yourself, you will find you don't need to go out and search for friends, they gravitate to you.

This is not meant to be narcissistic or encouraging you to be a hermit, just merely pursue your own interests, if you want to meet women, as I did - there is nothing stopping you...

I found once I went out by myself it was better, as I had no drunk friends to cockblock me. And now I prefer it.

Happy hunting.

[Only One Man]

In the words of John Mayer -

"It might be a quarter life crises, or just a stirring in my soul. Either way I wonder sometimes about the outcome of a still verdict-less life. Am I living it right?... Everybody is just a stranger but
that's the danger in going my own way."

[Prowl]

AVisitor: I'm 30 in DC, life has never been better.

Mix up your routine, everything in life worth having is outside of your comfort zone.

[garygroundwork]

25 you're still a kid

the best part of my life was 30-35. wiser.

im setting myself up now to make 40-50 the best years of my life

[pitt]

(12-18-2011 09:33 PM)garygroundwork Wrote:  

25 you're still a kidthe best part of my life was 30-35. wiser.

im setting myself up now to make 40-50 the best years of my life

This

I love when older cats say that 25 is still a kid. Sometimes i feel like an old guy already, good to know that im still a kid

[WanderingSoul]

(01-24-2012 12:56 AM)pitt Wrote:  

(12-18-2011 09:33 PM)garygroundwork Wrote:  

25 you're still a kidthe best part of my life was 30-35. wiser.

im setting myself up now to make 40-50 the best years of my life

This

I love when older cats say that 25 is still a kid. Sometimes i feel like an old guy already, good to know that im still a kid

I'm 27 and until recently thought I was getting old. Turns out the older I get, the more pussy I get lol. Then I see guys like MiXX and G on here and I see that I can make my 30s pretty fuckin awesome too.

[Brian]

you'll get more pussy at 35 then 25 is you take care of yourself, have your life together, and put in the effort, i can pretty much promise you that.