As someone well into middle age, I hoped that there would be more insight in this article than there is. The author makes some assertions that there are unrecov

As someone well into middle age, I hoped that there would be more insight in this article than there is. The author makes some assertions that there are unrecoverable mistakes one can make, but doesn't really support those assertions in any way. I would like to know how the author would respond to any assertion that he is simply wrong, but from the text I have no idea. For my own part, I feel that the picture painted in the essay is too bleak. Of course there are some unrecoverable mistakes one can make, but really not that many. We are each born into a situation that is the result of decisions made by others over which we have no control, and we have to play the cards we've been dealt and try to make some joy out of what we've got. Later in life, the cards are dealt to us by younger, less experienced versions of ourselves, and we still have to play those cards and try to make what we can of it. On top of that, the theme of the article seems to be that life is a minefield that one should proceed through with extreme caution, less you fuck everything up with one misstep. But adopting that worldview is itself a choice, and one I think that is more likely to lead to unhappiness than taking a moderate amount of risk.