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There may be hope for me yet according to this, but at the moment, I really have no fucking clue what to do. My early thirties were filled with great ideas for

There may be hope for me yet according to this, but at the moment, I really have no fucking clue what to do. My early thirties were filled with great ideas for startups. My early fourties are filled with depression that I'm past my prime, don't have the energy, risk tolerance, or money to do a startup, and don't have money to go back to school, so it really doesn't matter what my passion is. Somehow I still need to find a passion and change, though, because my death is impending. Maybe my fifties will be the realization that I am who I am and I'm fine just being bad at everything.

blindhippo 13y ago
Why do you think you even have a 'prime'? The concept of a "prime" period in your life is entirely relative to the context of any given situation in your life at a specific point in time. Shift your thinking to the present, don't pine over the past or worry about the future. At any given moment, you are capable of being the best you can be for the situation you are in. These are the variables you can control - so control them. And frankly, the older you get, the more capable of handling the present you become due to experience. "Somehow I still need to find a passion and change" Why? What are you doing that you need to change? What do you mean by "passion" and why do you need to find it? What are you doing that is preventing you from finding your "passion"? I'm not asking these questions for my benefit - ask them of yourself. And most importantly, follow through on the answers. There is absolutely no reason to be depressed about being in your 40's - you have double the experience and way more resources now then you did when you were 20. Put it another way, you have another 20 years until you are in your sixties, and that's when you will REALLY be out of energy.
sobes 13y ago
Just because you find a passion, doesn't mean you have to spend money on it. There are an insane amount of free learning resources online (in tech/dev, which I'm assuming what your pro background is). Similarly, I'm seeing an increasing number of bootstrapped startups (they just don't make as much noise as the funded ones). My twenties were about realizing and coming to terms with the fact that there are people who are smarter, more clever, and more knowledgeable than me. My thirties are about figuring out how to work with these people as much as possible. I do feel that I'm late to the game on this. If I got over my ego earlier and/or had a more collaborative mindset I'd be in a better spot. Keep looking for that passion. But don't do it alone. Once you find it, it'll be with a group of people "better" than you to help you figure out what to do with it. :)

blindhippo 13y ago

Why do you think you even have a 'prime'? The concept of a "prime" period in your life is entirely relative to the context of any given situation in your life at a specific point in time. Shift your thinking to the present, don't pine over the past or worry about the future. At any given moment, you are capable of being the best you can be for the situation you are in. These are the variables you can control - so control them. And frankly, the older you get, the more capable of handling the present you become due to experience. "Somehow I still need to find a passion and change" Why? What are you doing that you need to change? What do you mean by "passion" and why do you need to find it? What are you doing that is preventing you from finding your "passion"? I'm not asking these questions for my benefit - ask them of yourself. And most importantly, follow through on the answers. There is absolutely no reason to be depressed about being in your 40's - you have double the experience and way more resources now then you did when you were 20. Put it another way, you have another 20 years until you are in your sixties, and that's when you will REALLY be out of energy.

sobes 13y ago

Just because you find a passion, doesn't mean you have to spend money on it. There are an insane amount of free learning resources online (in tech/dev, which I'm assuming what your pro background is). Similarly, I'm seeing an increasing number of bootstrapped startups (they just don't make as much noise as the funded ones). My twenties were about realizing and coming to terms with the fact that there are people who are smarter, more clever, and more knowledgeable than me. My thirties are about figuring out how to work with these people as much as possible. I do feel that I'm late to the game on this. If I got over my ego earlier and/or had a more collaborative mindset I'd be in a better spot. Keep looking for that passion. But don't do it alone. Once you find it, it'll be with a group of people "better" than you to help you figure out what to do with it. :)