I hear ya. It's tough on people who grow up and have successful jobs but don't have an interest in starting a family. You make some money, live in a place you always wanted, spend money on whatever you want, travel wherever you want and yet still feel like unsatisfied. It's easy for people who know that a family is the next step. For me, I feel like I hit a middle age crisis before 30
. Just a few weeks ago, I was dead-set on quitting my job in January and moving to Portugal and/or Spain for 6-9 months just to put a pause on life and make a change. GF didn't feel the same way so that plan changed
but I do feel like I'm not ready for grad/law school, a different job, marriage, buying a house, or having kids. So it's a weird place to be in.
Obviously, a different situation but somewhat similar.
Well, it seems like it comes in waves, right?
But feeling the middle age crisis before 30 is somewhat crazy, since we're still young, and are supposed to act like young people do. I am feeling young, and the thought of marriage, kids and one own house until the rest of my days still feels like such faraway future, like 10 years from now or so, because why would it be otherwise? So don't feel old.
Actually if you or anyone else is still following along, I'll mention a somewhat more personal part about the story of my life, since I haven't done that in a long while in here, also the maybe more gloomy side to "having made it".
I was a silly and somewhat lost teenager in Poland, the only family I had was my working single mom and grandpa, I had rather shitty friends (which all together was also how I ended up on a forum dedicated to gangsta rap and 2pac fandom, my life felt pretty ghetto at that time, but I also liked learning English lol) and until 18 I had a teenage version of a parole officer for getting kicked out of high school for getting into fights, calling the school educator a bitch and other stupid shit, which now seems hilarious. The combination of the parole and high school kickage ended up awesomely, since I got myself into a new private high school with really interesting people in it - the parole sent me there after I got kicked out of a really shitty (think even eastern-europe shitty, a classmate/ friend got stabbed to death with a fencing-pole kind of shitty high school).
The new school made me new friends. They were good students, but extremely funny, everyone felt unique too so it was actually fun to be there. At about that time I was growing less ridiculous, I developed hobbies such as martial arts and technology, realized I'm good at those things and would prefer doing cool things. I cut ties with all of my past friends. I got to be on the national team in Kyokushin Karate in the meantime and after a few hard years of catching up at maths, which I still don't like..
I barely managed to pass the entry exams to get into a very good and strictly tech uni that I found to be the coolest uni I could go to for me, and also happened to be the best IT institute in Poland. It had great people in it, it was an awesome time in a way, because it felt like a boot camp of overcoming challenges together. The negative was that over 8 years that I spent studying there, there was not a single party or fun event other than cool and practical hard work and working on projects overnight at someones flat, or celebrating someone selling their prototype robot to Toyota with pizza and coke in the computer room- that was as much of typical "fun" as it's gotten.
It was a school from which the people who had party in mind would get kicked out or remain forever students of the first year. Most of my friends were very study-focused. I didn't mind that, since I really loved being around people who were actually awesome at cool tech, and my idea of fun was to travel to a new country every summer holidays, sign up for some international class there and meet new people who thought alike to have awesome adventures there together.
That was by far my favorite thing, so I had this plan to be in a position to have actual money (so I was working and studying, sleeping for 4-5 hours a day for a few years straight, except weekends), graduate (so more time after) and live in a completely new, awesome place. I even had a few close friends that I met throughout the years who wanted to go to Canada with me after graduation.
Earlier this year, after 8 years that first got me headhunted for a job at IBM, now I had to give up on my positions at the university senate and student government, my position as the head of the education committee, president of a scientific circle and member of the faculty of my department, that I was given throughout those years, because now I just graduated with a master's degree, top of my class. It was a somewhat sad day since I really liked spending time at my uni, and the people there. I had invested a lot of time there, and yet I wouldn't change a thing.
My friends from uni made the Witcher 3, my best uni friend who's actually the only graduating girl and one of the best students, who was the grade-competitive one and always followed me along to all uni organizations spent months working on the Galaxy phones in Korea and the US for Samsung, a job that she got because of me rejecting it and recommending her because I was "going to contract for IBM-babyy" at the time, while others started their companies or are otherwise doing well professionally.
A few months after, another sad moment of leaving the job because I was granted a temporary work permit to Canada. I made my decision in a hearbeat, even though at work everyone treated me like a prime family member and I was getting paid very well. There were tears of coworkers, mine and senior managers, as it was a Korean company, and a lot of farewell gifts. It wasn't any easier, since I met my girlfriend at work, and she left with me, and we were 2 most senior project managers on the Polish team - and she's only 23, so she was also a local office superstar. We had 4 separate farewell parties with the same office people, one with the minister of telecommunications and digitization of Poland who is a political legend, who was also working for our project at the time, and I even received references from the Vice-president of the biggest Korean Telecom. Great but sad time, the farewell was.
And now I'm here, in Vancouver, where I'm applying for more relaxed jobs now, so I could still get one of those awesome hikes after hours and yet nobody so far even checked out my credentials! But I love this city, and it feels like an upgrade still, since I am where I want to be and I wake up happy every day and if not, I just take a look outside the window of my Coal Harbour condo (it's a fancy pants neighborhood where I'm apparently the only unemployed person at). The nice people around are hard not to turn the frown upside down too, yo.
But still, those things are quite shallow if you don't have people on the same page to share those things with, and that's I guess my problem. When you're at school it's easy, because pretty much everyone is on the same boat. Then everyone goes separate paths, and people change and grow (sometimes in the bad sense, prematurely).
On paper all goals are in check. But, well, some friends graduated last year or just 2 years ago, and it feels like everyone bailed out to go with what we all originally believed was "boring day to day life". In their freaking mid-20s!
When I meet new people they are either young and annoying college party types in the process of wasting their future, which as you probably realize by now I can't really relate to and it's hard to ignore anymore, or older and all grown up and about to settle at freaking 25-28, or the clueless types who have always been somewhat fucking around and continue doing so.
What the hell, right? Where's the good and independent youth that you're supposed to enjoy when you're on your own, the prime time of your life? You are smarter now while still young and now you have the money, you have your degree, you don't have those limits and obligations anymore, finally. What happens to people that they decide to suddenly get new obligations and spend all of that money on more things that will never make them happy while being in the same place for the rest of their lives to come? It feels like people graduate and immediately feel old, or otherwise less down to experience life, and they settle for less. It feels very lonely, because it feels like you can't enjoy life after you accomplish something that you wanted to for a long time, because at the end of the road you don't have many people to relate to and share that time with.
In my case, I'm at the point where I've gotten my master's degree and got off the career and within just a few years got shit done that I wanted to, and I feel like I'm ready for life now. So here you come life, adventures and all those things I was working for, that I was promised, right? Well, more and more of friends are much less down for it these days, they "can't", it's work-home for them, and settling for less, and seeing that sucks!
So don't settle! Don't have middle aged crises.
