Is it really "never too late to be what you might have been"?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So said George Eliot. But she was a writer of fiction, and from a long gone era. But I wonder if it’s really true or just feel-good claptrap, because it affects me directly.

I am in my early 40s, and owing to rather complicated personal, psychological, and family considerations (depression and ADD to name just two), I basically have never grown up - emotionally, socially, financially or aspirationally.

I rely on well-to-do but elderly parents not just for material support, but for my primary reality check with the world. I have worked full-time exactly two years out of the past twenty, mostly drawing a salary from a “paper” company run by my family. I have never owned a home, car, or been materially in debt. I have perhaps four close friends, whom I might contact a few times a year. I have had exactly two close relationships with women, both of which ended badly, and my dating life ended approximately ten years ago. All in all, I approach the world most of you live in every day with a mixture of cynicism, longing and guilt.

One reason I’ve been putting it all off so long is that I have very bad memories and associations surrounding responsibility, and especially, failure to meet it. If I had a top-ten list of least favorite things in life, they would include ambition, trying, planning, fitting in, staying on schedule, following through, and delivering on expectations (even my own - especially my own). I somehow have to take everything I do very seriously - work, studies, life - so seriously, in fact, that I give almost nothing my full effort. It’s just too damn depressing.

Case in point: Right now I’m doing my damnedest to flunk out of a master’s program in English. Notice I didn’t say the word not. I had to stop studying entirely about a month ago. It was a kind of cognitive panic attack. Since then I’ve negotiated incompletes with my professors, but I still will not start writing my final papers. I’m just not going to give in to panic until I absolutely must - and of course, then it will be total.

I don’t wish any advice about grad school (I got some good counsel from Dopers in another thread). I guess I just wonder what it takes to pull together a halfway respectable lifestyle when you’re not only past 40, but haven’t even ever really been a fully functioning adult. And what are the odds? They can’t be great. My issues in life stop most mental health professionals absolutely cold - I’ve been in and out of counseling since college, including 11 years in group therapy, and I’ve been able to use almost nothing I learned.

So what is is going to take? I’ve long suspected I am going to need to hit bottom - to risk some kind of complete breakdown just to feel some sense that I am a human being and not just a mess of weakness, waste and pain. Worse, I am saddled with my past. I have done so very little - what can I possibly deserve?

2

I believe it’s never too late, and I’m going to do it. The market for my IT specialism has thoroughly tanked, so I’m going to take evening classes in something else while scratching a living as a freelance. This is going to take me years, but that will still leave me 20+ years of being a wage slave. And it will be in something for which I can still consult in retirement.

3

Well, Doug, don’t take anything I say the wrong way, I mean to offer advice. And in the end you have to decide what to do. I have always found that following the path that others set for me was wrong. It’s a Shakespeare thing, ‘to thine own self be true’.

You may have heard the expresion ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. Meaning that you can lose and still benefit from the experience, especially if it was a hard lesson.

It sounds to me from your description of your personal situation that you have not really been allowed to fail because you have some family income to always fall back on. Or that it is easy to fail because of the safety net. And that safety net prevents you from REALLY trying to succeed.

You are still what I would consider young. Is there something that you really would like to do? Are you doing now what others think you should do, or is it your plan? If you could go back 20 years what would the path be? Do it now.

You can be the happiest ditch digger on the planet or the most sorrowful CEO of a major corporation. What are you going to do with the English degree? Teach at a school or university and hate it?

Many people, or most people, do not have the luxury of wondering these questions. We are caught up in the things we HAVE to do rather than wondering what we would like to do. The fortunate among us get to do both what we love and what we are good at. And others are happy to do mundane jobs where we get to have camraderie with other people, and that makes the day worthwhile.

Someone is controlling you whether you see it or not. Take control and really risk failure.

Freedom comes when you tell Miss Grundy to go fly a kite.

4

Go with that. I’m interested. I have questions. (Frankly, anything other than thinking about all these goddamn term papers right now is welcome.)

First: What - really, seriously, nut-cuttin’ time now - do you mean by failure?

To me, failure - all failure - goes on one’s Permanent Record. It is evidence of what you Can’t. It is weakness, and weakness will be preyed on. If not by others, than by you yourself. I do it. Failure is breaking faith with myself, and I don’t forgive. Is that what I have to go after?

Second: I have never found that what didn’t kill me made me stronger. For whatever reason, when life breaks me, I never quite heal. I never found the way.

Finally: Who - figuratively speaking - is Miss Grundy? If I can’t find her, I might as well be telling God do go fly a kite, and I don’t believe in Him anyway.

5

Good Lord. Grow up and get on with it. What else is there to say?

6

You must be Miss Grundy.

Either way, I cordially invite you to go fly a kite. Ideally in a big-ass electrical storm.

Seriously, I’ve been told that so many times it’s worse than useless.

7

[quote=“ghardester, post:3, topic:495321”]

Well, Doug, don’t take anything I say the wrong way, I mean to offer advice. And in the end you have to decide what to do. I have always found that following the path that others set for me was wrong. It’s a Shakespeare thing, ‘to thine own self be true’.

You can take what I mean however you like it–grow up. Make a conscious effort to kick yourself in the ass and act like an adult. Just becasue they are well off does not mean your parents should be saddled with you in their later years because you want to mooch. If you have psych problems use your parents financial assets to start treatment UNTIL YOU CAN GET A FREAKING JOB and pay for them on your own. You don’t have to be a doctor or a lawyer–just make an effort.

Christ! Grow a pair

8

Hmm. Part of me was hoping the social conservatives/hardasses/trolls wouldn’t show up. The other part of me sort of wanted them to…(what! trolling the trolls? Impossible.)

As to “kicking myself in the ass,” I have been doing entirely too much of that. I am, figuratively speaking anyway, bruised in six colors and bleeding profusely from the rectum.

Attitudes like yours are part of the problem. Although attitudes like mine are not entirely blameless either.

I’ll admit mine could use some adjustment…will you? Or do you hold some special claim on The Truth about The Real World?

BTW, I have at least enough of a pair not to take shit the likes of what you’re handing out.

Or is your idea of “an adult” one who has learned to take other people’s shit?

9

I bet you found most of that really helpful, didn’t you?

Well, I don’t know if what I have to offer is any better for you. I am a depressive and, according to a sibling, probably have ADD. The only thing that has saved me from a useless life is the fear of poverty. I have to work to eat. And it’s good for me.

Do you have to earn a living? Can you continue to rely on family wealth?

10

Yes, actually. My family a) is well set financially and b) has given up on my ever being able to live a normal life (I think because their idea of “a normal life” is somewhat narrowly defined). So until I show them differently, I do have a safety net.

Before you tell me to get rid of it, I hope you have some better reason in mind than “it’s not fair to the rest of us,” or “learning to turn handsprings for a buck is essential to the development of good character.”

Another thing. If you talk about “a useless life,” you better believe there is such a thing. I’m not sure anyone is completely useless - I certainly don’t assume you’re a waste of human skin and are breathing up my air.

I’m in no position to admit that we only have what dignity we scrape for in this life. Because if that’s true, I really am worth nothing.

11

First off, Doug, deserving’s got nothing to do with it. You’ll get roughly what you’ll work for, although no one ever gets what they really want or even what they think they really want. And anyway, most of us approach our lives with cynicism and longing. That’s part of what life is all about. It’s not some castle in the sky. It’s just . . . life. I can’t tell for sure from your OP, but we might very well be much closer to you than you realize. We’ve just figured out a way to deal with life on its own terms and try to have a little left over for ourselves at the end of the day.

I think your question is kind of significant. What might have been? There is no what might have been. There’s what is and what will be. Oh, there’s an *idea *of what might have been, but it only exists in your thoughts. The what-might-have-been’s usually disintegrate upon their first contact with reality, which is a good thing, because it teaches you not to regret the past and more importantly, it teaches you that life is a series of steps.

You don’t have to hit rock bottom, unless you’re hooked on crack. You just have to realize that you’re making a bigger deal out of things than you have to. You’re not going to find your life all at once, any more than the rest of us did. It’s a series of steps. Not to give you advice, but one of the things you could try doing is to face up squarely to your psychological issues and take steps to work around them. Then . . . well, see what’s out there. Do something you’ve never done before. Get a job washing dishes with a bunch of people who don’t speak English. See where it takes you. So much of life is made up of little accidents and coincidences and meetings that take you outside of yourself and the routine that is your life up until that point. You don’t have to plan it out. You don’t have to close your eyes and take a metaphorical leap of faith. Just do something different. You know? Volunteer at a homeless shelter or nursing home when you’re not busy with the job. Get your mind off your immediate concerns, and just see where that leads. The first step to getting to the world is connecting to the world.

Don’t worry about women or big time jobs or this English degree (Truthfully, from what you wrote, it doesn’t seem like much of a fit anyway.). Just . . . live. That’s all the rest of us are doing. We’re just living. Same as you. And we all started from humble beginnings, same as you. Don’t worry about what the future holds. Chances are, it’ll surprise you anyway.

Oh, and be really careful about breaking ties with your parents. Number one, they’re your parents, and you should respect them. They love you. Number two, they seem to be your major connection right now, and you don’t want to just up and sever your main connections abruptly. That way lies madness. Just take things slowly. Therapy (Be serious about it this time). Job. Volunteer work. New stuff.

That’s all the rest of us did. We just . . . tuned ourselves in to whatever we’re listening to now.

Oh, and you could do worse than read this article on finding your own “rat park.”

12

Thanks Linty. At least you understand what it’s like.

13

I dropped out of college the first time, and didn’t go back until my loans came due and I had no way of paying them off. I went back to school to defer the loans and got my degree. So, it worked for me.

But you’re not me. I need the structure of a job, but hate worrying about money. Frankly, the combination of a decent income and low material requirements has worked for me.

Would the structure of a job be good for you? Would refining your needs to a minimum? Think about it.

If your family has money, you don’t have a family to support, and you can find something satisfying to do, I don’t see any reason for you to struggle to earn a lot of money. Get your “Master in Philosophy”*, let them buy you a little studio, and meander through life happy and productive and unsuccessful in their eyes. If that will work for you. It will be a good life, and you will do less harm than good, and that is all we can ask of ourselves.

But you must find something satisfying to do; I stumbled into my weird little niche, and I hope you do the same.

As for useless lives - well, no, I believe there are people who do the best they can, and vicious blood-sucking parasites. You don’t sound like a parasite, just like you don’t know what your best is.

I think you need to get a bit of distance from your family.

  • Code name for: Degree without a lot of marketability.
14

No. I am too old to be an astronaut.

15

So am I, Jim. So am I. That I think I can deal with.

16

You could be quoting me from several years ago. I remember clearly, watching the movie version of House of Mirth, watching Lily Bart dither her life away, that it hit me in the gut to hear her conclude “I am a worthless person.” Yes! I thought. That’s me. A waste of good scholarship money. A waste of everyone’s support. A waste of opportunity.

That was then. A “medical” leave, several incompletes, and a frightening scrape on the bottom later, I did finally manage to crawl out of the hole, pull the scraps of myself together, and end up with a graduate degree. Not only that, but I knew a lot more about myself. Actually, I discovered that there was a myself, not just a bundle of other people’s expectations. Funny that.

Now I have… a life. A grown up, meaningful life.

Yeah, so, no advice. I can’t tell you how I got here. Well, OK. One tiny piece of advice. Just keep going.

17

First off, I will say, that some of the most miserable, directionless people I know have family money. Actually, the only crack addict I have ever known personally was drawing from a family fortune.

Secondly, you sound like a walking example of the phrase “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” Like, you want everything you do to be so AWESOME that when you realize it can’t be so ultimately perfect, it seems like its not worth doing at all. You end up profoundly depressed about your ability to bring anything “worth doing” (AKA PERFECT) to fruition. Am I on the right track at all?

If so, you are stuck in a dark mental trap. Honestly, I doubt you can break through this all on your own. Have ever tried therapy - particularly Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, as has been recommended by many Dopers?

18

I do not condone illegal drug use, but your post did remind me of an article I read:

This article discusses an apparently incurable man in a much worse situation who was apparently “cured” by one massive dose of LSD given by a therapist as a last resort.

A likely interpretation, actually, is that the patient went through a horrifyingly bad trip and was scared shitless of being subjected to more treatments, so he “cured” himself. I’ll leave any opinions on the morality of this treatment as an exercise to the reader.

19

No, that is not what life is all about IMHO. That is a result of an inability to define a purpose or affect meaningful change in your life. When this happens, people just sort of settle and drift through life letting events happen to them. Eventually they become jaded and bitter, constantly feeling put out but without any direction of their own.

Beware of Doug, I think you may be suffering from that same sort of directionlessness. I am just guessing, but you probably waste a lot of time just bumming around. You probably don’t have a lot of places you NEED to be at any given time so you just sort of do whatever, whenever. You probably also feel pretty disconnected from the rest of the world.

That’s pretty much how unemployed people feel except they have the financial pressure to find work.

I don’t know that finding some dumb job you hate is the answer. But you should find something you enjoy doing that gives you some structure, activity and social stimulation. I think you’ll find that the more things you do that you are legitimately interested in, the more other parts of your life will fall into place.

20

I think that without the necessity of figuring out a career, you essentially fall into a kind of adolescent state. Kind of like being a kid home from college in the summer. You just sort of float through the day doing whatever you feel like. It’s fun for awhile. Go drinking with your buddies, watch tv during the day, whatever. But eventually, your friends go off and live their lives and it becomes harder and harder to find stuff to fill the day while the rest of the planet is at work. It’s easy to see how people try to fill that void with drugs and alchohol.