I’m 35, married, own a home, have a stable career, a new car, all the usual markers of “success.” Kids aren’t an option for us, and adoption isn’t really a thing where we live.
I have hobbies. I spent three years deeply immersed in music. Playing live, producing, writing etc. I read, play games, D&D, Warhammer, and generally keep myself busy.
Lately, I’ve been hit with this quiet dread: I’ve reached every milestone I was told to chase. Study hard. Get a job. Buy a house. Find someone. Settle down.
Okay… done. Now what?
No one tells you what comes after. What do you do when you’ve built the life you were taught to build but it doesn’t give you meaning? When there’s nothing left to “achieve,” just maintenance and waiting for death?
I don’t believe in religion, though I wish I could. Faith seems to give people a built-in purpose. Without that or kids, I feel like I’m just… existing.
Has anyone else been here? What do you do with yourself when the roadmap runs out?
39 comments
Find a hobby / sport as a side mission.
It’s nothing magical the only real point is to wake up tomorrow. I don’t really have any grand aspirations
Hey man, do you like to travel?
On my recent travels, I noticed many senior individuals and couples exploring foreign countries. I’d imagine many of them decided this was something they wanted to do while they still could.
We live in such an immense world, and yet much of it is within our reach. I don’t want to be on my final leg and look back wishing I had explored more of it. It would seem such a waste of a life. Not having kids makes this even more possible for you.
When the roadmap runs out, buy a new map and explore it.
I went through the same thing, at 34 I decided to start my own business. 37 now and trying to expand that business, so I can eventually just relax.
Well, you already did everything they told you to do, now you are free and you can decide what to do with the corresponding consequences, don’t get me wrong, I would like to be in your place to reinvent myself, but I haven’t had that possibility and I have to work very hard to get a percentage of what you have. But it is time to explore and discover new hobbies, change jobs, decide to explore another way of life, it is not the adventurous ideal of being immensely happy with a catchy song in the background, but rather spending every day doing something that has a particular goal. You are at the perfect point to study the career that your parents denied you because it did not ensure a good future, try teaching to see how teenagers see their future so that you can get ideas, get a classic car and repair it. learn to create a video game… You are free!!
Accept that life is essentially purposeless and do what makes you happy. It’s the ultimate nihilist hack.
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Nope. i continue to just exist in the present
Dopamine is released in pursuit of goals. We are all misled into thinking achieving goals = path to permanent fulfillment, that simply isn’t the case. You just have to find new goals or choose to be satisfied with what you’ve already accomplished.
Sounds like playing music is your purpose. And maybe a bit of Warhammer?
Like you said, career, marriage, home, those are society’s markers of success. What is yours? Mastering a piece of your favorite music? Crushing your opponents in Warhammer? You decide for yourself what you want your real purpose to be
Meditate. You can’t chase the nothingness away forever. Learn to embrace it and own it. Our deaths will come but there’s a way to make peace
Nope. My purpose is tied up in helping others through teaching them to be engineers and developing tools to help alleviate the climate collapse we’re going to go through as a society.
Unless you’re reeeeaaaallly doing well for yourself, things are going to get interesting in the next couple of decades, and I don’t mean that in a positive sense.
Try starting over with a different career if you are bored. Maybe reach out to all of your unmarried friends and spend some time with them, I bet they would enjoy it since they dont have a wife to come home to.
Just do whatever makes you happy that doesn’t hurt anyone else.
Life isn’t hard. Love your people. Love yourself. Do things that make you happy. Rinse. Repeat.
Coin (<- EDITED. Originally said “coil”) collecting or building a hotrod. Find a hobby that’s fulfilling
Even if you don’t believe in religion, you can use it as a template/inspiration for finding your own path. You can study it without believing in it.
I spend my entire waking life working for other people for the false promise of a reward that will never come. I am acutely aware of the scam I have fallen into but have no way out so I must continue on as if I am unaware of the scam. I will never find a wife or own a house. I will never procreate. I am forced to continue on like this until my heart stops.
Sounds like you have a safe place to sleep and eat, a good relationship, and free time. Count your blessings, and I’ll count mine.
If you dont mind me asking, why arent kids an option for you?
It’s because what they tell you to do may not be exactly what you want or should be doing. This is a great time to actually think about what you want
Eerily relatable, especially wishing you could be religious. I do a lot of pumping up religion, though not religious myself, and people find it weird to wish you could believe. Usually folks have a “I’m good without any of this” mentality, but I fear many will come to the same realization. Unless they have kids, I guess.
Sounds like I’m (37M) in a similar situation as you. Happily married 10 years, well paying job, nice apartment (buying is not feasible in my city), a few hobbies (hiking, hockey, art). Raised Catholic, so naturally, I’m agnostic now. Wife has no uterus and we have no interest adopting. Now I have existential dread where I can’t fathom debating about what’s for dinner every night for the next 40 or so years til I die. I may start doing more and more dangerous hikes so that I don’t have to do this for another half lifetime. I own some land in my home state, so that long term goal of building a fully paid cabin and soft retiring (currently at about 40% of my goal) is really all I have to look forward to. But something tells me that once I accomplish that, I’ll feel an emptiness and will start chasing the next high, essentially back at square one. I don’t have any answers for you, just letting you know you’re not alone, and I’m tuning in to hopefully read a comment that inspires me.
Man. You are me. I haven’t figured it out yet. Exercising has helped keep me from freaking out completely. Only thing I can think of doing is start traveling more…..
Yes
Watch the Japanese movie “Perfect Days” 2023
About a toilet cleaner living a full life everyday and it ties in with what you are struggling with.
It’s a very enlightening and cute film that actually made me feel better about my “purpose” in this world.
Should probably check out mindfulness. May help give you some perspective. Start with some Alan Watts books
I feel the same way most of the time. However my hunger to “fire” in my mid to late 40’s and the 2 international trips a year keep me going. But I do feel on the verge of burn out everything sucks about corporate life and it’s crazy we put in 40 hours a week doing the same shit for years.
Maybe you should try something new. Explore that itch, never know where you’ll end up
First world problems, my dude. Big world out there with lots to do. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
Just curious, how did you get into music? Were you involved with it when younger?
Find something that you wish existed in the world and make it exist.
Give to the world and make a business out of it. Heck knows there’s enough people who take already.
I don’t wanna sound like a dick, but I’ve never understood this whole lack of purpose thing. Life is the purpose man, existence in itself is such a beautiful thing. We are the universe recognization of itself.
You’ll never find peace applying other peoples metric on your own life and the whole point of goals is to meet them. Nobody told you want next because you reached their ceiling. Find your ceiling so when the next guy ask you can tell him what you did.
Go to a local town you’ve never been, knit a sweater, write a silly random song, binge shitty television for a day, make homemade ice cream. Just do things for their experience and not to get better or complete something.
I hit the same point at almost the same timing.
I found great fulfillment in community service (local planning committees for trail, park infrastructure and budgeting) as well as road biking, gravel biking and mountain biking.
I’m 34, married, own a nice home, new car, decent career, etc. I have my family and my castle. All I do in my spare time is read literature and watch movies or tv shows. I work from home so I’m usually here. Besides gardening and landscaping I get on my row machine for 45min 3x a week. I’m not interested in anything besides love… and the older I get the more love that I need. Art to me is an act of love for humanity. My wife and family, love. My dog, love. I also try to go out in nature once a week away from the sounds of modern life.
Am I happy? I like to say no but I think I am. I’m content and scared and sad and confused and nostalgic and excited all at once. Being a person is surreal and strange and maddening but it’s all we have. We are here and while we are we should all strive to make the best out of it for as many people as we can but so often we fall short as a species. All I hope to accomplish in this life is to do my part to help.
No, because I don’t waste my time thinking about it. I have none of the markers of success that you have and I might be happier for it lol. There’s no meaning to any of this shit, find yourself something to distract yourself from the slow creep of a sure death and get ready to do it all again tomorrow.
I feel this hard. For me, my job is my biggest woe. It seems to dominate my thoughts these days. My wife and I moved to the other side of the country about 5 years ago when she got a job out here. I’ve job hopped around a bit and have landed a manager job. I l’ve realized I kind of hate it. I kind of want to go back down to a staff level job and keep it chill. But, it is really hard to find a new job. I did a couple of interviews over the summer, but nothing is coming together.
I also have a good job, a wife, I’m active in the local music scene, i work out four times a week, I love working on my truck, but still, this empty feeling catches up with me. Idk what to do 🙁
figuring it out – going to buddhist meetings, reading books to inform my philosophy. eating better. _trying_ to exercise. thinking more actively about the people in my life – gifts to make, etc.
being a better friend has given me some meaning. i can tell that my friends appreciate my effort — i can see it in their eyes sometimes. feels good.
It sounds like you’ve been living your life for yourself. True fulfillment comes in helping others. Share kindness and joy. Volunteer!
When you’ve met all the goals, set loftier goals. Even if they’re like flights of fantasy and you’re never going to realistically achieve them, having them and making incremental steps towards them, is what does it for me.
If 42 isn’t the meaning of life, then it must be to exist and reproduce. Unfortunately, some of us are blessed with intelligence, which has the disadvantage of making us think about such things. Sometimes perhaps only because we believe it is expected of us.
If it has to make sense, then you can only give it meaning yourself, if you absolutely need one.
I myself live in the present and do things that I enjoy whenever possible. That’s all I need.