re: Aging OT: how to identify and manage the mid life crisis

I'm not assuming you're saying this, but for the sake of discussion I'll ask, is the key to contentment not striving for too much outside of home? Work almost has the domino effect. You want to do good, and when you achieve that, the next one falls and you strive to do good again and so on. I find it hard to stop and say "don't expect anymore from me. I'm at my limit of improvement." the concept is much easier than the reality in that regard.

Just chill the frick out for fricks sake unless you’re a trainwreck or something.

No I wouldn’t say to limit your capacity at work, but you have to be conscious of the forces it exerts on you. And whether it is worth dedicating to those efforts.

There will always be more work. If you died tomorrow, you would be replaced, and the work would get done.

So if the goal is to spend your time under your own terms (with loved ones, hobbies, travel, etc) then you have to make time for it. Make time for it NOW. Too many people think they can grind it out and do everything when they are retired. They forget that health is not a guarantee. Don’t put off your life waiting for “when you’ll have time.” You’re getting older by the day, and we don’t all wake up tomorrow.

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Ben Hur

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thanks for diving in to this. I appreciate your posts and your philosophy.

As ridiculous as it sounds, at this point I feel my job and employer in my blood, so I think of them kind of like family. To me leaving my job would be like divorce or abandoning a child. And as silly and unlikely as it sounds, me leaving would hit them almost as hard. That dynamic changes things, but I think ultimately you're correct. It's the difference between saying it and living it where I find the challenge at the moment. Maybe it's that bond or feeling of commitment that brings on the "crisis."

Be content. In the end your work is only a means of income whereas your family is your means of support and will be the only ones there on your death bed. Decide where you want your years to go. Work and money aren’t everything. Time off and mending relationships are what are remembered.

I'm in my mid-60's, stay up late here, always reading, learning, doing something new. I never rebuilt an engine. Now, I'm rebuilding a Coyote out of a Mustang GT for an AC Cobra I'm planning to build when I retire. A bunch of guys from my car club with experience, time and interest are helping me, but I wouldn't have started without the hours and hours of online instruction that gave me the confidence to recapture that part of my life, when I worked on cars with my dad. I was just there to learn, and he never passed that skill down to me, so it feels good to be doing it now and I can afford it because wrist tendonitis and looking at a future of multiple spinal injections made me decide to give up golf, which if you understand the money part of being an avid golfer, then my addiction to golf was as if golf, itself, was my very expensive mistress that I loved and adored. Golf was my side piece, my Sugar Baby, but instead of paying for expensive rent, jewelry and dinners, I spent it traveling to play golf all over the country with my friends. So now, I get to enjoy a new pastime, of breaking down an engine and completely rebuild and refine it into a high-performance engine.

I could retire now. I still work, but I only travel now about 5%-8% away from home, I work from home, nobody tracks my hours, I get 48 paid days off, profit sharing and I get to work with technology systems that make the world a safer place. I'm treated as a Sensei, a sort of sales engineer emeritus to the young guys, and to people in my field. I actually do enjoy what I do, and I'm well compensated without having to take on a lot of management responsibilities as I bring my employer a lot of credibility in the particular niche market that I serve.

My daughter has one more year of college. I've set aside my income to pay for it already, and I'm saving everything I earn for my son's education. He has two more years of high school. By the time he graduates, with his expected academic scholarships, I will have saved more than enough for his college and will be retired. My wife and I have put together a nice nest egg, and we're in great financial shape.

When I look back, I have one wish. I wish I'd had the Internet at a much younger age, but still have been able to develop the social people skills I developed from all those years we went without it where I had to interface with, meet and talk to people face to face, and travel while using folding maps or a Mapsco. I'm not sure if today's generation of kids could do that. You know? Interact with people regularly and exclusively via face-to-face or on a phone that wasn't smart and that didn't remember names, addresses, directions and phone numbers for me. I think kids, today, if they had to do that probably would face being socially awkward and unsure of themselves if they couldn't interact by text, or some social media site.

Do what I did:

1. Trophy wife.

2. Porsche convertible.

I'm 45 years old. Been offshore for 24 years. Planning to retire at age 55. My wife and I always question "were we good parents. According to our three grown kids, we were. So there's some comfort. All kids are gone. I became a grandpa yesterday.....yes a freaking grandpa to a great daughter who married an Airborne Ranger.
After the last kid left, six months later we bought a Jeep and got into off-roading and overlanding. We started having sex again in crazy places.
We blow money again since we have more of it. Except for the retirement stuff of course.
I used hunt and fish like a mad man. Now it's not as important and I enjoy my patio, a nice whiskey and my wife. We started cooking alot more. Nice food is fun to cook. We even blog our cooking.
My midlife has been awesome so far. I hope all you other baws can experience the same.

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I used hunt and fish like a mad man. Now it's not as important and I enjoy my patio, a nice whiskey and my wife. We started cooking alot more. Nice food is fun to cook.

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we are scary similar.....

48 and the only "mid life crisis" i think i have had is really diving into retirement planning in the past 2-3 years. it is a number for me, not a specific age. the minute the number is achieved....I am tapping out. period. very reassuring that I am farther down this road to retirement than I thought I was before doing my reading.

two HS aged kids that I cannot wait to get out of the house. that will be the next major step in life. do not even care if they go to college or straight into the workforce. while it is never done enough, the wife and i have gotten back to going out with or without friends more and more as the kids have gotten older.

lucky as my health is fine. zero pills to take. however did get my first bit of skin cancer burned off just yesterday. that makes the mind wander.

Now I want to go to the camp or chill on the patio with a drink. am in a place with work that I can work remotely 90% of the time. even from the camp. now my concern is how my teenage kids are turning out, and what i can do to put them in a better place than i had.

what a sh!tty book I just wrote....

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its after 10 pm for cripes sake

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I ruled out the too youngs by policy. I ruled out the too olds by timing. Go to bed, old man.

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So you want advice from people potentially going through a midlife crisis vs those who may have successfully navigated it?

Seems smart

When is this midlife crisis supposed to start? I'm 60 but fairly content. Maybe I just didn't notice it or maybe I'm a late bloomer?