How old is too old to fix a messed up life?

Don't be to hard on yourself, most people come to feel the same way in their 40s, sometimes known as a mid life crisis.

The good news is once You get through this period of life, things generally get better, possibly the best and happiest years of your life.

In the meantime I suggest You start working on a plan for the rest of your life. We either make and follow our own life plan to our benifit or get sucked into following someone else's plan to their benifit. IMHO those are the only two choices we have.

It's never too late to figure out how to be happy. The Stoics nailed it, lots on them online, such as The Daily Stoic and a book, I think now still free online, Guide to the Good Life by Wiliam Irvine on the history of stoicism and an account of applying it to his own life.

I think it’s difficult to give advice on these sort of things without knowing the person. What their exact issues are what exactly needs “fixed”, etc.

Sorry to hear about it. That's really tough stuff. I eventually became a coach after going through some tough struggles of my own [0].

In the past I have coached people who felt like what you describe. Usually they fell into one of two categories: 1) Low energy or 2) Stuck with gobs of problems. But I think most were also a mix of both with one being more immediately prominent.

(Strangely, the low-energy ones were often drawn to some energy source as a job or hobby. For example, one of them who came to me wanting to talk about low energy--not my usual thing--was actually an energy expert...for work)

For the low-energy crowd, one opening move I always recommend is tracking and logging. Develop or find a method to track your day and the positive energy flow into your day. Even a scale from 1-10.

Next ask yourself: How can I move this number up by one point?

Pretty soon your next problem will be: How do I keep track of the things that reliably move me up by a point?

For the Stuck with gobs of problems group, it is often vital to continually bring the problems to the surface for examination, usually starting with the day-to-day stuff. You can do this in a journal, in a spreadsheet, whatever you like.

I always recommend that Stuck people also relate the feelings attached to those tasks/situations/projects. Otherwise those feelings tend to relocate themselves to embarrassing situations at work or in other places in life.

People who are Stuck are often interested in BJJ, dungeon crawlers, pretty much any up-close-and-personal hobby with lots of little tricks to deploy.

For that reason: Start developing your set of tricks ASAP. A common one is the development of a proprietary system of organization for all the Stuck Stuff.

> I have so far not found a therapist, friend, or mentor who is of any help.

I'm gonna be straight up with you here and share that this can sometimes be a giant flag to somebody like me. (I won't say red, but it's a flag) I have learned that the flag reads either:

"I need to learn to solve my own problems; mostly I believe in my own problem-solving capacity. I'm sorry but I may also be picking apart your words like a critic/skeptic; can't help it"

Or

"I need to share my own perspectives on why and how everything sucks; after that I will pretty much figure out the rest and mysteriously vanish."

If this is you, you may want to try looking at these outside resources as more of a periodic kickstart or accountability check-in for yourself, as opposed to a lasting therapeutic fix or cure.

Good luck to you.

0. Chronic obesity, chronic depression, chronic severe anxiety, marriage troubles, frequent deaths in the family, member (leadership cadre) of a fundamentalist religion, etc. Overcame all by roughly age 40, but everybody's different...

I feel like in America at least its very easy to effectively disappear into a lame meaningless life

Or worse

Prob true in a lot of societies

I feel like books are always a good starting point

I like the advice to folks who are thinking about starting uni late

"What else are you going to be doing in five years?"

Something like that

Point being

Why not just start now? You'll lose nothing etc

How to fix a lame life prob not easy

Books

Therapists

Helping people

No shortage of people who need help

I feel like different cities towns geographies can make a big difference too

Sometimes moving forces you to be more active than you'd like to be

Which creates a larger 'luck surface area'

And maybe you get lucky and find someone to help

Then

Before you know it

You're on your way to a meaningful life

It’s very hard to say without being you, but try stuff out.

Depending on your COVID situation it could be travel, speaking clubs, perform a comedy gig, etc. anything that is wild or uncomfortable

At the same time what are you passionate about? Maybe there is something you can study and really get into?

If you are a coder like many of us I think learning more coding things like a other framework this isn’t the answer. That’s just my experience. It’s a never ending meaningless thing, a set of tools to solve problems. Maybe that is just me after too many years!

Also try exercising etc.

What I have come to realise is what you believe and feel, while it feels absolute can be fleeting. Some endorphins can make a lot of difference to how you see things.

To be honest if I wrote down aspects of my life it might seem awesome but it depends on how you look at it. Do I have any impact on the world? No. Do I have a large and thriving social circle? No. Do I help or improve the lives of the friends I do have? No. Will anyone remember me after I pass away? No.

But that is normal. At a rough guess I imagine >99% of people to ever have lived are completely forgotten and their lives have no impact other than having kids.

At the end of the day we're all just animals on a floating rock in space. If you can optimize for your own happiness then you're doing great.

As cliche as it is to say – the answer to your question is probably within yourself. You feel like you're wasting your life, because you have aspirations. They may not be immediately apparent but they're there. And unfortunately I can't tell you what they are.

Uncovering them will take reflection & time. While you do that work of finding them, don't be so hard on yourself. Chances are you've had more of an impact on the world than you give yourself credit for.

Read this article. This will probably change your life for the better. https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...

It's never too late! Any day can be day one.

I am in my early thirties and have struggled with the feeling of life slipping through my fingers and not being able to make the changes I want in my life.

If I have learned anything in the past year it's this: Consistency pays off. Spend 10 minutes reading, do 10 pushups, get a run in (maybe 5min) every single day and you will look back and be amazed at your own improvement.

That being said, I rely heavily on my morning routine to set the tone for the day. - make my bed - go for a run - do a 3 min workout - shower and get dressed - coffee and breakfast - some reflection on how I'm feeling and the day ahead of me.

If you are isolated find groups for hobbies you enjoy or hobbies you're curious about. It's a good way to meet people with similar interests in setting that don't involved drinking.

If you want to start today: - get some movement going on. walk, run, cycle. - prepare some food for yourself. don't eat out period - cut out drinking

Mostly be deliberate about the things you include into your life. Challenge your habits and status quo. Once you automate the small things you need to care for yourself you can tackle the big things. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Put in some work everyday and it's pays off.

1. Lose weight and get fit, everything else depends on this.

2. Start doing social things that require fitness. Hiking is a good one, join a club. If you don't have a partner, this will help you with finding one.

3. If that's your thing, start some small project/business. If not, volunteer at something of deep value to society or yourself. Spend a nice chunk of your time on this one.

4. Travel

From another comment

> 1. Lose weight and get fit, everything else depends on this.

I'm going to disagree here. I can speak from experience, and you'll find plenty via a search that getting fit may even lead to more problems if done alone.

That's if OP has esteem issues. Weight loss was suggested and nothing was mentioned in OP about weight issues.

So, OP if either apply to you, read on, if not, safely ignore.

While many of us fat kids (or formerly fat kid/adult) tie our self esteem to our being unfit, the fact is once someone gets fit that poor self esteem does not get magically fixed like a lot of us think it will. I know I did. I was 300lbs, dropped to 160 and started thinking "why am I not happier, I did all this work and still no social life?"

I dare say for myself and others that the magical non fix made things worse.

IMHO working on that poor self esteem is what everything else depends on. Then other things will start getting easier.

That's not to say that you can't work on both at the same time, but go for self esteem first.

Hey. Reach out to me, see my profile.

Let's get through this together. (I am just a dude, I'm not selling anything...no agenda)

We all have an expiration date. As long as you haven't reached it or have any debilitating health problems, it isn't too late.

Depends on expectations.

Coming from a traditional christian perspective everyone has the right to rebirth at any point in life. The sooner the better of course. Then it's all about following God. It is the persistence shown every day that matters there not the "target".

Then again even from a biological perspective you still have quite a long time to go so don't take it so hard and try to not stray from what is good in life. Just my 2c.

A couple of clichés I use when I lack motivation.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today.

Point being that is never too late to start.

Anything worth doing, is worth doing poorly.

Maybe you don't the motivation to give 100% today. Maybe you are not good enough to do it the right way. Doesn't matter. Don't just give up and do nothing. For example I may say I don't feel like going to the gym today and lifting weights. So instead of staying home and watching YouTube. I'll go walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes. Yeah it might not be as rigorous, and I might not have met my goal, but I did something.

Try not to compare yourself to others - everyone has had a different journey and everyone has their own issues going on.

One thing that’s working for me is to pick a hobby (mine is music production), choose a consistent time that you’re going to do it, and just show up. There will be times that you just do no want to do it but just show up. Within a short space of time you’ll have a consistent hobby that you’ll probably make real progress in quite quickly.

> I am in my mid thirties.

So young!

> Nothing like chronic disease or criminal stuff or drugs.

or family thing?

Then you're probably fine.

Go clean your room.

> I hate to see my life go to waste.

Then stop wasting it.

> I have so far not found a therapist, friend, or mentor who is of any help.

Keep trying.

What do you mean by "alienated"? What do you want specifically? What do you do, if anything, for fun? What do you mean by "those people are usually working with more than I am"?

I hate to say it so crassly but lots of people get stuck in depression b/c they don't have a sex life. Orgasm is like a reboot with exploding rainbows and can clear out the cobwebs and open a road to a new future. So, if you're not getting any, then I recommend that you get laid ASAP if at all possible.

I'm in my mid 30s and decided to move country, I gave myself almost a year to get sorted (find a job, house, etc) and it's given me something to look forward to. It's also a challenge that's kept me busy. This might not be suitable for your situation, but something to consider.

It's hard to say anything without knowing your situation in detail, but to me you sound more like you're just deeply lost rather than your life is messed up beyond repair. If you really focus and put your heart, soul and effort into something you can make astounding progress in just a few years, so mid-thirties does not sound too old in that regard.

You seem to have a felt sense of wasting your life by continuing to live it like this. That would imply that on some level you know that there's something you could and should be doing instead that you would be satisfied with, and your emotional systems are trying to signal to you that you're not doing that now. I would suggest you work on these crude signals and try to articulate the vision that's embedded in them into words to bring it into a form more comprehensible to yourself.

Here's a few questions: what would a properly lived life look like? What would you need? What could you do in your (lowly, confusing) situation to help yourself if you decided to do things properly, and humbly started to grab the opportunities that are presented to you right now, no matter how small and beneath you they might appear to you?

It’s never too old to change, just accept your need or desire and wholeheartedly commit, even on your death bed, change is possible, it’s just up to yourself