Sinking feeling: acquaintances retiring. My plans at 46.

[oak]

Perhaps my siblings here can identify with the following.

I am 46.

I have been working for 30 years. I hope to work another twenty years, and stay one step ahead of automation. That’s my only professional goal.

I can’t tolerate any more working poverty, May have to tolerate paycheck-to-paycheck, and hope/plan to become lower middle class in 2024.

Meanwhile, some of my acquaintances are planning on retiring within a few years.

I don’t resent them, of course.

I realize I had trauma, mainly manifested as alcohol abuse through my early 30s, which stunted my emotional and professional growth.

Eg: every spoon I spend on trauma were spoons my friends spent on diligent choices.

Compound interest (every dollar they saved in their twenties is worth 100 I could save in my 40s) is helping them ascend and crushing me.

I have specific plans to turn around my career in the next six months by means I’ll post about elsewhere.

Just for now, especially over the holidays, who I am is something I can’t pretend I’m not.

I wonder who I could have been had my mother been equipped to raise me.

[manuel_moe_g]

I wonder who I could have been had my mother been equipped to raise me.

Very much worth mourning.

For myself, I mourn what could have been for me for five seconds at a time, just to be safe. I have to keep it that brief. I close my eyes and mourn it for five seconds

Then I remind myself that people have done more with less, and my present day circumstance is a fine place to start, that the only bound on what I can accomplish starting from here, the only bound is imagination. That is factual

I sit with that for a while and bring my subconscious closer to the positive thing my logical frontal lobe knows to be factual

Then I remind myself that in life, every blessing can turn out to be a curse. That is factual. And I process that similarly, as I outlined above

It is not perfect, but it allows me to slowly get up again after I have been knocked down

I learn something from my last humiliation, so I am a tiny bit harder to knock down In the future , and I can get up a tiny bit faster in the future

I bleed, and so I can help others when they bleed with hard-won knowledge and sincerity

[oak]

Well said, Manuel Moe. You said better what I was getting at. Thank you.

I stand by what I wrote...
I admit it has self-pity, but this is the time of year for self-pity
I can improve from ages 46 to 66
My acquaintance isn't doing well (pointing three fingers at myself)
Where I do go from here?
Thirty years


I stand by what I wrote...

I mean, yeah. I guess.

I admit it has self-pity, but this is the time of year for self-pity

The week between Christmas and New Years is a fine time for self-pity/self-reflection (is there a difference?) and planning to do better.

I can improve from ages 46 to 66

As Manuel Moe states, we have much going for us. It is too early to give up hope.

My acquaintance isn't doing well (pointing three fingers at myself)

Before Christmas I saw an acquaintance I knew from high school.

Besides his physical decline, I was astonished by his flat affect (blank, listless face; no vigor or fight or fire).

I say this not criticize him, though he does deserve criticism, but to criticize me.

Like they say: every time I point an accusing finger at someone, I have three fingers pointing back at me.

Where I do go from here?

*Eat a steak.

*Eat some serrano peppers.

*Go to kettlebell class.

*Look at the cuties there.

*Listen to Garth Brooks' "Callin' Baton Rouge" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16lW-NWqLTQ

I said that to say this:

I can sit here and cry how I was hurt and mistreated. Which I was.

But kettlebell starts in two hours: in the meantime I can eat some serranos, shower, shave, finish cleaning my dojang, and do twenty minutes on the exercise bike to warm up for class.

Thirty years

"Callin' Baton Rouge" came out thirty years ago. It seems like yesterday.

My next thirty years will pass just as quickly.

Kettlebell and peppers in 2023 will make my 2053 better.

[Mental Fairy]

Hi Oak

The thought of retiring is terrifying to me. I don't think i could. Maybe part time, but not fully.

Being 41, almost 42 i think i've done way better than my mum! We should not gage ourselves by others accomplishments.

What you do this following 12 months is all down to your mindset, and as far as i can understand you are doing bloody good. Far better than i!

Just know that we are here.

[oak]

What you do this following 12 months is all down to your mindset, and as far as i can understand you are doing bloody good. Far better than i!

Just know that we are here.

Thank you, MentalFairy! I have taken your encouragement to heart.

I continue to refine/finish my 2023 goals, which I’m just starting to begin to implement.

I have a dental crown appointment tomorrow morning; when I bounce back from that in a few days I’ll post about my 2023 goals, which can be summarized in two words (!).

[Beany Boo]

I have been working for 30 years. I hope to work another twenty years, and stay one step ahead of automation. That’s my only professional goal.

Great post.

It’s easier for me to focus on the piece that jumped out but all of it was ‘psychologically warm’.

Its possible that the goal(s) in place may all have anxiety trip switches attached to them.

I’m not ‘successful’ but I have read that some notable CEO’s lean towards introversion. There are athletes and business people that I’ve read about whose success resulted from having quite unusual goals compared to societal expectation.

I also know people who fit the comparison you describe. A number of them though have ridden early success only to flounder in middle age, with mental health issues, from having neglected their inner life.

Managers from my experience reinforce employees who recognize the manager just trying to put one foot in front of the other; without shaming them for being frail humans like the rest of us.

Keep working on the puzzle but expect there to be many unexpected steps.