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For the several posters who aspired to become a professional athlete (including me), I'm reminded of an old quote from the Sports Illustrated writer Rick Telander, who was a top defensive back at Northwestern, drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs, and cut in training camp. "Everyone at some point in life learns that they're not going to be a professional athlete".
That point for me came early at age 9, when I learned in Little League that I couldn't hit a thrown baseball.
I realized that no matter how hard I tried, the circumstances of my childhood would send me on a trajectory that I could not always change or correct. I worked at that correction as hard as I could, but there were obstacles that were impossible to overcome.
I accomplished a lot & wish I could have had more of what I was looking for, but just ran out of time & energy. I blotted out thinking about this until recently, when my health slowed me down & I spent more time thinking, "If X had not been forced on me against my will, then Y would not have happened..." & so on. But then I felt very bitter & angry, which hurt no one but me. I faced that life is unfair, & some people are born with advantages that give them more of a guarantee that their life will be better because of these advantages, if they don't blow it. And, not having those advantages (and I don't mean money), I did the very best I could, with no assistance, guidance, mentoring or support from anyone.
We in our "golden years" are experiencing psychologist Erik Erikson's eighth stage of development, which he called "Integrity vs. Despair." At this stage, we naturally look back and review and assess our lives, which have mostly passed. If they've been successful, we have a sense of peace and satisfaction; if not, we feel disappointment, anger, depression, even bitterness. Either way, conducting a life review is natural and normal at our stage of the game. "The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates
We in our "golden years" are experiencing psychologist Erik Erikson's eighth stage of development, which he called "Integrity vs. Despair." At this stage, we naturally look back and review and assess our lives, which have mostly passed. If they've been successful, we have a sense of peace and satisfaction; if not, we feel disappointment, anger, depression, even bitterness. Either way, conducting a life review is natural and normal at our stage of the game. "The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates
Well put!
I think that no matter how successful, or how happy we may have become, in hindsight, there's always that question "what if"......
Looking back at how my life unfolded, just as an example, in order to be a better "provider", my father changed jobs a couple of times, when I was a youngster. This involved us moving 3 times, by the time I turned 10. I sometimes wonder, "Where would I be today, if we hadn't made those moves"? I don't look at it in a negative way, I simply wonder how my life would have turned out if we hadn't made those moves.
I certainly wouldn't have had the career that I did, if we had stopped moving sooner than we did. I certainly wouldn't have met the people that I did, had we stopped moving, or for that matter, not moved at all. And I've occasionally taken it a step further, and wondered where the people that I met along the way would be, had we not interacted with each other, along the way. For instance, who would my wife have gotten married to, if we hadn't met? Who would I have married if I still lived in my home town?
Three things I never achieved: getting married, having a child, and attaining the pinnacle of success in my career.
I have to be honest that children were never a goal in my youth but now that I'm past the point of being able to have children, I can say that I do have some regrets over missing out on this. Also definitely regret not getting married although I wouldn't want to marry now; I enjoy my life too much the way it is.
I actually think my top disappointment was not attaining the pinnacle of success in my career. I was very smart and worked hard and was always considered a good employee but never reached that pinnacle of success such as a promotion to a top/key position. I always sort of just trudged along. I would have liked to be more successful professionally and make more money. I think I was certainly smart enough and worked hard enough to get there, but I had personality limitations. I was quiet and not an aggressive person. It is what it is.
Coping? I cope by accepting my life the way it was and being grateful for what I have. There are reasons we don't get everything in life, and perhaps we would have had more pain and problems if we had gotten more of what we wanted. I try to trust that God gave me what was best for me.
A VP once told me, the key to good mental health is low expectations. Hard to do right as rain.
I am going to differ on that.
My pessimist brother always expected the worst, so as to shield himself from disappointment. Good mental health? No. He suffered from depression his entire adult life.
I will take optimism and high expectations over pessimism and low expectations, any time. The optimist simply deals with failure and disappointment better, and therefore is generally happier with better mental health.
My pessimist brother always expected the worst, so as to shield himself from disappointment. Good mental health? No. He suffered from depression his entire adult life.
I will take optimism and high expectations over pessimism and low expectations, any time. The optimist simply deals with failure and disappointment better, and therefore is generally happier with better mental health.
That quote caught my attention, too, and I thought it was the term, "low expectations," I didn't like. I think the concept is good but the way it was worded sounds lazy or irresponsible.
The phrase as I was introduced to it was, "Plan plans, not outcomes." I think that acknowledges an acceptance that we do what we can but are never sure what the exact outcomes of our planning will be.
Sounds more like a discovery process than, "Oh well, I wasn't expecting anything anyway."
otterhere mentioned life phases. It put me in mind of watching many of my acquaintances go through what I think of as a sort of cocooning period around fifty or sixty years. Certainly that has been more evident with the quarantine but I'm thinking it also has a psychological component.
Circumstances of our changing lives seem to lead to a drawing inward perhaps as we contemplate what's possible in our new roles as a retired person. Maybe it's even a gathering of mental and physical energy as we prepare to emerge for our "last act."
Anyway it looks like heck, withdrawal, depression from the outside. A cause for concern. Maybe some of us get stuck there for various reasons. It can feel pretty safe on the inside.
But that time of re-evaluating, reframing can also be a time of renewal and hope. I've enjoyed over the years reading what some of you write here as you step through these new challenges and tell what has changed in your circumstances and you. And yes, I think you sharing that gives me perspective and courage.
Guess I woke up chatty this morning. I'd like to say something about loneliness too. It's something that's difficult for me to talk about so I was glad to see it had been mentioned as a common problem for us elders.
It's only been recently that I have been able to admit it out loud. And since doing so I've realized something about my loneliness. Yes, it is loneliness, but more than that it's actually grief for what I've lost that makes me feel lonely. I miss the generational holiday meals with relatives, camaraderie of motorcycling friends, the old home places, the atmosphere and people of favorite bars and restaurants, rock concerts and the classroom. And I especially miss the growing number of friends who have taken their last breaths.
It's truly a disappointment to live the rest of my life with this lonesomeness. I didn't expect to ever feel this sense of loss.
Most remarkable is that it can't be soothed with new experiences or new acquaintances. It genuinely is grief more than loneliness.
I think that fits in with a sense of failure that I can't live "happily ever after." And I think I still have some work to do on false beliefs about what feeling lonesome means about who I am. In the meantime, while I come to peace with it, kitties help.
I wonder where our life goals come from? Parents are a likely place because they start very early, earlier than children start thinking what their goals are. Society also shows goals, lots of them, mostly showing that money=success.
It might be beneficial at every stage of life to examine whether the goal we are trying to reach is REALLY our goal.
My mothers goal for me was to marry someone with money. My goal after seeing my parents marriage was to never marry. My teachers goal for all of us was to go to college. That's the one I did first and it was so wonderful I wanted to stay forever but needed to support myself so could not stay.
Goals change for most people. We find our happiness while we get through life.
I strongly urge everyone to examine their goal to see if it was a good one and who they disappointed if they didn't reach it.
Get a new goal you feel good about.
I married a guy without money BTW and that was the right goal for me when I finally arrived there.
Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
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Quote:
Originally Posted by matisse12
Higher education is not just to possibly "make more money or to brag"!!
Higher education can give one a more interesting career, more satisfaction with one's job because it allows one to enter a certain profession of interest, can allow one to be in a helping or challenging profession which requires certain knowledge/skills, allows one to have challenges which are satisfying, to use one's brain to acquire knowledge, to gain knowledge required to enter certain professions.
It's not "just having a degree"!
Which you can all do without a degree in many cases.
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