<story><title>Neal Stephenson: Why I Am a Sociomediapath (2015)</title><url>http://www.nealstephenson.com/social-media.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>snowwrestler</author><text>I just turned 40, parent of a young child, and I know what you mean. I think the below article, a cover story in &lt;i&gt;The Atlantic&lt;/i&gt;, is really insightful and I found it helped adjust my thinking.&lt;p&gt;There are going to be things that I wanted to do, that I won&amp;#x27;t do in my life. Some may never have happened no matter what, like winning the Super Bowl or becoming an astronaut. But some of them will be things that I could very plausibly have actually done--but instead I did other things. The challenge of happiness is acknowledging that I made those choices for reasons that seemed good at the time, and anyway I can&amp;#x27;t go back and change the past. To be happy, I have to accept that it&amp;#x27;s possible to be happy, even knowing that I gave some things up for other things.&lt;p&gt;Essentially I&amp;#x27;m working on believing that goals and happiness are separate things, each of which can be achieved independently of the other.&lt;p&gt;The link:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-real-roots-of-midlife-crisis&amp;#x2F;382235&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-real...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;A quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Long ago, when I was 30 and he was 66, the late Donald Richie, the greatest writer I have known, told me: “Midlife crisis begins sometime in your 40s, when you look at your life and think, Is this all? And it ends about 10 years later, when you look at your life again and think, Actually, this is pretty good.” In my 50s, thinking back, his words strike me as exactly right. To no one’s surprise as much as my own, I have begun to feel again the sense of adventure that I recall from my 20s and 30s. I wake up thinking about the day ahead rather than the five decades past. Gratitude has returned.</text></item><item><author>marktangotango</author><text>Comments so far seem to be focusing on the social media aspect of this piece, what struck me was the acknowledgement that he has a limited number of productive years left, and the Longfellow quote.  In my mid 40&amp;#x27;s, I also have come to feel the weight of years passed, without achieving professional goals (ie starting a succesful software based company).&lt;p&gt;This feeling of unfinished business really set in after the birth of our second child. I had always claimed to be one of the best developers around, yet, I could not master myself to be truly productive when working of personal projects. Overcoming my self imposed limits is where I&amp;#x27;m at now.  Has anyone else experienced this?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Spearchucker</author><text>Maybe my situation is a little less common, but I keep waiting for a mid-life crisis. I&amp;#x27;m 45, have achieved a lot more so far than I ever expected to (I never expected myself to amount to much).&lt;p&gt;What I &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; become, is two things - more aware of time, and how limited it is. Second, selfish with my time. I do what I want to do, and no longer do what my girlfriend or anyone else wants me to do, unless it aligns with what I want to do.</text></comment>
<story><title>Neal Stephenson: Why I Am a Sociomediapath (2015)</title><url>http://www.nealstephenson.com/social-media.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>snowwrestler</author><text>I just turned 40, parent of a young child, and I know what you mean. I think the below article, a cover story in &lt;i&gt;The Atlantic&lt;/i&gt;, is really insightful and I found it helped adjust my thinking.&lt;p&gt;There are going to be things that I wanted to do, that I won&amp;#x27;t do in my life. Some may never have happened no matter what, like winning the Super Bowl or becoming an astronaut. But some of them will be things that I could very plausibly have actually done--but instead I did other things. The challenge of happiness is acknowledging that I made those choices for reasons that seemed good at the time, and anyway I can&amp;#x27;t go back and change the past. To be happy, I have to accept that it&amp;#x27;s possible to be happy, even knowing that I gave some things up for other things.&lt;p&gt;Essentially I&amp;#x27;m working on believing that goals and happiness are separate things, each of which can be achieved independently of the other.&lt;p&gt;The link:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-real-roots-of-midlife-crisis&amp;#x2F;382235&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;archive&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-real...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;A quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Long ago, when I was 30 and he was 66, the late Donald Richie, the greatest writer I have known, told me: “Midlife crisis begins sometime in your 40s, when you look at your life and think, Is this all? And it ends about 10 years later, when you look at your life again and think, Actually, this is pretty good.” In my 50s, thinking back, his words strike me as exactly right. To no one’s surprise as much as my own, I have begun to feel again the sense of adventure that I recall from my 20s and 30s. I wake up thinking about the day ahead rather than the five decades past. Gratitude has returned.</text></item><item><author>marktangotango</author><text>Comments so far seem to be focusing on the social media aspect of this piece, what struck me was the acknowledgement that he has a limited number of productive years left, and the Longfellow quote.  In my mid 40&amp;#x27;s, I also have come to feel the weight of years passed, without achieving professional goals (ie starting a succesful software based company).&lt;p&gt;This feeling of unfinished business really set in after the birth of our second child. I had always claimed to be one of the best developers around, yet, I could not master myself to be truly productive when working of personal projects. Overcoming my self imposed limits is where I&amp;#x27;m at now.  Has anyone else experienced this?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Disruptive_Dave</author><text>Very buddhist, at its core. Once you remove attachment to things, events, results, milestones, etc., you can start digging into what really sets the stage for actual, repeatable, &amp;quot;happiness.&amp;quot;</text></comment>