Life after 40

[Bruces]

My life just feels so completely and utterly empty,nothing to do or look forward to anymore

 

[Mr2005]

I think I could cope with thinking the best part was over had I actually done something with it.

 

[Close_to_freedom]

My life just feels so completely and utterly empty,nothing to do or look forward to anymore

How did you feel at 30?

 

[Bruces]

Still fairly hopeful at 30
Now I'm just unbelievably bored of life
I think I want to go but not hurt anybody

 

[SpottedPanda]

I'm 37, and for seven yeas I've endured the tragic experience of a life of mediocrity. In my twenties I felt like a legendary adventurer of life.

I can't begin to contemplate what another three years plus would bring, though I feel it'd take a literal miracle for it to be anything groundbreaking.

 

[nervousandanxious]

I turned 25 this year and I'm starting to feel old myself. It's scary how fast time goes and each day we look a little bit older :( I don't want to lose my good looks and not be attractive anymore. I don't want to grow old so that's why I think I want to end it before age 30 or around then. I've dreaded getting older from a young age and the years go by extremely fast to the point that it's frightening. We get closer n closer to our expiration date every day

 

[DeadButDreaming]

Believe it or not, the age of 40 is one of the best for getting women. All the women who left it too late to have a family start hitting on you. I'm 39, and I suppose their rationale is 'he is too old to have his pick of the women but still attractive enough to sleep with'.

I've never been hit on as much as I have the past couple of years.

 

[Donk]

i was under the delusion that i can fix myself but my mental health has been spiralling down since i turned 40. ignorance is a bliss until you wake up from it and realize your life is a nightmare. i hope this nightmare will end soon.

 

[liverpoolfan]

50 is worse. Without trying to sound like a twat I actually had some pretty decent success in the entertainment business in my 20s and 30s. 40s was tough as I lost both my parents and my career petered out. Now I'm 50 and I KNOW I'll never have anything as good again. Or, to ignore materialism completely, I'll never again have that sense of excitement and possibility and, absurdly, that conviction that you and your 'art' were somehow important. I miss that sense of purpose and destiny and optimism. And it ain't coming back.

Plus, you start to lose a yard here and put on a pound there, your hearing and memory and eyesight aren't what they were - and the aches and pains start. And no matter how hard you work out you know each year your body is going to get weaker and more fragile.

My life has essentially been one long, slow decline from moderately rich and famous musician to bored and boring old curmudgeon whose best days and best works are all behind him and whose creative spark is never coming back. In fact I listened to some of my old music tonight (something I rarely do as it makes me depressed) and I was thinking "How did I even *do* that? How did I even have those ideas and create those arrangements and sing and play those parts?" Any time I do any music in my studio these days I barely have any ideas - and those I do have are shite.

So to those who posted that it might be more bearable if you'd had more success etc when you were younger, I say, in my experience, it only serves to make the decline more stark and the losses more difficult to bear.

God now I'm even more depressed. Thanks OP lol.

 

[GravityUtilizer]

My life has essentially been one long, slow decline from moderately rich and famous musician to bored and boring old curmudgeon whose best days and best works are all behind him and whose creative spark is never coming back.

But at least you've got work out there! Britpop band or something was it? Sorry to ask, big indie fan here...

 

[KibblesNBits]

I turned 25 this year and I'm starting to feel old myself. It's scary how fast time goes and each day we look a little bit older :( I don't want to lose my good looks and not be attractive anymore. I don't want to grow old so that's why I think I want to end it before age 30 or around then. I've dreaded getting older from a young age and the years go by extremely fast to the point that it's frightening. We get closer n closer to our expiration date every day

I'm 30 and it's horrifying how fast things deteriorate. It's like my body aged ten years in a single year.

 

[SpottedPanda]

I'm 30 and it's horrifying how fast things deteriorate. It's like my body aged ten years in a single year.

It seems I had my thirtieth birthday (in a psyche ward) and the next day, bam, I was fat. I'd never been fat before, in 29 years of living. And that's only one physical effect. I've had numerous mental changes too.

 

[liverpoolfan]

But at least you've got work out there! Britpop band or something was it? Sorry to ask, big indie fan here...

The thing is mate, you come to realise the work doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if the work's 'out there', or not out there, or even if you wrote it or didn't write it. I've probably done a song that for someone, somewhere, is their favourite song of all time. But even that doesn't matter - because if I'd never written it, they'd just have another favourite song of all time.
That's the soul killer for artists (and humans in general): to come to realise nothing you do really matters.