To be average but wanting more

[Allyoli]

Nc for reasons.

My life is just... middling. Plodding along. I'm 35. I enjoy my job, although I've hit a ceiling in my career, both progression and salary wise. Financially I'm OK, no debts, can save a little each month. Me and my partner are in a stable, happy relationship. Would like to buy a home but still can't afford to yet. I'm quite fit, go to the gym, run 2-3 times a week and do yoga.

My life is not a bad problem to have, but what now? How do I progress my life and make it more interesting from here? Most goals seem to be about earning more money to buy a better life, but I can't see that being possible without retraining to do something I don't enjoy.

Any tips or advice for how to figure this out?

(Ps. Have decided not to have kids).

This! Love it.

You have a very limited world view then, @Lykke1000

TRAVEL

🤣

@TheSaturdayAfternoonnessOfIt and @greenvelvetgloves I agree with your outlooks. I’ve put a lot of effort into building a comfortable life that is satisfying and fulfilling on a small, day to day scale (and it has to be acknowledged that not having children makes this a lot easier). None of what I do is remarkable, and none of it will survive after me. But so what? It makes me happy, and that gives me the resilience and energy to be a nicer person to be around. I can live with not being the one to save them all this time around.

Yeah whats wrong with contentment. I have a DC, I don’t find it particularly fulfilling tbh. My fantasy life is OP’s basically. Theres too much pressure to BE something or be doing something.

@TedMullins, but I’ve never suggested my experience is everyone’s. I’m simply saying that people, especially those not tied down to place and income by child-rearing, can do these things if they like.

No one is going to give you a permission slip. You don’t have to be some unusual individual — I’m from a deeply ordinary, very poor working-class background, with timid, risk-averse parents who had far more children than they could afford or deal with and who encouraged me to leave school at 15 to be a hairdresser, because they didn’t see the point of finishing secondary and thought university was ‘only for rich people’. The minute I said no and insisted on doing A-level equivalents and took myself off to be an au pair between school and university (I was petrified and 17, had barely left my home city —neither of my parents had ever left our home country) I was stepping off the ‘normal’ life I was socialised to expect as my lot.

I’m aware this is not everyone’s experience, and that by doing the stuff I’ve done, I’m more likely to encounter others who’ve done similar. I’m also aware that some people would regard my choices as lunatic and would have found the instability of things a strain, let alone living somewhere offshore where my only contact with other people was an infrequent supply boat that often couldn’t come in bad weather.

But equally, the very prescriptive ‘life map’ I see on here (getting on property ladder, marriage, children all supposed to happen at quite specific periods), let alone the number of people who seem to come in from work, get into their pyjamas and watch tv (which I’ve only encountered on here) is a choice. And it’s a choice the OP doesn’t need to continue to make, if she doesn’t want to.

I have no life because I have kids 😂

Exactly!! Having a kid has sure given me a never ending list of things to do… but glorious a sense of purpose hasn’t come with the package!

I think Lykke is articulating something I felt, maybe it's not something there's a great deal of honesty.

I felt exactly like OP at 29. Bored, restless, unsure what next. I got pregnant. That solved it. 🤣🤣

Now looking back I wish I'd had more imagination. Sure, it solved my purposelessness and existential angst. At the price of 20 years and counting of being weighed down by responsibility.

At the time I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. I wonder if there may have been easier ways to solve that restlessness

Sure, I don’t disagree with most of what you’re saying. Genuinely kudos to you for making such a different life for yourself than the one your parents expected of you. I’m also not a fan of the prescriptive life path and having to hit “milestones” by certain ages, I think it’s only one of many ways to live life and no more valid than starting an off-grid commune if that’s what you’d prefer.

It’s true many people are held back by fear of doing something out of the ordinary, fear of the unknown, adversity to risk, low self esteem, money etc - some of these are easier to overcome than others but I absolutely agree that people should care less about societal expectations and make choices to live the lives they REALLY want. Where I disagree is that that is an easy choice to make, or that life never feels boring or mundane for even the most adventurous people.

Surely even when you were writing a book or working as a journalist in the Middle East or living on an uninhabited island you had days where you finished work and wanted to chill and put your feet up? I used to be a music journalist and got sent on tour with bands to the likes of Mexico, LA and Eastern Europe, but between trips it was literally just a job like any other (that sounds weird to say but that’s how it felt), I’d write my features then want to chill at the end of the day with my pyjamas in front of Netflix. Yes, of course if that’s ALL you ever do with life it’ll feel very repetitive and boring but I really don’t think it’s out of the ordinary, regardless of the kind of life you live.

@TedMullins, I won't quote the whole thing again, or this will turn into an epsitolary novel! I don't think we're disagreeing with one another, really yours are good questions, and I think that maybe I come at this stuff from slightly different base level. Home was never a safe or pleasant place to be, growing up, and it was so overcrowded that as the eldest I felt pressure to leave asap to leave more room and attention for the younger ones so it didn't take any particular courage to leave, and I knew that if I came back (from university) it would be very much as a visitor who would be sleeping on the sofa.

There was nowhere to retreat to, so I had to just leap.

Stuff that would be entirely normal to your average middle-class person was pretty alien to me, so that 'life plan' of 'education, job, save for a deposit, meet someone, pool deposits, get on property ladder, have children' was nothing I'd expected from life.

Maybe if your childhood is more secure, and you have parents more at ease with the world, it's actually harder to diverge from the 'life plan' because you have a stronger sense of a shared normality?

I don't think I really have a 'Netflix on the sofa' mode, because I grew up without a TV, and in fact only acquired one as a gift (from a colleague of DH's who couldn't believe we didn't have one) when I was in my early 30s -- it's not a natural mode for me. (And the island didn't have electricity, anyway! ) It's not that I never watch TV, it's just not really a thing for me, and I could go weeks without ever switching it on.

I suppose my life is currently more 'mundane' than it's ever been -- we're committed to staying where we live now (moved countries in 2020) till our 11 year old leaves secondary, I have an academic job and write, and am renovating an old house while living in it and planting a small forest on a bit of wasteland, and volunteering, but this is all new to me, so it feels very novel! I'm also making interesting new friends, enjoying living in a city again, and considering a career change. Maybe I'm living other people's 20s in my 50s?

Anyway, apologies for the thread derail, OP. Good luck with whatever you decide.

But anyway, I wasn't planning to write about