Anyone else feel that time is running out

[Rankandfile]

For the last 8 years or so I’ve had this feeling that time is running out, along with a load of regret that I didn’t do more / make different choices. For perspective, I’m 55 this year, have a successful career, love my job, head a department, lived abroad from 30-52 (one year travelling and the rest working) and have 2 teenage kids. I just can’t shake off this feeling that I wish I was in my 30s or 40s and that I’ll blink and be too old to do anything!! Talk me out of this ridiculousness.

Have you ever seen Tim Urban’s Wait But Why?
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
There’s also an excellent post on “The Tail End” (you’re a way off this yet but it’s a good concept to muse on - might help you to reframe, appreciate and focus future plans).
Would also recommend talking therapy - sounds like you’ve got the sort of job with an Employee Assistance Programme. Always good to chat to an unbiased third party to help you process feelings that have hung around for years.

Some of us didn't have that choice.

Wouldn't have had a baby without being married. Husband and I met young, but we had careers to build, get married, buy a house. Infertility then followed. Eventually had 2 DC, but two miscarriages before our much-wanted 3rd baby when I was 40.

My career stalled for reasons out of my control - let's just say, I learned a hard lesson that standing up and doing the right thing has terrible consequences! Then babies, and children, getting stuck where it was convenient and easy, and latterly a manager who actively dislikes me because (not wanting to sound like an arse!) I am more intelligent than she is, and way more educated, plus she can't stand to be challenged on anything. It's not just my opinion - 15+++ of us aren't wrong!!

So here I am approaching 62, shit marriage, useless DH, never having had a promotion despite being extremely well qualified, reasonable salary, and have had my application for partial retirement turned down by hateful manager, while others have been approved.

@Rankandfile I also have that feeling of time running out. I have health issues. My mobility isn't great at times. I am still supporting adult children living at home. I'm constantly skint. I can't do the improvements to my home that I had planned if I had got my pension lump sum. I am very, very conscious that my mum died of cancer at 63, and I am not far off her age now.

I just feel as if my life is being stolen from me. I don't want to work FT any more (I won't be because you can lead a horse to water etc, but it's the other ramifications of the decision!). I want to live my life while I am still physically able to do it.

I'm in a pretty bad place atm. I get you.

I'm 32 and have felt like this since I was 25. Time is running out for everybody.

I have a friend who recently turned 45, and said she's not afraid of getting older, she loves it. Because her best friend died at 35 and she promised she would live for her and cherish all the time she had left on this earth. I try to remind myself of that when I find myself thinking about how many years I may have left, how long my parents have, etc. Let's cherish the time we have and make the most of it.

I’ve had this feeling since a bereavement. It’s made me want to live out my dreams and write a bucket list. I’ve been a lot more brave recently, facing fears and taking risks. I’ve been more reckless with money and I’ve been more selfish. But if I don’t do these things now I’ll never do them, and I’ve already missed out on so much of my life.

You have at least another ten years of working, if you want to and enjoy it. You can make a few loose plans for what you hope to do when retired. There is still much to be enjoyed. I am 75 and can assure you that time often goes very slowly for me, my pace of life is different to when I was working and before I was widowed. However there are good things in life and there will be even more of them for you. Being in your fifties is great if your health is OK, embrace it and do some interesting things.

Yes, I have not been able to work for years.... and there is a part of me that keeps saying "we will start tomorrow", but tomorrow never comes.
I think I have lots of time left.... I do not.

I feel just the same OP, I'm 55
I don't regret very much of the choices in my past but more that if I drift on like this through late middle age, I definitely will
I feel trapped and panicky
I'm working too hard, not having much fun and feeling burned out
And want something more from what remains of my one wild and precious life

I think maybe it's more a looming awareness of one's own mortality

To grow old is a privilege. Some people don't get to grow old. I do feel time is speeding up for me. My children are in their twenties. I have been successful in the sense that I am very financially secure. I am still happily with my husband. But I do feel I have lived a more limited life. I am trying to fit in more overseas trips and focusing on enjoying the now. OP should book that trip to Scotland - I mean it's cold. grey and miserable but whatever does it for you. Why not Bali? (I am part Scots so don't abuse me but there's a reason my family immigrated.)

My heart goes out to you. Very best wishes xx

I'll reply properly in the morning, but it reminds me of the song "Sunscreen" I heard aged 18 at university... my health was at its peak, my brain was firing on all cylinders, I had so much potential and optimism. The song was so true and so poignant, looking back now. Floss, it said. Dance, it said. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, it said. And yes, I was never as fat as I imagined

Now.... now, of course, i long to go back in time even 12 years ago to aged 31, and not be in poor health. Life is easy when you're young. It's pointless regretting things but it's made me feel like my life will be pretty much enduring and almost just existing from now on.

God, that was depressing. Sorry! 🤣

This resonates OP.
I'm mid 40's.
I hear ABBA's dancing queen and I am so happy that I got to experience first hand the words of that song. And I am so sad that I never will again. I am excited for my DD to experience that excitement.
I am sad that I'm now invisible to outside society when I used to receive positive attention.
I miss being young and carefree. I miss the joy of youth.
On the flip side I love my DH and DD and friends and job and for that I'll take a wrinkle or two (which I could Botox away!!)

Oh, and my poor late DB died aged 34 from bowel cancer 7 years ago, so yes, time is precious. And we certainly don't all get to live to a ripe age. Carpe diem, and be happy 😊 💖

Stop wasting your time on men.

They are inadequate. Useful for one thing.

Make a life without men. It is so much better. Find women, book clubs, restaurant clubs, sewing, singing, gardening, walking.

Ultimately everyone's life is meaningless and even the biological imperative to reproduce and pass your genes along is kind of unimportant as those genes will be present in millions of other people and in existence whether you reproduce or not. We are all also, even little children even babies growing closer to death each day and we never know when it will come to us.

So life is pointless except for the meaning you choose to give it. Your life is also only ever a series of moments and you can only exist in each one at a time and then its gone. We will all die and one day humanity will cease to exist. You can see this as depressing or see it as liberating and I think its liberating. Nothing really matters, you are free to choose who you are and your life. Even those responsibilities you have are still what you are choosing.

The past is gone, all you have is now. The best advice I ever got was to find the joy in small day to day things and those tiny fleeting moments. My own observations have also shown me that the people I know who dwell on ageing and that time is running out seem to grow old so much faster than those who don't worry about age and just live present in the moment, those people even seem to look younger.

Let go and focus on what you love and what brings you joy, don't take life to seriously because its not "for" anything but to exist, even just being alive is enough to justify your existence, no more is needed the rest is up to you.

I am really sorry for your loss and hope things are better for you now.

How??

You do have a talent, you write very well!

Love this answer. May I add that my dad always said I'd enjoy life much more if I didn't take it so seriously - only now at aged 43 am I beginning to realise he was right! And he told me that when I was aged 17! 🤣😳🤣

@ForeverDelayedEpiphany I think you have to get to a certain age to reach that perspective for the most part, although some really gifted people get it from a younger age.

I've posted this before, this when you need to get a goat or two.

I feel
Like this but I think it was turning 50 for me , my mum passed at 60
And my auntie too so I have this fear that the number is fast approaching

Pep talk incoming...

Get a grip, everyone! The average age of death is early eighties, so you all have 30-40 years to go, if not more! Some of you have FIFTY YEARS to go!

And flip it...Do you really WANT to be here at 100 with all your friends and possibly your kids having passed before you?

Plus, I was with my dad as he took his last breaths a few months ago. He just fell asleep, after a long illness, and he was at peace at last. Death is not anything to be afraid of. You simply go to sleep, the difference being that you don't wake up, but you don't know about it.

I'm 50 and recently an orphan, and have wasted a lot of my life. But I don't feel that time is running out, because I stay in the present and focus on the here and now.

Now go and do something useful instead of all this navel-gazing! Tidy your rooms if you can't think of anything!😂

I’m 37 and very recently had a baby. I have been feeling a bit like this (currently listening to an audio book during night feeds about teenagers and it’s made me nostalgic for that time again). I think we all feel like this at various points in life no matter what our age. It’s a shame you have spent 8 years feeling like this instead of enjoying those years - it’s a long time! Have you spoken to your GP? I suffer periodically with health anxiety and worry about dying. I have tried CBT and it has helped at times. I would suggest making some plans for things you really want to do and just crack on and do them. Not necessarily big, expensive plans, just things you fancy doing or achieving. That’s my plan for this year - stop procrastinating/ worrying / giving up because I think it’s too hard. I hope you can stop feeling this way soon and enjoy life again

I think we all reach an age where we realise we're no longer 'our whole life is in front of us'. I'm 48 & have become very aware in the last two-three years.

I've noticed my body slowing, eyesight going to.sh*t, DH complaining about his knees (genetic, apparently). Nothing major, but the realisation that we'll eventually decline & we're on the clock to do things. I think a lot about time I've wasted. It's been pushed harder by seeing some family & friends in in my age group decline or hit obstacles that are harder, or impossible to recover from (financial, health).

We can't stop it, can't go back, so we're using it to do more now. We've starting travelling again, with DC in tow, instead of obsessing about pensions or everything that needs upgrading around the house (nothing absolutely necessary). Sacrifing to accumulate wealth or working crazy hours for a job seems pointless when you know your time to enjoy it is limited. We are also enjoying ourselves a bit more on a daily basis, instead of being so frugal, which we've always been.