51 and so very tired from working - but I have another 15 years to go yet

[chinesestirfry]

certainly not wishing my life away BUT ...

I am just so worn out, tired, lethargic from working. Like the rest of the world, I have been working for 30 years plus. It's not the job, the job is not pressured at all. I work hybrid. It's very family friendly. It's the constant need to deliver/manage and keep going. Keep pushing at work, keep turning up, keep up the façade that I'm interested. keep up the enthusiasm, keep playing the game (so to speak). I (we) have another 15 years before the mortgage is paid off. I don't know how I will last that long. Technology at work is moving so very fast. It's all now beyond me and I don't care to keep up with the moving pace.

I have to carry on but I have nothing left in me to give

Maybe “a change is as good as a rest”. Could you switch careers to get your energy and enthusiasm back?

It's very sad OP, the world we live in demands so much of us. I'm younger than you but can already empathise. Maybe a change of direction at work might reignite some enthusiasm? Although the prospect of retraining may also be exhausting! 💐

Try and put as much as possible into a private pension or ISAs starting now so that it doesn’t have to be another 15 years. Or drop some days and start a side hustle so work is not the majority of your life.

YANBU OP. I’ve just been made redundant at 50, the thought of having to get out there, job hunting, interviewing, pretending to be all keen and enthusiastic, fills me with dread. Then there’s actually starting a new job, meeting new colleagues, learning new systems and ways of working - utterly exhausting.

In theory, I have enough in savings to not work anymore, but life will be far more enjoyable with two incomes coming in so I need to suck it up and get on with it. I am going to try and change direction though, it won’t be easy and will mean a big pay cut, but I’m hoping that will give me my mojo back a bit.

Could have written this post OP 😩

I changed jobs because of a horrible boss but I’m really struggling in a new role. It’s all the many, many systems we have to use which were all set up wrong so I’m constantly chasing to get all the problems resolved. Dealing with teenagers with SEN and an elderly parent and starting to feel resentful that I won’t have a rest for 15 years.

@TwoLeggedGrooveMachine yup me too, SEN & elderly parents. I am a carer to my SEN child (19) while also working FT. Sorry to hear about your horrible boss. I have also experienced that.

I literally have nothing left to give. I've made it into the office today. That was a struggle alone.

Same here. My SEN children are now young adults, I’m caring for my elderly mother, and I have new and complicated responsibilities at work. It’s 12 years until I can retire. I am utterly exhausted and it’s a struggle to care about work-related things that I would care about very much if I only had the energy.

I got like that in my early 50s, but now feel better about working until I'm 67, another 8 years. I would retire if I could, but am no longer in despair about it.I think I care about work a lot less than I did. Also being thoroughly past peri-menopause helps

This might not be helpful, so by all means ignore, but embracing technological change can be incredibly energising. It depends on your work setup, but I’m one of the oldest in my office and by far the most engaged with technological innovation. It’s not necessarily a young person’s game.

Also, why not get ChatGPT or similar to give you a career audit so you can think about possible alternative ways of managing until you pay off the mortgage - or pivot altogether. Obviously it’s only an AI chat but it’s a really useful ‘second brain’.

Make sure you’re eating well and taking any supplements you need too, and prioritising your own sleep and not just all the people you have responsibility for

I have made the decision to downsize now that the kids have moved out. That, and some decicated saving and choosing not to go on holiday for the last 4 years, will allow me to stop working 5 years earlier without touching my pension. I know not everyone is able to do that, but to me it's worth the sacrifice. I still have another 9 years to work until I can stop though.

I feel like the walking dead. Half asleep while work just happens around me, alert to nothing, coaxing, trying to remember passwords for passwords for the vast number of systems we use, fast-changing tasks happening around me while I limp on as best I can no, structure to my priorities, flipping from 1 priority to the other, half started tasks, no energy. This has been happened for a vey long time now.

hugs to everyone else feeling the same.

I’m 61 and feel your pain - have you had a good health check recently - I found out I was anaemic, low in vitamin D and B, just to add to my CFS, long covid, IBS and autoimmune conditions - but had to go private to get the help I needed
Echo others about change of job - I’m just about to start a new career part time and will reduce my working hours in current job until hopefully the new role will provide enough to live on
I also do a bit of consultancy work which I really enjoy

Ugh l hated having to pretend to be keen and lively. When in reality l cared nothing at all.

I felt from about 50 that l was just holding on until retirement. That feeling never went. I was tired of being tired. Tired of pretending to be keen and 25 years old.

Are you in peri OP? I am and am hoping that post menopause I get some sort of lust for life again!

Are you on HRT?

Could you change jobs so you're working in an industry that you care more about? I work for a women's health charity, the pay obviously isn't the highest in charity work, but it can offer another layer of motivation when you can see the point in the drudgery a bit more.

This was me. I was lucky I could go at 55. It saved my mental health but then I had to put up with all the comments that I was retiring too early, I should “ get a little part time job” etc.

Also 51. I'm really bored at work and fed up with earning peanuts (have SEN kids so never able to get a career going). I'm about to start a masters this year to remind myself I still have a functioning brain and to increase my prospects. I'm actually not bothered about retiring but I want to do something where I feel valued over and above "thanks for doing a challenging job for very little pay"!

I feel the same, not quite 50 yet. I pay into a small pension but limited as to how much I can save for the foreseeable future as I still have a primary school aged child. Struggling a bit to keep up with all the tech at work, pretending to be enthusiastic at meetings and PDRs and feeling exhausted due to some health issues. Also worried that if I lose my job I'll struggle to get another. Just seems like an endurance test at the moment.

This sounds like burn out (maybe from personal stuff rather than work, but you are feeling it at work) combined with boredom or depression. Some ideas:

• Can you get some coaching? Maybe your company or employee assistance scheme offers, or you could pay for.
• Agree a career change might be an idea - you have 15 years of work ahead of you, which is long enough for many new careers.
• HRT/vitamins and weight bearing exercise?

I feel the same, OP. I’m 54 and have been working in an office since I left school at 16. Currently, I have a hybrid job which isn’t very pressured and my colleagues are great but I am so over it all. It’s a corporate organisation and I’m so done with all the bollocks that goes with it and having to be engaged, keen and on board with their strategy. I lost my Mum and Uncle in 2021 which really puts things into perspective and I cannot get excited about work darts/shuffleboard night or ‘drinks on the terrace’. Sometimes I feel I’m in a Fast Show/Not the Nine o’clock News comedy skit and it’s only that sort of humour that keeps me going! My job is secure (as far as I know) and they are family friendly which is invaluable but the thought of another 13 years of this does not fill me with joy!

Sympathy @chinesestirfry . I feel like this too a fair bit. I work full-time, have a very elderly parent and two DC, one of whom is autistic and although working, still lives at home and seems to require a great deal of day to day support. I am mid-50s and have another 10 years of work stretching out ahead of me. People often say, "oh why not think of changing jobs / careers etc"? But, I don't think any job I did now would enthrall me, I'm just fed up of working. I've worked since I was 16, part-time through A levels, every Christmas, Easter and Summer through Uni and full-time ever since graduating, apart from two six month maternity leaves. That's 40 years of working and I cannot think of anything that I want to "work" at anymore.

I have managed to negotiate my hours, so I have two afternoons where I finish early. That makes a massive difference and I do stuff that is for me on those afternoons. Get my haircut, book a massage, go shopping just for myself, meet a friend or just flop in the back garden or on the sofa etc. I ensure that they do not get swallowed up with all the other helping, caring and support activities that I do. It made a huge difference to my well-being and somehow makes the week more bearable. I also make sure I have time off booked in the calendar, so I know that I only have X weeks to go before I can pause for a bit again.

It does feel like a heavy load though. I think you just have to acknowledge that and then see what you can possibly do to make it more bearable.

Could you change to 90% hours eg alternate Fridays off?

You might hardly notice the drop in salary, but you'd benefit from more time off work

I was lucky to be able to go at 58, voluntary early exit scheme, got same comments as you, but six years in and no regrets at all.

I empathise and I'm 10 years younger than you.
I have a real zest for life outside of work, so its not a generalised depression thing. But I'm tired of reporting, setting and meeting objectives, proving my worth and ensuring visibility of my achievements, chasing continuous improvement, line management.
I now work a 4 day week and it's given me some energy for work back.
I've never really cared much about what I do, but I've done it for a long time, and I'm good at it and have tonnes of experience. It's much too hard and expensive to retrain. So I'm stuck.
At least I'm grateful every single day for our very small mortgage, having purposefully ensured we've always lived massively beneath our means.