I had my “mid-life crisis” at 34. 😨

At first, I didn’t realize what it was, because if you look up “mid-life crisis”, the internet tells you it’s a condition that “may occur from the ages of 45-64.”

But when you look at the symptoms, it’s basically around:

1. having accomplished all your external goals like getting that job, buying that house, and having that family and you’re still not happy, or

2. being at a certain age in life and you feel like you haven’t accomplished all that you have set out to.

I DEFINITELY felt elements of BOTH of these.

Despite achieving my goals of getting my PhD and a good-paying job at a great organization, I still wasn’t happy. Furthermore, I thought that by this age I would be further along in life by being married and having at least one kid already. So, I remember thinking, “Wow, most people feel this crisis in their 50s, and if I’m already feeling this at 34, then I must be a SUPER failure!”

The thoughts that I was a failure, that I wasted my time making wrong decisions in life, and that I was now stuck dealing with the consequences haunted me for a few years.

Even though I eventually came to terms with the fact that I was making the best decision I could with the information I had at the time, and that time wasn’t really wasted (it was for me to collect real data points about what made me happy or not), I still couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that I still wasted my time somehow.

And this story—that I was someone who made wrong decisions, and someone who may waste time again with any new decision I made—was an emotional weight that kept me back from fully imagining a brighter future. It was a smudge in my lens preventing me from clearly seeing what was really possible for me. 🕶

😫 How have you been punishing yourself for not being where you think you should be in life by now?