Midlife Crisis?

As 40 approaches, I've begun to think a lot about what I've accomplished and what I still hope to before it's my time. I'm also starting to think about the things I over value and, perhaps more importantly, the things I under value. Both are sitting on a road that leads only to regret and when I'm nearing the end of my life, I'd like to leave here with as few regrets as possible. That means striving to change what I can and accepting what I can't.

There is plenty to be thankful for and a few things I'm still on the fence about. Probably my biggest sense of unfulfillment is coming from my job. While I'm extremely proud of my work (I consider it some of my best), I'm often left wondering where it's all leading? I know my boss intends to sell the company in a few years and walk away with his millions into the sunset, but where will that leave me? Do I just chalk this up again to yet another person I've helped become a millionaire? Is this my lot in life? The main issue with work is that it's a pretty unrelenting, thankless job. When you continually do good work, go above and beyond the call of duty and are given no thanks, no acknowledgement, and not the slightest amount of flexibility when you need it, you start to wonder if it's all worth it. Here's the path to anxiety: Start with a general distaste for the job as described above, start thinking about maybe looking for another job, start wondering if you could make the money you're making somewhere else, beat yourself up for needing to make that kind of money, start to realize that you're trapped in your house because it's that or lose everything, rinse and repeat.

In the past several days, I've fantasized (though not seriously considered), just walking away from it all. Sell the piano, the Camry, the motorcycle, the truck. Buy a cheap used car, walk away from the house, go live in a shack somewhere in Oregon and do retail work to keep the lights on and the stomach full. Maybe pick up gardening. I often wonder what it would be like to be FREE of obligation. Free of timelines and deadlines and have-to's. It's what I would do with the money if I ever had millions. In that sense, money really would buy happiness for me. So is this a midlife crisis? Who knows. It's only a few of the symptoms from this list. It doesn't feel like one. It just feels like general dissatisfaction and concern for the future.

In the end, what I'm coming to is not a fear of death, but an awareness that if my future life is going to amount to a hill of beans, I no longer have time remaining to keep procrastinating from making the changes necessary. Some of these changes will require significant time and energy investments. In the coming days and weeks, I'm going to begin outlining the changes, the sacrifices, and the efforts I'm going to need to do to make it possible to end up where I want when I retire as well as do some serious looking at where exactly I do want to end up.

Midlife crisis or not, I'm not going to just sit on my hands and pout. It's time to get this show on the road.