Latest / The Checkpoint Podcast: Questions / Episode 4 | Why So Many People Feel Lost After 50
Transcript
- The DECAF Network: Hey, it's Dexter, and welcome to the checkpoint. And another question that I would ask people, and which I'm going to answer now, is Am I the only one feeling like this? Am I the only one feeling like this? Well, the first thing you have to say is like feeling like what? And I think that the answer to that question is stuck, unsure. wondering if there's anything else with life, wondering what life will look like in the future. what is it that I do after work? Just basically the unknown. That's kind of the feeling. So if we were to go back to the question, am I the only one feeling stuck in decisive ⁓ just unsure of things? The definite answer to that is no. And The reason why I know this is because I've asked people and it's pretty it's a pretty common answer. Especially for people my age. My situations as well. There there comes a time when you your your kids grow up, they rely on you less. So you're not on their backs twenty four seven about doing this or doing that. As they get older, as you get older, you find that ⁓ they spend less time at home, they spend less time talking to you because they're always out, and they're becoming their own adults. And hopefully if you've done a pretty good job, then you have ⁓ you have a relatively okay experience in letting them discover their own things. So when that happens, you start to get a whole bunch of time back on your hands. The time that you you would usually spend talking to them, yelling at them, telling them to clean their room, telling them to clean the kitchen is now yours. And because that level of time that you have invested in your kids is years and years and years and decades and decades. kind of forget what you wanted to do before you had kids. You had this identity of, you know, it could have been, you could have been by self, or you could have been married or had a partner or something along those lines, but you had this specific identity before you had kids. Then you have kids. And then now you're whatever that was plus parent. And you think to yourself, Well, I'm not going to lose my identity. I'm still going to be that whatever it is over here. It's just I'll be plus parent. But no, it doesn't happen. That that identity slowly starts to f actually, sorry, I lie. Again, this is the reason why I talk ⁓ to myself. ⁓ that identity can shift pretty quickly. Sometimes it can be overnight. A lot of the times it can be overnight. You're a runner, you are a golfer, baseball player, you're a small business owner, you're whatever it is before you're a parent. And then the second Your first kid arrives, bang, gone. You try and maintain that identity, but sometimes the identity of becoming a parent is just all-encompassing and for the next decade plus you are that ex, whatever it was that you're wanting to before. Now I'm not saying happens for everyone, but it happens to a lot of people. It it's just the the time it takes to have kids and Many people don't have more than one kid. So it's not this exercise of when the kid is this old, then I can then go back to what I was. It's I have this kid and I'm trying the best that I can to raise them, and then all of a sudden here comes another kid, and then it just compounds and compounds. And so by the time all of your kids are at a an age where they can do their own things and you you don't spend as much time, you've kind of forgotten what it was at the start. And that happens to a lot of people. The thing is, most people don't really talk about it. Guys less so than than girls. And I've spoken to a lot of people about it, and th they they talk about it in a way that is positive in a way that they've decided I wanted to do this or I figured this out. And When you sort of dig down a little deeper into certain decisions, you find that those decisions weren't the best. You know, it's a lot of this stuff is a fact-finding mission. Look, even this, even me talking now about the checkpoint about reboot player one, I've invested two, three years, possibly longer, definitely longer, into this. And it's taken me that long to get to this level. And It wasn't like what you're seeing now, what you're listening to, wasn't what I intended in the beginning. This is kind of morphed. And throughout every stage of Reboot Player One and the checkpoint, it was called the Decaf network, it was called Trust Strangers, it was called all these other things. I had the same level of excitement as them as I do this. But deep down inside, it was just me trying to figure out what it is that I actually wanted to do. And and this could be the same thing. In six months this could be something totally different. Because I'm just trying to figure it out. And so along the way, the past probably six to twelve months have been the most productive for me in a life point of view. I've discovered that literally everyone is the same. Everyone ⁓ Around my age, around my circumstance, they're like, you know what? I'm done doing this. Whatever this thing was that I've been doing for a decade, I think I want to change. And I'm going to change. And I will change. And they do change. And it's not like you leaving a job and then going to another job. It's you leaving a job and not knowing what to do. It's that day in PE or physical education. It's a day in PE where you turn up and you find that there's a baseball bat, a cricket bat, a tennis racket, a soccer ball, a basketball, a bowling ball all against a wall and they say to you, Pick what you want and see what you like. But then you try it. And then sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And then sometimes it doesn't work at the start, and then the more you do it and the more you like it. And then on the flip side. You can be like, this is the best thing ever. And then six months down the track, you're like, I don't know why I did that. And the more I realize, the more that I talk to people, the more I realize that everyone's the same. Everyone. People that have life sorted at my age, I feel, ⁓ I was gonna say a psychopath, but I don't think they're a psychopath. I I I just think that. I don't know. I d I it's it's ⁓ it's bewildering to me that people can get to my age and have it all sorted out. Would drive me nuts. And I remember I'll I'll relate this to ⁓ I'll relate this to my my dad and my journey as a small business owner. I remember very early on in, and look, occasionally I I still get this this thought. I remember early on in thinking to myself, ooh, I own my own business. Puff my chest out. And I think, wow, this is like I'm pretty cool. And then I would look at people that would work ⁓ in a factory. And ⁓ now I wouldn't I wouldn't put my nose down to them, but I would look at them and go, why do you want to work in a factory? Like you have so much potential. And You know, through time, I would I would think to myself, ⁓ like, why would I do that? It's waste of time. Then me, I'm running my own business, I can do this, I can do that. You know, the world is my oyster, so to speak. And then after a while, and like I said, based on occasion and based off things going wrong, the stresses of becoming a business owner and all that sort of stuff, you look at those people that work in factories and you go, hmm. I want to be like you. I want to I want to work a night to five. I want to clock in, do what it is that I'm paid to do for the exact amount of time that I'm paid to do it, then go home. And then not stress a single thing about work because work is there and then now I'm at home and I don't give a stuff about work. I still get that. Not as often, but you get the gist. And and so when I look at a person that has seemingly their life at this age just all sorted out. I think to myself, what are you doing? Like you could do so much. And this is something that I've seen in other people. I think I've made a video about this in the past where I used to work with these people and they're now and we're now at an age where, you know, like I said, retirement is a thing. And I'm like, what are you doing? You could start your own business. You'd be a great business owner. And they're just kind of like, no. Just happy doing what I'm doing. And sometimes, sometimes I get jealous. I'm like, ⁓ I want that stability. I want that kind of confidence to be Yep. My life is kinda sorted. So the answer to the original question Am I alone in feeling this? Is that what it was? Yeah. Am I the only one? Absolutely not. In fact, if there was a person that didn't feel this way, I would be shocked. I would be surprised. I would love to talk to them in a way where they would answer truthfully because they've either had the best life. Or they've had the most boring life. Or who knows. Anyway, ⁓ if you are feeling like me, unstuck, unstuck, stuck, unsure, confused, apprehensive, stressed, ⁓ then you're not alone because everyone feels that way. Thanks.