Varminterror
Member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2016
- Messages
- 14,941
Can’t really see any fault in not finding enjoyment in rifles when it sounds like you aren’t finding enjoyment in life.
Make today your best day this week - eat the elephant one day at a time. I thoroughly enjoyed my 20’s, and my teens before that, and childhood before that, but while I have found my mid-30’s to be more stable and continuously flowing, I have also found the experiences day-to-day living to be much more richly rewarding, on a scale I couldn’t have imagine existed a decade ago. Sure, we’re at an age where the career rocket ship has began the asymptotic decay approaching the top, but only because we’re in an age/level where we have great responsibility and influence, far beyond our 20’s. We’re not meeting new people and experiencing new things like one night while test driving a hundred extra curriculars during college, but we’re in a phase of developing much more meaningful relationships with people and gaining a mastery of the few hobbies we’ve held onto. If I said life was a construction of a house, adolescence was running around with a hammer and banging on things to make noise. Teenage years realized SOMETHING could be built, but without realizing what, but building parts of things anyway. Twenties seem to be a willing masochism where we fight for gain at all costs, putting up a few walls here and there on a partial fojndation. Our 30’s, in my experience, are an opportunity to apply artistry and expertise to our house.
People seem to think our 20’s are about networking, which may be a great time to start, but your network is in continual flux and the depth of experience to contribute to each other isn’t as powerful. In your 30’s, you have experiences and opportunities to promote real change for each other. I spend a lot of time with a dozen or so colleagues of a broad spectrum of ages having what we call ad hoc “20/30/40/50” conversations - opportunities to talk about who we were at given ages, and who we might become. There’s a lot of power for our lives in this group, as we’re very similar personalities with relatively similar life goals, and about half of us are perfectly spaced on decades in age. We’ve been doing this for about 6yrs now. We’ve lost weight, mended a marriage, survived two divorced, celebrated a wedding, four babies, a retirement, and the lives of two fallen colleagues. We’ve fought (and beat) cancer twice, defeated alcoholism, recovered a heart attack, grieved a miscarriage. We’ve lost weight, hunted 3 continents, completed 3 140.6 mile Ironman triathlons (two dudes), climbed Everest (literally!). We’ve seen 6 of us change jobs (a couple guys twice), some due to lay-offs and a couple for career growth, but all supported, mentored, or connected by our network. And naturally, our little informal fraternity/sorority of people have much broader networks of friends, family, and colleagues which expands the power of our tribe even further. It all started with one of those stories one colleague tells another about “when I was your age,” and a productive seed was planted, we simply had the foresight to put energy into keeping the ball rolling.
Sorry for rambling a bit, but I hate to see folks wallow in their life simply because they can’t see what they have. In my 20’s, I remember feeling like I wanted to make a difference and was looking for a hammer. In my 30’s, I realized I have a hammer in my hand.
If you don’t want/need a rifle because you don’t find enjoyment in them, that’s fine. But I really do hope you find some means to get your house in order to find enjoyment in something. Make today your best, most meaningful day of your week - then do it again tomorrow.
Make today your best day this week - eat the elephant one day at a time. I thoroughly enjoyed my 20’s, and my teens before that, and childhood before that, but while I have found my mid-30’s to be more stable and continuously flowing, I have also found the experiences day-to-day living to be much more richly rewarding, on a scale I couldn’t have imagine existed a decade ago. Sure, we’re at an age where the career rocket ship has began the asymptotic decay approaching the top, but only because we’re in an age/level where we have great responsibility and influence, far beyond our 20’s. We’re not meeting new people and experiencing new things like one night while test driving a hundred extra curriculars during college, but we’re in a phase of developing much more meaningful relationships with people and gaining a mastery of the few hobbies we’ve held onto. If I said life was a construction of a house, adolescence was running around with a hammer and banging on things to make noise. Teenage years realized SOMETHING could be built, but without realizing what, but building parts of things anyway. Twenties seem to be a willing masochism where we fight for gain at all costs, putting up a few walls here and there on a partial fojndation. Our 30’s, in my experience, are an opportunity to apply artistry and expertise to our house.
People seem to think our 20’s are about networking, which may be a great time to start, but your network is in continual flux and the depth of experience to contribute to each other isn’t as powerful. In your 30’s, you have experiences and opportunities to promote real change for each other. I spend a lot of time with a dozen or so colleagues of a broad spectrum of ages having what we call ad hoc “20/30/40/50” conversations - opportunities to talk about who we were at given ages, and who we might become. There’s a lot of power for our lives in this group, as we’re very similar personalities with relatively similar life goals, and about half of us are perfectly spaced on decades in age. We’ve been doing this for about 6yrs now. We’ve lost weight, mended a marriage, survived two divorced, celebrated a wedding, four babies, a retirement, and the lives of two fallen colleagues. We’ve fought (and beat) cancer twice, defeated alcoholism, recovered a heart attack, grieved a miscarriage. We’ve lost weight, hunted 3 continents, completed 3 140.6 mile Ironman triathlons (two dudes), climbed Everest (literally!). We’ve seen 6 of us change jobs (a couple guys twice), some due to lay-offs and a couple for career growth, but all supported, mentored, or connected by our network. And naturally, our little informal fraternity/sorority of people have much broader networks of friends, family, and colleagues which expands the power of our tribe even further. It all started with one of those stories one colleague tells another about “when I was your age,” and a productive seed was planted, we simply had the foresight to put energy into keeping the ball rolling.
Sorry for rambling a bit, but I hate to see folks wallow in their life simply because they can’t see what they have. In my 20’s, I remember feeling like I wanted to make a difference and was looking for a hammer. In my 30’s, I realized I have a hammer in my hand.
If you don’t want/need a rifle because you don’t find enjoyment in them, that’s fine. But I really do hope you find some means to get your house in order to find enjoyment in something. Make today your best, most meaningful day of your week - then do it again tomorrow.
