Is anyone else feeling stranded?

[Nick Gatel]

Good perspective, Peter.

[Michael Duke]

Take this advice for what it is worth, but I find it salient to this idea. The unexpected parts of life are bliss. Your move could bring joys that you can't even imagine right now. Here is a video that my brother made with a narration that I really found very applicable to my life. We all travel through life. Finding meaning is an exceptional part of it. Feel free to check it out. I found it very interesting. The claim is that life itself is the essence of existence.

No use in not enjoying the great gift that we have. Chance and potential makes everything great. Every year ahead can be your best.

http://www.citizen.tv/the-new-FaYF0YBfCG.html

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

"Turning 36 next year rings a bell that maybe the best years of my life are behind me unused to their full potential."

I hiked the PCT at age 43 and 44. At age 36 I wouldn't have been able to. I'm almost 48 now and look and feel younger than I did at age 36. I have a better job now, too, and lots more in my retirement account. Don't feel like life has passed you by just yet. There are lots of years left and things could change in ways you can't even imagine.

[Paul Magnanti]

My own personal experiences as I am about the same age and went back and forth with similar thoughts:

In my mid 20s and early 30s, I worked jobs in the IT field (mainly help desk/ general IT) as it was easy to get a decent to good paying job, save money and go hiking.

I loved that time of my life. Planning for the next big adventure and the going on it. In between long hikes, I’d be out every weekend. Go to a happy hour and know tons of people at the local bars.
And, even with my ugly mug, dated a fair amount, too. : )

At about age 35, I figured I was getting tired of the boom-bust life style. (Saving money, go hiking, starting over again). Getting laid off in 2009 helped me evaluated what I want, too. Time for a career vs a job, planning for retirement, and all that normal so-called adult things.

At about the time I figured it was time for a change, I met my now wife. If I met her at 30, I would not have been ready.

So here I am at 39. Turning the big 4-0 in a few months.

Are my best years behind me? The glory days of adventure, a free lifestyle and all the good things in life gone? Nonsense.

I am just at a different stage of life.

We are planning a future together. One where I hope to go into consulting and maybe (make that *I will*) if not take off for 4-5 month chunks, where 4-6 week chunks is definitely doable. It is what a very good friend of mine does and one I can see myself doing.

Since Mrs Mags and I both enjoy the simple things in life, retirement in our early 60s looks attainable as well. Assuming we both maintain a healthy lifestyle, I look forward to a retirement full of good health and new challenges. My Dad retired at 59 years old and he, is quite frankly, loving life. A paid for home. A modest, but comfortable pension (Rare as hen’s teeth today. I know!) and the freedom to enjoy what he wants after nearly 40 years of hard work as a sheet metal worker.

Not much to ask for. And something Adrianna and I hope to have experience as well..without perhaps more freedom in my younger years than my Dad experienced.

To be honest, part of me laments my “lost freedom”. But my much like the thru-hikes I’ve been on, it takes work to get where we want to be in the long term.

It would be easy to again save money and go hiking, but perhaps at the expense of our long term goals and true freedom: Crafting the life we want and not just a boom-bust lifestyle.

If my younger years are about doing what I want, my middle years are about working to get where I want to be.

In the meantime, I don’t think of my younger years as my glory days but a wonderful experience that shaped who I am.

I still get out and experience things most people dream of seeing and I have a wonderful community of friends. If I sometimes call my job “The Salt Mine”, it is in jest and something I have to remind myself of, too!
Compared to the work the previous three generations of my family did, a well –paying, non-physical career (with no long term injuries such as the one experienced by my grandfather and father) that gives me flexibility and options is rather wonderful. It helps give me the future we want rather than have me look fondly on the past I used to have. And think life passed me by.

Life is good. Sometimes difficult, sometimes not what we expect, but it is still good. This too shall pass. Life has not passed you by.

OK..off my soapbox. : )

[bjc]

Damn. If the best years are before 36 I am screwed! It would mean I've been on a down hill slide for 27 years. Good thing I know it's not true. The key to making now the best years is to continually learn, challenge yourself, look ahead but live in the present. I have recently come back to backpacking and BPL has given me a new perspective. And no matter how much I work and give time to my family, I run, read and have fun every day. It's all good. And thanks to Mags, week after next I am headed out with no stove! We get to choose our mindset and I figure the next 30 years will be the best! That's my mindset.

[Anonymous]

"when we consider the billions and billions of people who have lived and died over all the myriad generations, and how many of them were slaves (most), and how many were sick and had teeth pain the majority of their lives, and how may watched their children die, and how many got burried alive in the cold mud by shellfire at verdun, and how many were slaughtered by the various khan's (multiple many millions), the collectivists (more many millions), the plagues, the church (pick one ..), we will find we have lived thru pax western nirvana.

it does/will not get any better than Right Now. all will be dark soon enough.

i suspect i am spoiled rotten, and life is really not supposed to be all as long and wonderful and glorious as mine has been.
i go to bed every night telling myself that i am the luckiest man on earth.

you have food, family, and health. looking around a bit … one may find that that is quite enough."

Couldn't have said it better, although I must say you have serious competition for the title of luckiest man on earth. ;0)

[Kattt]

Really great advice and perspectives here.
Like others have said, enjoy the little things ; it takes a certain attitude to be able to do that.
Have a goal, but the see the present for what it really is….your life.
I spent years thinking that if I only had……( insert a number of things here) then I could really go for it and start living. Now I know I have had plenty of everything to go for it all along.

Another perspective/ trick:
Should something seriously bad happen tomorrow, would you not yearn for how things were before, would your life right now not seem great, would you not wish you could just rewind and appreciate everything as it is?

[Paul Andronico]

From some of your comments (e.g., "I have ended up here by pure chance."), it seems to me that you believe life has surprised you with some bad luck. The truth is that you chose to marry your wife and agreed to give life a chance in Australia. My suggestion is to give it a real chance over a reasonable period of time. Try to make things better every day. Fight to figure out a way to use your legal training in Australia (import/export, maybe)? Or try another career that you might find more interesting. If you give it a real solid effort and still find it awful there, then sit down with your wife and explain that you are feeling just like she did in Europe. Then try and figure out a way to make a life together where you both can be reasonably satisfied. I have been married for 22 years, and there have been some pretty low points. Respect yourself and your wife as you try and find your way during this tough time. But most of all, don't quit.

[Steven Hanlon]

in April i moved to Philadelphia after taking a job that paid much better and in September my divorce was finalized. i am in a relationship that can best be described as a rollercoaster – so many up and down switches it has taken a toll on both our souls.

i'm in a new city with no friends, my favorite, healing backpacking locations are now out of reach (cost of gas and time).

in many ways my quality of life has diminished and now i'm in a place i haven't been in nearly 20 years – the future is very uncertain and scary. at 41 i'm in a different place than i thought i would be. all things change.

[Kattt]

As the sayings go…one day at a time….if you are going through hell, keep on going….one foot in front of the other.
Sounds rough; I am sorry you are going through a hard time. Hopefully you will ride this out and come out an even stronger, more compassionate person.
Welcome back to BPL!

[Author]

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