When Is It Too Late To Change Your Life Around?

[bliblblblbbllb]

This is excellent advice. And not just for the idea of resilience.
There’s also the fact that maybe what you see as a failure opens the door to something that’s actually good.
Maybe you’d have been hit by a bus on your first week in that college. Maybe in the worse college you’ll meet the love of your life. Maybe that first job would have led nowhere and the shitty one you got instead randomly opens a door, maybe you’re serving coffee to someone and mention you’re a writer and he’s a publisher.
I had my life change quite dramatically, mainly for the better, on the back of not getting the job I really wanted. I was devastated at the time becasue someone actively stopped me getting the job, rather than just not being good enough. But looking back it was a good thing.
Start writing, and work on the anxiety and going out. Maybe there’s some writing groups near you? Or online?

Or maybe it all never works out, you never meet "the one", you never become famous, you never rise above middle management, you never get your PhD: You should still strive to be a good moral person day to day. It works for some people to think that "one door opens when another closes", especially younger people, but when you're looking at an alcoholic who can't hold down a job and just killed someone in a DUI.... hard to motivate them for the next chapter lol. Sometimes you can be pretty sure it's a net-negative event.

And at least from my Christian perspective, the guy who toils and ultimately fails is in a better position than the guy who was simply born son of the CEO. Like, there were some medical researchers who invested twenty years in a project, and then a cleaner ignored their signage and unplugged a machine, ruining the entire experiment. Total failure. Can't even say "at least they figured out that one wasn't a cure for cancer!" Might have been, but the work was destroyed. But it doesn't mean they should all lay down and die.

I know in this world of endless "influencers" it can actually be quite disconcerting, especially for zoomers, to imagine that you can have a good life without receiving the earthly rewards or popularity or physical gain. If you're a winner you should look and feel like a winner. But the people that look like winners might not be winners, and it's best to be a salt of the earth person, which unfortunately usually means not standing out much.

At the end of the day, the Bugattis will be salvaged for parts.... the bestseller books will be lost to time, the expensive tombstone will erode away, and new innovations will overrule your advancements to science. And your degree? Even two years after your death people might forget what it was in.

So why do anything at all? Just because it's the right thing to do. Even if you were a monster for the past fifty years, you should turn it around and do the right thing. Life is a movie with a spoiled ending: we die. There's no lasting surprises or meaningful twists: the only thing you can aim for is quality and authenticity.

 

[mold]

oh another thing: internet pornography is a drug and addiction to that drug will fuck you up *worse* than @bliblblblbbllb 's clientele. Sexual hyperstimulation destroys your brain's reward centers and it might be unfixable. like @bliblblblbbllb I have known lowdown junkies and alcoholics who have turned it around. They might never get their career and money in a great place, those doors may have closed, but they shine a light to everyone around them and we're all better off because they're in the world.

*I've never seen this happen to a coomer.* Coomers are lost. If your dick still works and you're not addicted to porn you are going to be ok.

 

[Meat Target]

Even though I feel old at 31, I'm realizing that I am just barely out of the tutorial level of life.

I primarily have creative interests. Drawing/writing. The problem is I and a lot of people were faggots when we were young and wanted to do everything and anything but never put in the time or concentration towards any goal, so in the end nothing was accomplished. Now I look at the majority of people who's works I admire and know how early of a start they got and how much of a work ethic they had and I feel like there's no way to bridge that gap

Do you want to be creative for the love of it, or so you can make a living from it?

I've recently taken up drawing and softball. It's nice to have a hobby that I can do for its own sake. I'm not trying to get recognition or win any dick-measuring contests.

Don't try to turn a hobby into a career. It will only make you hate it. Familiarity breeds contempt.

As for whether your work will be "good enough"? Literally all works of art start out as shit. Rome wasn't built in a day. There was some writer who once said the way to write a good book is "write a bad book, and then make it better".

Finally, don't compare yourself to others. Especially not in the age of terminal onlinedness. People only show the best parts of their lives on social media, and it's proven to breed envy, FOMO, and feelings of inadequacy.

 

[bliblblblbbllb]

oh another thing: internet pornography is a drug and addiction to that drug will fuck you up *worse* than @bliblblblbbllb 's clientele. Sexual hyperstimulation destroys your brain's reward centers and it might be unfixable.

No. You are wrong and this wrongness personally affects you so you should change your belief.

Here's how you're right:
The coomers that spend their entire lives on imageboards and forums doomposting about how they are ruined forever, they don't get better.
There are plenty of people who are hardcore porn addicts who then go on to stop using internet porn.
They don't tend to talk about it the same way someone might open up about their alcoholism or pill addiction in a previous life, because sex topics are more touchy since they are relational in nature (coworkers don't want to imagine you jerking off to depraved porn, and schools aren't going to invite reformed pervs to be inspirational school speakers.)

The simple facts of AGE will decrease libido. Not just in geezers but there's a big difference between being a horny 20 year old and a 35 year old or a 45 year old. In fact I'd argue it's natural for 16-27 year old men to have "issues" and many of my friends have issues stemming from the natural, sometimes extremely strong desire to mate and marry. I'm not talking just about cooming, I have a friend with insomnia because he gets a rush of energy at night thinking about his military girlfriend who is away on orders and obsessively longs for her to come home because his caveman brain wants to be with his woman.

People incredibly overvalue simplistic concepts like "serotonin is the happy chemical" or "dopamine is the whatever chemical" and "reward center." You're not a scientific study or an MRI and has anyone ever literally tested your dopamine levels?

You're a retard to fall back on these self-deprecating gotchas and to believe that a coomer problem is more severe than severe alcoholism in a chronically homeless old person with diabetes. Talk about unfixable: I've seen people have seizures and die from alcoholism and withdrawals. Who is kneeling over and dying from lack of cooming? Oh but suicides, you say? Yeah there's something called a padded room: death from suicide isn't the same as direct deaths that aren't behaviorally caused. Don't conflate emotional pain to literal physical damage, that's the easiest way to make your life miserable and unfulfilled.

Log off: abstain from internet if you can even.

Stay away from gurus and the people catastrophizing coom brain as unfixable.

Finally, there are a lot of sex addicts and porn addicts who are actually successful people, functional addicts. I'm not saying this is good and they still have problems with their lives, but the "my brain is fucked" Coomer is a newer thing. It's more about self-esteem, I've learned. And a big ol' male hugbox of "wah wah my brain is ruined." Grow up, log off, live in the real world, talk to your coworkers and go to church and community events, develop an actual skill and/or hobby.

The identity and thoughts of yourself as a Doomer-Coomer IS the illness, 90% of it. The other 10% is the internet porn, which you can literally lock yourself out of with some handy nannyware or physically pulling your internet cord and only using your devices in public.

Wah wah, mr. "cumming too much is worse than anything in da world", TAKE ICE SHOWERS and GET A LIFE, GET AWAY FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE HEARING THIS FROM.

edit: We are probably close in age or you are even older than me. If you are significantly younger than me to a point that it matters, you are a minor too young for this website. I am openly a zoom-zoomy zoomer, too young to rent a car, although I will not give you a number.

 

[mold]

you think that cause you're not dating them or sleeping with them. coomers are broken, you're in denial about the physical effects of internet pornography because you're old.

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

Barring a drug addiction, mental illness, physical deformity or illness, or incarceration.... I'd say the point of no return is mid 30s.

Long enough to screw up a bit but not too old to restart and reset.

 

[im5!XxhO]

I'm not just applying this to myself but also across the board. I see the rise of the sigma/psuedo father figure types and the sheer amount of life hacks/self help/blackpill doomer cum bloomer/ religious revivalism out there for men and part of me thinks it's mostly a gigantic cope.

If it's on the internet, it's a grift. That means if you really want to fix your life the first step is to get off the fucking internet.

I think that at a certain point if you don't have it together and you're just "that guy", you're probably going to stay "that guy".

If you think like that sure. People are not changing by accident, there needs to be some internal shift or external shock to turn things around.

Barring a drug addiction, mental illness, physical deformity or illness, or incarceration.... I'd say the point of no return is mid 30s.

I don't know. I have seen some people turn it around in their 40s and early 50s, however in some cases drug addiction might have been involved.

 

[Otterly]

schools aren't going to invite reformed pervs to be inspirational school speakers.

Well, these days they hire active pervs to do it.
@bliblblblbbllb ’s point is a good one though for the idea that you don’t have to reach some kind of huge heights to have a good life.
I’m no one. I will never get above middle management. I’m not rich or famous. I’m smart enough but no genius. I will never be hailed a great mind or a great beauty. I’m not popular nor am I beloved by millions.
And that’s fine. I’m not in jail. I’m free, I do t make people miserable, I have a job that pays the bills, a husband, some kids who love me and I love them. I’m going to make some jam tomorrow and if the rain holds off (it won’t it’s been raining for weeks now) I’ll cut the lawn. My life is small, and by many metrics I am not in the least successful. In a hundred years time max I’ll be forgotten. It’s fine. Existence is fleeting.
Think about it like this: you’ll die one day and you’ll face your maker. Are you ok with what you did? He’s not going to tell you off for not writing a booker prize winner, or marrying a supermodel, but were you a decent bloke? Were you honest? Were you kind to people or cruel? Did you act with as much integrity as you could manage? When the chips were down did you stick to your beliefs? Did you help others? Not talking about being mother teresa here just did you do your bit?
There’s a lot of stuff in my life I got wrong before but I am trying now to be better. Covid was a lot of pressure to do things I didn’t agree with and it made me think about this a lot. When I’m on my way out, I want to go and be thinking yeah, it wasn’t a life of fame and fortune but I left things in better shape than I found them

 

[RussianParasite]

when we were young

Yeah I got news about you using that in the past tense lol. It looks like if you started some sort of degree in a field you at least can tolerate you’d be in a good position by the time you hit 30 (not that that is meaningful in and of itself).

I went through a similar sort of crises in my early 20s with feeling directionless and all that. I used that worry to push myself and make sure I became someone I wanted to be. Honestly, just getting a decent job, having a family and a roof over your head is an achievement worth being happy about these days. We’re I you, I’d try living elsewhere in the world for awhile to gain some perspective as well. It did a lot for me.

I can’t address all of the points made in the OP’s text wall of autism, but the general theme is that yeah you can change and should be motivated to do so if you aren’t satisfied with the way things are going.

 

[mold]

@Otterly we're women though. I really think it's different for us. We're more grouporiented, we're more conformist, and now that we have more power we're making the world nicer and better for us.

but young men need to feel that dread of failure. don't fear it, do battle with it.

 

[Otterly]

making the world nicer and better for us.

Are we though? I kept hearing that during covid, that female leaders were doing a better job but all I saw was jacinda flipping adern selling the water to private business and locking people up. Or sanna Martin doing coke. Not that the men were covering themselves in glory, but the women weren’t doing better.
I kind of feel like it was nicer a while back. I feel less safe than when I was a student. I used to go jogging at night, I’d never do that alone now.
I don’t think the female power mode that’s being used as a weapon (mob cancellation) is better for society. I think a balance is better. I keep hearing ‘be kind’ and it doesn’t mean what I think is kindness, it means ‘I’m about to do something awful to you and if you complain I’ll ruin your life for bigotry.’ The world isn’t better than it was thirty years ago. It’s much worse. If we are building a world then we aren’t doing a great job.
Millions of disaffected young men is a danger to society. Both men and women should be working together

 

[im5!XxhO]

We're more grouporiented, we're more conformist, and now that we have more power we're making the world nicer and better for us.

Are you? Depression and medication rates among women seem to be telling a different story. They are only going up.

Millions of disaffected young men is a danger to society. Both men and women should be working together

My prognosis is that the welfare state will have to give way before we see large scale continous social unrest. Right now those young dudes are just chilling at home living of welfare checks or disability. But if that runs out it is going to be fun. And given the demographic shift it is not going to last.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

It's too late when you quit. Seriously, you're 25 and probably have a degree or a cert under your belt. It's nowhere near too late for you. That being said, I'm playing devils advocate here. Just look at all the singletons who butch about dating in their 30s and how much their body aches. You need to relax but keep moving forward. It's always better to win today than tomorrow.

 

[Osama Bin Laden]

i don't think anyone is "too late to change". there's people who are 50 years old still trying to do different things despite the fact that the thing they thought they liked didn't work out for them. my personal values/morals are to just be a decent person and try to help out when needed. i try not to worry about the what-ifs; why cry about something that could've happened when i can focus on making something happened.

 

[Marc]

Being as this thread's begging for prescriptive bullshit:

There is no higher purpose or calling waiting to afford you an escape from this anguish - So worrying that you've either missed that boat or are going to is merely a neurotic goal you can part with or become numb to.

This appears to be one of those cases in which comparing yourself to others is counterproductive to your own goals. What those goals are will come from you (if they exist at all - Who needs those, anyway?). Also, KiwiFarms is a weathervane - Do not mistake it for a compass.

 

[Banana Hammock]

When you're dead. Just stop being a lazy, defeatist faggot.

 

[cybertoaster]

But yes, being in your mid 20s' feeling like life is over is probably a little fucking gay

A little? you should've started with that.

25? fucking 25? most people in STEM are still in college at that age, and you wanted to do what again? comics? manga? then fucking do it you lazy ass, you're not solving nondeterministic polynomial-time complete problems. There's a bazillion videos on how to draw, buy some supplies or a used ipad with a pencil and get started instead of shitting up this flightless bird forum.

Are you poor? you said a shitty state so I'm gonna assume the deep south, are you that kid from 4chan who lives in a house made out of doors? now that was depressing. So are you? you better not be one of those middle class shits who thinks they are poor because they drive a brand-new civic their parents bought him instead of a bimmer.

You know what's being "too late"? your parents dying of old age and you not being there to say goodbye, that's one thing there's no coming back from.

You know what's the end? being told you have stage-4 liver cancer, you literally can't do shit about it, its over.

or is better to just accept that you probably missed that train and should make due with what you have?

Given what you're writing here I say you better get used to be happy with what you got while you still have it.

I let opportunities and chances slip by out of fear.

Fear of what? that nobody will like your gay webcomic? your bootleg naruto? have you seen the shit tiktokers do? we live in the age of shamelessness, nobody gives a flying fuck, go for it.

I thought writing comics with a more anime/manga influence was dumb because I was a westerner and it would be cringe so they'd never take off.

Avatar is like 20 years old and you think westerners can't do it? what?

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

The nice answer is never, but realistically 40. If you haven't turned things around by the halfway point then let's be realistic, it's probably not gonna happen.

 

[Beige]

I think it's the fact I haven't done anything. I let opportunities and chances slip by out of fear. On one hand, I should have started writing or trying to work in film but I was afraid of college and the overall political/social landscape of the western artistic mediums and how I could make it in that. I thought writing comics with a more anime/manga influence was dumb because I was a westerner and it would be cringe so they'd never take off. I thought of a million excuses not to do one thing because of the million other things I wanted to do in life so I ultimately did nothing. That eats at me a little.

As someone who has creative ambitions (though in music) and has recently just gotten over a solid decade being crippled by those same feelings, let me give you some advice.

All you can do, is be the best you possibly can at your craft. If you're a truly good writer, then fuck what anyone else thinks, you'll find your niche.

Look at your competition. I don't know about you, but all I see is social nepotism. People who got where they are, not through skill and talent, but by having the right politics, and by being part of the right clique. And what does it (really) get them? Social clout, feeling like part of The Rebellion™, and maybe enough money to get by?

You seem to be under the impression that being a failure is some arbitrary point from which it's impossible to ever achieve your dreams. This isn't true.

I can think of no-one more low, and pathetic than those who either sell their souls, or are too stupid, weak-willed, and dopamine addicted to not just tow the line. It's sad to go through life not ever really trying for your dreams. But those who degrade their own art form (and consequently, culture) for money, sex, and vapid attention are legitimate immoral trash on a spiritual level. People like that operate in groups and cliquey subcultures because they are too weak for their work to stand on it's own merits, and would gladly stab each other in the back for a top spot, despite all of their performative empathy.

It'll take some doing, and it won't be easy; but true talent always shines through.

It ain't over till you say it's over, or you're in the ground.

 

[Toasted Boat]

As soon as you become a lolcow, that's when you hit the point of no return. Just be glad you aren't one.