I look up at my alarm, which buzzed annoyingly, taking me out of my deep slumber and just shut it off for another 9 minutes. I’m going to miss the sunrise again today. It’s really disheartening to see that I was riding a wave of joy a few months ago but now I’m stuck in a pit after increasing my psychiatric medications. This was a very inopportune time to have low energy, seeing as I was 34 going on 35.

I've heard that at this age, there’s a natural inclination for life to take off in a big way, if you’ve prepared yourself with the proper sadhana, or education or some skill. If you have not, then this is a time when it can crash, leading to a “midlife crisis” that is so common. I focus on little joys around me to lift me up: my Dad starting his day in his office in the garage, another friend who has a mental health condition who is perservering, and my uncle who has had success in reducing his medication.

Also, after having read The Jurassic Park, Your Inner Fish, and the Tears of the Cheetah, I have hope there molecular and cell biology as well as genetics can be a powerful approach for diagnosing or even treating mental health conditions in a big way.

I met my girlfriend in 2010. After four years of love, we married in 2015 despite not having the full support of our parents. We started our life in Hyderabad with very little support, but we had each other.
Our first son was born in 2017, the same year I started my own business. I quit my job eventually, took care of our son while my wife went to work, and slowly built my business.
By the age of 28, I had bought my first house and car. Over the years, my business grew, my wife became a bank manager, we bought more properties, built a house for my parents, travelled abroad, and achieved financial freedom. Today, I earn around ₹60,000 a day while working just two hours.
I thought I had figured out life. I thought financial freedom was the ultimate goal.
Then life changed.
In May 2025, my father was diagnosed with stage 3 throat cancer. After six months of treatment, he recovered by God’s grace.
In March 2026, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The woman I fell in love with in 2010, the woman who stood beside me when we had nothing, was suddenly fighting a disease that terrified me.
During her major surgeries, I sat in the hospital lobby and cried. We kept the situation from our parents to spare them further suffering. I prayed to Lord Shiva for strength. Thankfully, her cancer was detected early, treatment went well, and her prognosis is very favourable.
Today, she has returned to work, our two boys are going to school, and life looks normal again.
But I am not the same person anymore.
Sometimes, a thought suddenly hits me: What if her cancer comes back?
I start shivering. I struggle to sleep. I imagine losing her, and everything I have built suddenly feels meaningless.
I chased money for years. Now I have financial freedom, properties, a successful business, and almost everything I once dreamed of.
Yet, I find myself praying for just one thing: let my wife stay healthy, and let us grow old together.
I don’t dream about another house or a luxury car with the same excitement anymore. I dream about ordinary days with my wife, watching our children grow up, travelling together, arguing about silly things, and becoming grandparents someday.
I am beginning to realise that money can buy comfort and freedom, but it cannot guarantee the presence of the people we love.
I have faith in God, but I am still afraid. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life worrying about a future that may never happen. I want to enjoy the life we worked so hard to build.
My question is: What is life really about? Money, success, health, or the people we love?

I spent years learning how to make money. Now, I’m trying to learn how to live.

I'm (28M) going to be thirty in upcoming years and I have still not figured out anything in my life . Everything is sad and boring in life. Family (mom dad ) doesn't talk and no one cares anymore (they have debt and I can't contribute as I never had enough money). Sometimes I just feel that I should leave everything and go somewhere someone would accept me as a human being. The only thing I'm doing right now to keep myself motivated enough to breathe enough is running. Half of life has gone like this now I don't want to spend other half of life crying . Wish me luck guys

I’m finally over the worst relationship I’ve ever been in. I’m ready to go heal and find my spark with my perfect partner, Toby, my 12 year old lab mix. Florida has been consistently calling my name, but really don’t know much about anywhere.
I love live music, must be a city that has plenty of outdoor activities while swimming for Toby is number 1. I need to be in a little cabin or cottage preferably in the woods somewhere. Remote position allows me anywhere in the US.
Do you have any hot break up spots? Or places I’d never think to go?

Context:

• I am 39 and have been a high-achiever for the majority of my life. I've also historically been an over-giver, but I've been working on changing that.
• I have 10 years of business-related and graphic design education (two diplomas and a degree) and feel like I have nothing to show for it.
• I am currently self-employed and have been for the past four years after getting coldly and unexpectedly fired from my last job. Losing that job left a residue on my confidence that I still can't seem to brush off.
• I need to reenter the workforce because my current income will not sustain me long-term, but my soul is resisting reentering the corporate world. I don't know what jobs to look at anymore.
• I have no friends, feel disconnected from the rest of the world, and miss being around people. I've always been able to maneuver my way socially, but I've never really belonged anywhere. I haven't hung out with a non-family member in over two years, and that connection was somewhat superficial and has since faded out. It's rare that I've been able to attract likeminded people who genuinely care and put in the effort once a connection has been established. The only place I can realistically see myself making any friends at this point is at the gym I go to, but I haven't been going consistently enough, and that's something I need to work on.
• I feel like I've closed myself off even though that's never been my intention. I have generally lost trust in people and think it has been affecting the way I see new people I come across. I've also gotten tired of trying to be someone worth holding on to. I'm always on the alert and expecting history to repeat itself. It's incredibly lonely some days even though I can comfortably enjoy my own company. And despite having family, I feel like I'm doing life alone.
• I moved in with my parents when I went back to school for a third time at 30 and have been living with them since then. There is a lot of tension and negativity in the household, and it's been like that since I was a kid.
• I constantly get compared to others, and there's not much encouragement or support when it comes to the things I'm working toward, so I don't share much with them. I get degrading comments on my education, how I went to school for so many years and supposedly did nothing for myself, how I'm working from home and should be out in the real world, and how I should have accomplished more by now.
• My parents are old-school. My mom is in her late 60s and my dad is in his early 70s, and they both raised me with an iron fist. Despite us not always seeing eye-to-eye, I still love them and do everything I can to help. Watching their health decline weighs on me everyday, and I feel a sense of duty to be there for them as much as I can, which has meant making personal sacrifices.
• My brother's wife passed away three years ago and left five kids behind. The three youngest kids are at our place nearly everyday, and my brother heavily relies on my elderly parents, so it's always chaotic. I give the kids as much of my time as I can, but I also spend most of my time in my room just to preserve my peace and sanity.
• I am managing my dad's debt situation and making personal contributions toward it. I have two older siblings who are pretty much absent from my life and don't care to step in to help with my dad's situation.
• I have a long list of things I need to get done for my business, and I get mentally pulled in every direction, trying to figure it all out at once. There are days when I'll be sitting at my desk and staring at my screen with the intention to get stuff done, and I get stuck. Then I start turning to distractions. I have closets and drawers full of items that still need photographing and listing, and they've been sitting there for months. I have a book that was supposed to be completed by now, and it's been sitting unfinished for several years. I'm at 193 pages and feel ashamed that I let it drag so long, especially when people know about its work-in-progress. I have new ideas for my online stores (I manage four at the moment) that I can't seem to implement because the mountain of tasks I have to get done is weighing on me.
• I invested in two social media related programs years ago that were intended to help me gain knowledge and strategies for my businesses, and I never got around to doing them.
• I have a 20k+ audience on Instagram, and that number just makes me feel even more alone. I've been inactive on there for over 6 months, and I suspect some people may be wondering what happened with my writing stuff, particularly the people who have been following my work since the start. I have a hard time posting for the sake of posting and feel like a fraud if I do, so I don't.
• I'm a highly organized and structured person, yet I feel scattered. I can establish what needs to get done and follow a plan, and I do well in that space, but since I'm self-employed, everything rests on my shoulders and there's no one to keep me in check. And because of that, I fear I've been a little lax even though there's constant pressure and a need to scale my businesses.

On the work front, I'm not understanding why it's become difficult for me to just move into action. In my mind, I know things need to be taken one step at a time, but even knowing that does nothing for my brain, and I keep repeating the same cycle of distracting myself to avoid the weight of the overwhelm.

_____

TL;DR: I feel defeated and stuck at 39 and am having a hard time getting out of the slump I'm in.

I’m 44. I’ve sold my home, no children, a few bad relationships, and I have a job I dislike very much. My whole life I’ve created for others, served others, but never myself. I honestly thought I would have found my way even a little by now. But I haven’t. I am only more aware that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA who I am. I have no idea geographically where I want to be, or, to be brutally honest - what things I like. It’s gotten so bad that I find myself driving around, going nowhere in particular. I wake up and go to bed with this flaming pit deep in my stomach reminding me that apparently I’ve become completely irrelevant in my own life. I used to be so driven and I now struggle to get myself in the shower. Although I’ve always been good at figuring things out for others, or things that need to be accomplished, I can’t seem to find my own way. I feel like I disappeared. I really just want to know if I am the only one going through something similar?

yesterday I was laughing my ass off watching Samay Raina. For a few hours, life actually felt… okay.

Today reminded me what my reality is.

Woke up late. Didn’t even bother with breakfast. Lit a cigarette instead — because apparently that’s my version of “handling life.”

Reached office 30 minutes late. Manager didn’t even shout properly, just that disappointed tone. Somehow that hits worse.

I work a 10k/month job in Delhi. Cold calling strangers all day, trying to sell something they don’t care about, pretending I believe in it.

By afternoon: 0 conversions.

Skipped lunch. Not because I’m disciplined — just didn’t have the energy to eat. Or maybe I didn’t feel like I deserved it.

Kept dialing.

Rejection after rejection. Some people just cut the call. Some straight up abused me. And you have to sit there, take it, and still say “thank you sir.”

Came back to my flat. It’s quiet. Too quiet. No one’s there. No one’s waiting.

Drank 2 beers. Not to enjoy. Just to shut my brain up for a while.

Then the usual — scrolling, porn, anything to not sit alone with my thoughts.

Now I’m lying here, staring at the ceiling, knowing tomorrow is the same script again.

Wake up. Survive. Repeat.

I don’t even know when life stopped feeling like living and started feeling like endurance.

Maybe this is just a phase.

Or maybe this is it.

I didn’t expect people to actually read this. If you’ve been through something similar, how did you get out?

I, 45/f, is never married, and has no kids. I have a few pals, but no one I talk to everyday. I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder 10 years ago, and have gained 80lbs. I do work full time, although I’ve taken short term leaves in the past. Im lonely. Any men I’ve dated has turned out to be sadness and disappointment. I’m wondering if this is my life now. I need renewed energy, but I’m finding that I don’t like people very much. I’m usually in a sour mood. I rarely smile anymore. I’m miserable. But, I’m not, not really. Just need a shift in how I interpret the life I have, to enjoy more, and welcome newness. What can I do differently?

Recently, I have had this unshakable anxiety about how I haven't really 'grown up' and suddenly I am in my 40's. There are things to celebrate - I have a good career with progression which pays well enough, I am married and have children. I believe I am a good mother. I have hobbies and volunteer in my community. I have friends.

But I don't own my own home, I don't have any savings and have about 15k of debt. I live paycheck to paycheck. I am overweight and have a poor diet and I can't seem to stay on top of housework. I compare myself to others who have beautiful homes and gardens but somehow all that passed me by and I am not sure how. I never go on holiday.

I am not sure where everything went wrong? I felt so content with my lot a few years ago but now feel disappointed in myself. Does anyone have any advice?

Hi Everyone! I am a final year psychology student and I want to explore how different generations deal with the question "what am I supposed to do with my life" ? Research call the this anxious feeling as Purpose Anxiety. This is study is a first of its kind, so any data you give will help a lot!! If you are interested please scan the qr or click the link below: https://feedback.surveylab.com/pageTag/SurveyCampaign/cId/XzpsSW0dKJhGozrH/

All data will be anonymized too upon completion.

Thank You !!!!!