On 7-6-2015 13:53, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 05/06/2015 08:20 AM, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> Hopefully you still have a long life in front of you but it is wisdom to
>> realise that we are not eternal. In that sense, no life is wasted at all
>> and there is only the awareness and the (mild) regret that not
>> everything is possible (nor advisable). In the end, it is tending our
>> garden the best we can - and enjoying it of course. With the cumulation
>> of years, time speeds up indeed as suddenly you realise that only so
>> many years are left to you. It is a sobering thought but not necessarily
>> sad.
>
> I don't know. I still think of myself as a poor broke student. I've just
> got my first real paying job. I've just moved out of my mum's house into
> my first student flat. I'm just starting out in life...
>
> ...except it's not true. I'm 35 years old. I'm nearly at the end of my
> career. In a few years' time I'll be TOO OLD to have children. [Not that
> I want to, but you know.] When I look at a pretty girl, I suddenly
> realise she's ten if not twenty years younger than me.
>
> I just have an overwhelming feeling that it's all too late now. That the
> best years of my life are long over, and there's nothing I can do about
> it now.
>
> Still, at least I have 23,000 rep on StackOverflow, eh? :-|

I can sympathise with your feelings indeed but I think you are wrong, at 
least where your outlook on life is concerned. Of course there is regret 
for things in the past, opportunities not taken, (stupid) errors made, 
fate which was not always kind (or so we think). We all have that (read 
that little piece by A.L. Kennedy). But on the other hand, do not forget 
what life has brought to you and what it has allowed you to become, not 
in the least by your own endeavours too. From what I read about you 
there is nothing to be ashamed of and you happen to be on the right 
track. I can understand what you are saying because, at 35, you are 
still at that junction point where many things still seem reachable 
although the sense of time running out becomes more acute, and the 
awareness grows that /all/ is not possible after all. Unfair? yes. Life 
is not fair. There are, at each junction, choices to be made and 
happily, with the growing number of years as wisdom (or insight, if you 
will) increases, they become better focussed, better accepted, better 
integrated. Remains the fact that we do not know where we are exactly 
going (except for the end) but we are the captain of our own ship and we 
have a (moral) inner dead reckoning compass by which to navigate by.

-- 
Thomas

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