A Panacea for Mid-Life Crises Born from Entitlement

The thing about being practically forty is that it becomes very clear: you don't get to do everything that you wanted to do.

Not because you couldn't muster the skills or the ambition or the work ethic (fears defining the twenties and early thirties), but because time is allotted to people in such a way that you have to *pay* to get to do some of the amazing things you wanted to do.

The kicker that you didn't expect? That you pay with opportunity-bucks. You have to cash in some of the *other* opportunities in order to get to play with the amazing things you choose.

I had no idea how much I wanted until I realized that I didn't get to do it all.

...

I recognize how lucky the position I'm describing (thus the title), but I don't think that makes it any easier to deal with emotionally.

Disappointment is disappointment. And it's hard not to conflate disappointment with a sense of personal failure or a broken universe or flawed systems.

I guess I'm affirming that the disappointed feeling is only okay (for me at least) if viewed through a frame of gratefulness.

Gratefulness that I'm getting to choose between opportunities as opposed to feeling like there are none.