Male, 31 yrs old, Never married - pondering how to live my life !!!

Do you tend to play it safe and avoid possibly making mistakes?

Hi Lisa.

Thanks for responding. well, I maybe playing safe. I don't know. However, as I said, I am trying to re-organize my life's mission and career around it. So, in that front, I am indeed taking a risk. Venturing into a something new (that is risky) in year 2010. Though the risk will be minimal with me having less obligations in my life.

How do you view the thoughts thats going on in my mind and how do you interpret my situation ?

Being a risk taker maximizes your rewards. I think it's great that you are doing this shuffle in your life. Complacency can only lead you to mediocracy. Expect struggles in re-ordering your life. However, don't resist these struggles; they produce authenticity.

Good Luck!

-Jim

Thanks for the comment, Jim. Both of yours and Lisa's posts are showing 2 sides of the situation. One - play safe, another - risk taking. I am fine-tuning myself to look at positive side of things always. Great point about complacency. I look forward to struggles in my new re-organized way of living. The reason why the above thoughts start to spring up in my mind (or do they come up automatically when you hit 30 , lol ?) is I've never been a subscriber of convention, but I have been doing this (be it schooling, college, career, rat race blah) just because everyone else was doing. Never really understood what 'I WANTED'. Now, I think everything seems to fall in its place.

I advise you to have a part of your life that gives you energy, that you would do whether or not you could get paid. For some people that is art, or a business venture, or running, or helping somewhere, or a faith-based thing. If you're doing that, and you're making a few mistakes here and there, you're okay.

You sound like a very organised & intelligent man who maybe does not need anyone to share there life with.

Marriage is a union between two people who want to spend their lives together both physically & mentally. I believe that in a marriage we both support each others needs & weakness. In my marriage I was the strong "provider" my wife was the gentle "carer". Together we made a great union & took on the world in every aspect. Sadly at the moment we are seperated & now I find myself lacking the ability to perform a lot of lifes challenges.

I am now 44 & for me MLC took the form of getting back on a motorcycle & pushing the adrenalin up a notch for a year or two. Then the winters & a fear for my own safety caused me to look at life & then decide for me it was time to slow down & enjoy things at a slower pace. I ran the risk of leaving my wife a widow & my daughter without her father & woke up to not be so selfish. Sadly my wife who is 38 decided this year that she wanted to start afresh & that means deconstructing everything we have built over our 22 years & demolishing our marriage, it's sad but true that MLC takes differing patterns but all of those patterns are selfish.

Back to your own point, you may or may not be going through a MLC but I would suggest you follow your gut feeling & let it take you wherever it will. Enjoy life & go explore, if you are finacially in good shape then why not travel? learn to do something exciting like scuba or fly a plane? Grasp life with both hands & enjoy your independance, for many of us it is not an option at the moment.

I admire your independance & wish that I was able to have the options that you have instead of the dark cloud I have over me at the moment.

Take that independance & go out there, find out who you are.

All the best & good luck!!!

Dave.

I am 37, and I am a single chinese woman and never married or have kids. I am financially stable, and have a very secrure job (work in govrnment). I always ask myself what I really look for in my life. Money can really make me happy, so I don't feel much motivation at work, even my life. It is always the case that family is the main reason for most people to keep motivated. But if for someone like me who does not have a family, what elase can keep the person happy and motivated? Anybody here can some ideas?

I mean "Money can't really make me happy,.......

Money, health, people's esteem, education, youth. Any of these things can be taken away by the economy, getting sick, saying or doing something that gets judged wrong, or getting in some kind of accident where your brain no longer functions the same, and... just gettin' old.

For me, when I was having my midlife crisis it seemed I had none of those things.

In a nut shell, I think you need to find something YOU love, find something you want to give your money to, that you want to use your education for that can help people, that is worth spending time on.

In other words, if you've received all you need, you have to then find what you will use all those resources for outside yourself. Then your reward will be better than money.

I think that's quite a challenge. I'm still trying. When you're young like you, it's obvious that you've got much to offer. When you start to get older, those who still rely on those 5 things and think that's all, don't really see value in anything other than the five qualities. But I was forced to start looking at that when I lost the 5.