We promise you that this Facebook post will make you reconsider everything about your life.
We all know the saying, “life is too short” and more often than not it takes something monumental for this statement to sink in.
It’s so easy to look at others, particularly on social media and thinks their life is full of love, happiness, friends, babies, and enjoyment. It’s important to remember this is just a snapshot of their life, and instead of focusing on how much better their life may seem in a Facebook post, start focusing on your own.
The older we get, the more we realize how happiness takes work, having the confidence to smile through the pain.
A Facebook post reminds us to live our life to the fullest.
“I need to get my life off my chest. About me. I’m a 46-year-old banker and I have been living my whole life the opposite of how I wanted. All my dreams, my passion, gone. In a steady 9-7 job. 6 days a week. For 26 years. I repeatedly chose the safe path for everything, which eventually changed who I was. Today I found out my wife has been cheating on me for the last 10 years. My son feels nothing for me. I realized I missed my father’s funeral FOR NOTHING. I didn’t complete my novel, traveling the world, helping the homeless. All these things I thought I knew to be a certainty about myself when I was in my late teens and early twenties. If my younger self had met me today, I would have punched myself in the face. I’ll get to how that dream was crushed soon.
Let’s start with a description of me when I was 20. It seemed only yesterday when I was sure I was going to change the world. People loved me and I loved people. I was innovative, creature, spontaneous, risk-taking and great with people. I had two dreams. The first was writing a utopic/dystopic book. The second was traveling the world and helping the poor and homeless. I had been dating my wife for four years by then. Young love. She loved my spontaneity, my energy, my ability to make people laugh and feel loved. I knew my book was going to change the world. I would show the perspective of the “bad” and the “twisted” showing my viewers that everybody thinks differently, that people never think what the do is wrong. I was 70 pages through when I was 20. I am still 70 pages in at 46. By 20, I had backpacking around New Zealand and the Philippines. I planned to do all of Asia, then Europe, then America. To date, I have only been to New Zealand and the Philippines.
Now we get to where it all went wrong. My biggest regrets. I was 20. I was the only child. I needed to be stable. I needed to take that graduate job, which would dictate my whole life. To devote my entire life to a 9-7 job. What was I thinking? How could I live, when the job was my life? After coming home, I would eat dinner, prepare my work for the following day and sleep at 10 pm to wake up at 6 am the following day. God, I can’t remember the last time I’ve made love to my wife.
Yesterday my wife admitted to cheating on me for the last 10 years. 10 years. That seems like a long time but I can’t comprehend it. It doesn’t even hurt, She says it because iv changed. I’m not the person I was. What have I been doing in the last 10 years? Outside of work, I really can’t say anything. Not being a proper husband. Not being ME. Who am I? What happened to me? I didn’t even ask for a divorce or yell at her or cry. I felt NOTHING. Now I can feel a tear as I write this, but not because my wife has been cheating on me, but because I am now realizing I have been dying inside. What happened to that fun-loving, risk-taking, energetic person that was me, hungering to change the world? I remember being asked on a date by the most popular girl in the school but declining her for my now-wife. God, I was really popular with the girls in high school. In university/college too. But I stayed loyal. I didn’t explore. I studied every day.
Remember all that backpacking and book-writing I told you about? That was all in the first few years of college. I worked part-time and splurged all that I had earned. Now I save every penny. I don’t remember a time I spend anything on anything fun. On anything for myself. What do I even want now?
My father passed ten years ago. I remember getting calls from mum, telling me he was getting sicker and sicker. I was getting busier and busier, on the verge of a big promotion. I kept putting my visit off, hoping in my mind he would hold on. He died, and I got my promotion. I haven’t seen him in 15 years. When he died, I told myself it didn’t matter what I didn’t see him. I rationalized that being dead, it wouldn’t matter anyway. WHAT WAS I THINKING? Rationalizing everything, making excuses to put things off. Excuses. Procrastination It all leads to one thing, nothing. I rationalized that financial security was the most important thing. I now know, that it definitely is not. I regret doing nothing with my energy when I had it. My passions. My youth. I regret letting my job take over my life. I regret being an awful husband, a money-making machine. I regret not finishing my novel not traveling the world. Not being emotionally there for my son. Being a damn emotionless wallet.
If you’re reading this and you have a whole life ahead of you, please. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t leave your dreams for later. Relish in your energy, your passions. Don’t stay on the internet with all your spare time (unless your passion needs it). Please, do something with your life while you’re young. DO NOT settle down at 20. DO NOT forget your friends, your family. Yourself. Do NOT waste your life. Your ambitions. Like I did mine, Do not be like me.”
That’s his original Facebook post:
So here are some tips to do just as the author suggested in his Facebook post … and live your life:
1. Figure out what is important to you
Do not do what people want you to do, do what makes you happy. You will always get the opinions of parents, friends, society and your community, but you are the person who will live your life, so do what makes you happy.
2. Take risks
If you never take risks in life, you will undoubtedly be filled with regret. If you don’t take the risks, you won’t get anywhere.
3. Remember to tell people you love them
Everyone wants to know they are special to someone. So make sure you tell your friends and family, partners, that you love them, it will bring a smile to their face I am sure.
4. Live in the now. Learn from your past
You can plan for the future, learn from the past, but it’s important to focus on the present.
5. Don’t compromise your values
If you don’t have a good feeling about something, don’t do it. Often our gut feelings are trying to tell us something and we should listen to them.
6. Be charitable
Even if it’s something as simple as buying a homeless person a cold drink and a sandwich in winter. Donate old clothes to a charity shop, volunteer at a food kitchen. Be nice to others.
We hope that this man’s Facebook post touched you. So, the next time you find yourself on Facebook, close it, go tell your sister you love her, and take a walk somewhere, enjoy life, as they say, it is short.
H/T: Good Men Project
I feel you Lou. I’m 38 and recently discovered that not only do I not love myself, I don’t even like myself. I’ve allowed life to happen to me, all the while getting angrier and angrier at myself for not stepping up and ACTING. I hope you come to a point where you can see that at 46, you have your whole life in front of you. If you don’t like what you see right now, TAKE ACTION AND CHANGE IT! I have decided to not live another moment of life as I’ve lived in the past. I will put in the work on myself, I will learn to like and love myself, and then I will help others avoid and escape from the same cage I had put myself in. Thank you for sharing. A message many of us wish we would have heard and acted on when younger and known that life doesn’t have to turn out that way.
You are so right !!! But surely not the only one who had “no life” or is living the same day all his (her) life long. I am considered a weirdy , a guy apart, or whatever… but I am so happy that I am who I am and that I did what I did… even though it has caused me to land in very awkward situations..even in jail for some time… but I had a “life” and lots of experiences…and I regret nothing of all I did.. except for the few things I did not do…because of external influences. I feel sorry for you and for so many others who are victim of the “system” and lost their freedom. Thanks for letting the world know …..
He’s 46. He can still get his passion back and do the things he wants to do. He can also make things right with his son too. It’s not too late to make amends with people but some regrets he will always have to carry around. Now he has realised, now he can do something about it.
I agree. When you are about 80 you can regret things you don’t have done.
Those who have ears, listen.
Those having ears but not ability will definitely do nothing
A middle-aged guy in a crisis. Trying to be “inspiring” by telling his Facebook friends that his wife cheated on him. And at the end that he is sorry he even married her ” Don’t settle at 20″. By trying to return his youth he is going to do harm, at least to himself and to his family.
Horrible, horrible story.
I agreed. I actually feel really sorry for his family. Basically he misses being young and wants to go party again. ” God, I was really popular with the girls in high school” ‘Don’t settle at 20″ He can’t even remember the last time he made love with his wife. When she admitted cheating on him and he said “It doesn’t even hurt” clearly he doesn’t love her anymore. Although cheating is wrong but must be really hard for her too. Life is fair, we all get old. Instead of keep dreaming of being a teen or early 20th again, he should starts thinking of what he can do now. He needs to spend more time with his family and son or he’ll have more regrets when he’s in his 80th. Age of 46 isn’t that old and he can still do a lot of things he wants to do. Stop making excuses and just go do it.
Sounds like the system we live in is working just fine and this guy should be the new hero of capitalism This is what we fucking want out of every human being. Walk around find a homeless guy and this same story repeats itself over and over and over again. You know how many homeless people I give money to and all they can tell me is how much they worked in their lives. If you’re reading this you fu*king suc. Because somewhere along the line we’ve all told someone goes get a soul crushing job 🙁
Great read! We learn to become machines! Identify ourselves either through our work or the amount of money we make. Spend so much time at work or thinking of work or worrying about work! It is 2017 please work smarter not harder! Spend time doing things that truly matters to YOU!
You’re still young.
You’ve still got your whole life ahead of you.
You can still do everything you want to do.
Do it now.
There is still plenty of time left.