[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

This has been going on a long time. Take for example Julius Caesar at the age of 33 as recorded by Plutarch:

> In like manner we are told again that, in Spain, when he was at leisure and was reading from the history of Alexander, he was lost in thought for a long time, and then burst into tears. His friends were astonished, and asked the reason for his tears. "Do you not think," said he, "it is matter for sorrow that while Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet achieved no brilliant success?"

I think, at least for a lot of men, that a huge cause of the mid-life crisis is the death of boyhood dreams. Many of us dream of accomplishing great things. And it seems we have our whole life before us and limitless opportunities. However, by the time we reach midlife, we realize that time is running out, our physical prowess is on the way down, and we will never accomplish all that we have dreamed.

[throwaway20234]

I think this is precisely it. We all (many?) of us expect ourselves to have an extraordinary life and then we inevitably end up with something more ordinary than expected.

I do wonder though if there is an additional component for folks in tech careers. If you stay heavily invested in the technology aspect of it, you might start wondering how much longer you can keep up with you folks in learning about the latest technology. If you move to the management track, you might feel less secure about your job and your ability to get a new position, especially as your former strong suit, the tech knowledge, atrophies. I moved to the manager track and sometimes interview folks for manager positions who are 10-15 years older than me and have been struggling to find a job for a very long time. Their tech skills are entirely outdated and I ask myself if that's me in 10 years.

[konjin]

>If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon. But Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed. You cannot, therefore, get away from envy by means of success alone, for there will always be in history or legend some person even more successful than you are.

[...]

>Alexander the Great was psychologically of the same type as the lunatic, though he possessed the talent to achieve the lunatic's dream. He could not, however, achieve his own dream, which enlarged its scope as his achievement grew. When it became clear that he was the greatest conqueror known to fame, he decided that he was a god. Was he a happy man? His drunkenness, his furious rages, his indifference to women, and his claim to divinity, suggest that he was not. There is no ultimate satisfaction in the cultivation of one element of human nature at the expense of all the others, nor in viewing all the world as raw material for the magnificence of one's own ego.

https://russell-j.com/beginner/COH-TEXT.HTM

[Bakary]

It's worth asking why we shackle ourselves to ideas made when we barely had any knowledge of the world

[bradlys]

The alternative you end up living under is one the parents create. While likely more attainable, not likely fulfilling. You could change goals as you go... I did that. But if you’re like me, you have failure around every corner and you’re more ambitious than a thousand men. You will become jaded well before you’re 40. I was jaded before I was even 30. I gave up and tried again many times.

And now that I’m 30, I hate how much suffering I endured the last decade. Questioning everything every step. Wondering how long it’d go. Wondering if there was ever a payoff to anything and not just another stepping stone. Wondering if I was as strong as I used to be. Constantly thinking to myself, I was stronger then. I was better then. I was smarter, faster, etc. Somehow I feel like I peaked near high school and it’s been a decline since.

But, likely, it’s more that I just haven’t had a path as easy or clear since then. Thus, ambiguity leads to more ambition which leads to more suffering which leads to more feelings of inadequacy.

It’s a great time...

[Bakary]

That sounds like a somewhat torturous and navel-gazing way of seeing things, although I have definitely felt a form of what you describe here so please don't take it as a personal attack. In my case, it was correlated with a lack of stimulus and worthwhile things to do in my life at the time.