[TrackerFF]

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that dreams are often just that, dreams. Once they are realized, many will not live up to the expectations.

Managing your expectations plays a big part.

So at least for me, that knowledge has helped. Another discovery I made, was that some of my best experiences and decisions have been by pure chance. Things I never planned to do, or had any desire to do, but turned out to be more than I could ever imagine.

It’s ironic how some things you plan for your whole life, but never get to do, while some things you never planned for, ended up overshadowing those initial dreams.

And lastly, many things in life is like a bus stop - there’ll come another bus if you just wait.

In my professional life I chases “prestige” for the sake of prestige, and ended up hating those things.

Of course, there are things I really wanted to do, but never got the chance to, and I’m too old to do now, but that’s just something I’ll live with.

My FOMO and regrets plummeted as I started approaching 40.

[raffael_de]

It's also worth reflecting on what's underlying the dream. Your "dream" was prestige. You obtained it and it disappointed you. My hypothesis would be that underlying your desire for prestige was a fundamental desire to be loved. Then you realized that prestige only looks superficially like being loved but it's actually something very different and materialistic. If you had reflected that earlier you could have avoided wasting effort for obtaining prestige. The same mechanism is true for all dreams.

[wwqrd]

The inverse was true for me, at 40 I realised a lot of doors are now closed or closing.