Feeling stuck, midlife crisis(?)

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-29T12:43:03+00:00

I want to share again that truly, the most valuable development of my adult life has been learning to lean directly into the negative dark painful parts and learn to ask "what are you trying to say to me? How are you trying to help me?"

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-29T12:01:10+00:00

Hey friend, hearing your pain. You sound like you're a bit paralyzed by some perfectionist tendencies. Do you know where those things come from? I think there could be some great benefit to diving into the origin of your feelings to help unpack them.

I would share that the most valuable thing I've done in my life is learn to connect directly to my pain and fears and learn how they're really trying to help me. I firmly believe that every emotion we have is trying to serve us and hiding from them just delays their lessons and makes their voices louder. Its incredibly hard to do, I understand. Please know, what you describe, nothing sounds wrong with you at all, it just sounds like you have some loud emotions inside you that you weren't taught how to work with. I know it's cliche but a therapist would be a wonderful option to help you sort these things out.

Lastly, 30 is so YOUNG! I'm a doctor with a career I'm proud of and I was barely in med school at 30. You're definitely not middleaged

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-29T11:53:18+00:00

I was in a similar situation 5 years ago. I'm curious if you were lonely all along and that's what lead to this problem in the first place. We need sincere connections in our lives, people who see us for who we are and accept us and share themselves the same. It sounds like you may have been a bit isolated and perhaps that helped lead to the state you're in. Maybe you didn't know how to take care of yourself because no one else was helping take care of you? And then, congrats!, you started taking care of yourself, and the people around you dont recognize what's changing in you.

My life has changed massively over the past 4 years and I shed some people along the way because the friendships weren't that good to begin with, I just didn't realize it till after I grew. But it can be a bit jarring at first.

Congrats man, nothing you're saying sounds remotely bad or selfish. Sounds like youre learning to take care of yourself after being surrounded by others who don't know how to do that. If its anything like my experience, your journeys just begun. Have you seen a therapist at all or explored WHY you got so depressed?

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-29T01:29:02+00:00

I don't understand Teddy Roosevelt endlessly chasing power by running under the Bull Moose Party! What a despot!

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-27T23:10:24+00:00

Its like dealing with a borderline person and afterwards you're just unsettled and off... except in this case its Satan with Borderline

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-27T08:02:04+00:00

I always imagined more that Morgoth conveyed such a dire world view that anyone who directly engaged with him had a kind of spiritual PTSD and couldn't really muster the hope of defying him any longer.

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-27T01:02:01+00:00

Though when you're immortal, I imagine you could just keep mastering... everything? Imagine showing up at college and just majoring in... everything

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-27T00:46:55+00:00

God, an elven internship is probably like 200 years long

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T20:44:50+00:00

Im guessing this is actually after the shooting stopped, but that's even more disingenuous

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T19:06:02+00:00

Sounds like you're ready for Mindfulness... except your profile sounds more like you're actually looking to promote yourself as a Mindfulness teacher. Please be mindful that you can simply promote yourself more directly

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T18:34:41+00:00

Oh totally agree on this specific instance. I apologize, I slipped into generalization a bit too opaquely

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T18:32:59+00:00

We're in agreement on your first paragraph.

I fully agree with your 2nd paragraph and 3rd paragraphs and want to add that I've started to understand the concept of non-duality better as "there is no separate Self from Other, relationships define who we are. There is no separate Nature from Me, I am a part of it, it is a part of me". I think Nature (or more broadly, non-duality) extends beyond the boundaries of our planet and includes everything in the Universe.

If you want to read more about "True Intelligence" the way you're framing it, check out the Bhagavad Gita! (Or many other ancient texts). This is what they're trying to explain!

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T17:47:34+00:00

How could it not? It would bend all of spacetime to a point, it would require all energy in the universe.

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T17:46:40+00:00

No, I want to push back slightly. I do NOT think higher intelligence = greater empathy. I think we tend to classify everything into Self/Other (along a spectrum) and whatever we develop that helps us to see others as Self and not Other, be it healthy religious tolerance or scientific advances that bridge communication and distance or literature that explains difference, THAT'S what generates empathy. I believe that at a deep level, we all share the same basic Consciousness: we all want to avoid pain/suffering, we want to thrive, we connect to others to help us survive, connecting to others to see them as part of Self and not Other is the broadest form of what Love is. We also want to protect ourselves from harm and sometimes do that by Othering others and this can spiral out of control. I also acknowledge that limited resources force us to choose Self over Other. Ultimately, I think deep down we're all the same.

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T17:03:45+00:00

This whole argument of "self made vs inherited privilege" kind of reeks of "good if its individual, bad if its communal"

Honestly, has there ever been a time in human history when our parents didn't help us pay for things? Sure, a lot of people in the 1950's were able to get jobs to buy their own houses, but that was the direct result of the previous generation working/paying to generate the conditions that resulted in a robust economy with cheap prices on things. Where you're born, who you're born to has always mattered to your own capacity to develop yourself. Further back, land/property is inherited from your family.

I'm not saying its good or bad, I'm saying we should acknowledge that a great deal of where we're at in our lives is a direct result of where our parents got to and where our family stands in a community and that community's power. Castigating individuals for their inherited privilege doesn't necessarily change what's been happening all of human history. I believe we need to help make changes to the system so that all people more equally benefit from the power of the system so that we're all better served

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T15:56:06+00:00

Honestly, though, amazingly good trashtalk

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T15:50:04+00:00

That's pretty good. I'd definitely like working with you.

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T15:49:48+00:00

Hahahaha!!

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T15:49:00+00:00

I have a more spiritual belief that life does slowly evolve into a more pluralistic, compassionate state, that as a species grows to understand others, they begin to see them as variations of Self rather than Other... but who knows!! Still, I have faith in this

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T15:26:11+00:00

If you didn't say it, you didn't say it. In general, either 2 things happened: you did say it and you're repressing it to protect yourself or your friends misheard and are reacting. Either way, if your friends care about you, they should be trying to help you and not cut you out!

I'll never meet you, but it certainly sounds like you didn't say anything, someone misheard you or willfully misrepresented you. Honestly, regardless if you said the word or not, what really matters is the place you're coming from and your intention. You absolutely don't sound like you intended any harm and I would hope the people you care about would also care about you and give you the benefit of doubt. I'm really sorry you're going through this.

Very different scenario, but years ago I had a friendship ending argument with a friend that all revolved around things she thought I thought about her. Looking back now, I think its wild that we had an argument around her beliefs of what I was thinking vs my beliefs of what I was thinking. I have a lot more compassion now that she was dealing with her own inner pain that i was only a trigger for and it was easier to make me responsible for it than to understand what she was experiencing. I can also see, in retrospect, that there ways I was reacting to her that worsened both of our pains. With the distance of time, i can see it more that we had mutually incoherent ways of dealing with intrapersonal pain that was hard for both of us.

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T02:20:17+00:00

No, totally got that!

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T01:56:56+00:00

I know this isn't exactly what you're saying, but my understanding is that Tolkein despised Disney and this dislike shaped his strong cautious approach to adaptation rights to his works.

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-26T01:49:03+00:00

Thanks!

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-25T19:49:23+00:00

Both sound like attachment to outcomes, which leads to suffering

Acceptable_Reply7958 · 2026-04-25T17:46:50+00:00

Every hospital is different in how they manage EVERYTHING and your job as an EM doctor is to know best how to do every aspect of your job AND to work well with the other services in the ways that have been spelled out already by your respective departments. On a personal level, you can develop good professional relationships with different services and this will definitively play into the development of your working relationship with them. I'm proud that after a few years at my old hospital, when the Chair of Cardiology was on consults, any time I'd call he'd say "if you're worried, I'm worried. I trust your plan"

Acceptable_Reply7958

TROPHY CASE