This is Dispatch #17 in a series from the Human Aliveness Lab — raw, personal reflections exploring what it really means to feel alive. You can read the whole series here.
Hi friends,
Lately, I’ve been feeling a lot of pressure to “have it all figured out.” But I know I’m not alone — everyone I talk to seems to be quietly wrestling with some version of the same thing.
I’m 38, about to be 39. I can remember being eight like it was yesterday. If you’d asked me then to imagine my life approaching 40, I would have been fuzzy on the specifics, but I would have been sure I’d have it all together by now.
Turns out, I was wrong. And from what I can tell, a lot of us are in the same boat — well into adulthood, and still feeling like we haven’t got it all together.
In another era, they might have called this a “mid-life crisis.” But these days, nobody wants to admit to a mid-life crisis — maybe because nobody wants to admit to being mid-life at all. We avoid grown-up milestones. Many of us don’t have kids (rates are down from previous generations). Buying a house? Out of reach for most of us, or not even the dream anymore. We’re so obsessed with skincare and biohacking, we barely even look like we’re aging.
And yet, under the surface, the pressure is still there — that sense that we should have “figured it out” by now, or at least set up our lives so that we’re not still searching.
I see it everywhere I look.
One friend is pouring everything into her new business because it hit her that if she didn’t start building something lasting now, she might just be taking odd jobs for the rest of her life. Another put climbing mountains on hold — his favorite thing in the world — so that he might have a chance at more free time later. Still another feels so stuck in his current trajectory, he’s decided a year off is the only way to break free.
And of course, social media doesn’t help. Even I mostly post when things are going well (because if I get too “emo,” five people text me the next day asking if I’m okay). So we scroll and assume everyone else has it together — when in reality, “lost” might be the norm, not the exception.
Part of it is just the world we live in now: more possible paths, fewer clear milestones. The “paradox of choice,” as psychologist Barry Schwartz called it, is real. But whatever the reason, this sense of searching seems to be everywhere.
The truth is, nobody ever really arrives. Even the people who seem like they’ve cracked the code are still wrestling, searching, starting over. If you feel behind or unfinished, you’re in good company.
Maybe, as Carl Jung wrote, “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” Maybe adulthood isn’t a finish line at all. Maybe it’s a lifelong project — of becoming, searching, learning, and trying again.
So if you’re feeling behind, or lost, or simply uncertain… you’re not failing. You’re in the arena. Maybe “figuring it out” isn’t the point. Maybe the searching is where the real living happens.
See you out there,
Krista
I feel you, Ms. Stryker! Nowadays, when my mother passed away from cancer, I didn’t know what to do at all. It was my “mid-life crisis.” This was in October 2021, and I was 39 years old. It took a long while to get my groove back so to speak, and the only reasons why this happened were because my aunt, years later, sent me to Birmingham Green nursing home in Manassas, VA in the Summer of 2024; Next year in 2025, I made an executive decision to do my due diligence towards moving in the direction I care about. I am finally feeling wonderful by comparison compared to how I felt when my mother passed away. Although I got a beautiful opportunity to become a Poet, Writer, and Positive Psychology Coach starting in March 2025, and it’s been six months since that has come to pass, I still have these feelings of grief, trauma, and abuse that have haunted me with my memories that have plagued me. I fortunately have good quality people in my life as social support that offer connection to and with me. That even includes you, Ms. Stryker! ☺️😊😀🥰