As a kid, I learned to “pause” my true self. School was the pause, and my hobbies, dreams, and passions were the unpause—something I’d rush back to during lunch or after class.
Over time, the pauses got longer. Tiredness and responsibilities crept in, leaving little energy to unpause at the end of some days.
At work, sometimes the pressure and the demands were so relentless that I couldn’t unpause for weeks or months at a time.
Then came marriage, fatherhood, and the joy—and work—of raising a child.
I want my son to get to know the real me but I worry that by the time he is grown I won’t have any “self” to unpause to.
Does anyone else
Yes
Yes
In ~800 days I have vowed to quit my job to hike a few long trails, maybe the triple crown if I feel like it. This MIGHT ruin any relationship I get into before then. It would be impossible with children, or if I force myself to focus on making money and retiring early. But the first death is in the heart and I will die if I give up this dream
This is a compartmentalization technique seen in a lot in people with ADHD. Not saying OP has ADHD, but it’s something to look into if they have other signs.
I did this for literal decades. I was excited to start my adult life after high school, but an opportunity I couldn’t pass up dropped into my lap, so I chose that route instead.
Joining the US military was that opportunity. My uncle explained how the Air Force had taken care of him for 30 years, giving him free food, free lodging, free education, free travel around the globe, free medical and dental, and a steady, decent paycheck on top of it all. It sounded too good to be true, so I signed up as well. I figured I could get back to my plans for adult life later, after I’d taken advantage of all the benefits the military could offer me.
20 years later (3 years ago), I retired from the Air Force. It was a pretty stressful career, in a positive way, so I was glad to get home, relax a bit, then finally pick up my life where I left off.
The things is, a lot happens in 2 decades. All my friends had left town and moved on to new lives, new careers, created new families, etc. my own family had mostly moved away, except for my dad who was still living in my childhood home. He offered to let my wife and I stay with him rent free as long as we wanted. He passed away last year and I inherited the house from him.
So now I’m back in my childhood home, just starting to really get settled back in and trying to figure out what to do with myself. I feel like my life has been on hold for so long, I don’t even know where to start in picking things back up again. I’m not young anymore, so a lot of the physically active jobs and hobbies I was previously interested in are either difficult or impossible for me now. I also changed a lot mentally with 20 years of military service. I’m not the same person I was at 18, so I have to readjust my interests and hobbies.
Fortunately, I have a lifelong pension from the military. I was grandfathered into the old pension program before they switched to a 401K-type plan, so I get paid half my final paycheck every month for the rest of my life. I also got the coveted “100% Permanent & Total” disability rating from the VA, so that is an additional monthly payment for life that’s about double the size of my pension. Plus free medical and dental for life. My wife didn’t retire from the military, but she also got the 100% P&T disability rating, so she gets the same medical pay and benefits as me.
So with all this passive income, we can actually be retired, as of 38 years old, and have the free time every day to focus on rediscovering our lives. I don’t feel like I need to put my life on pause while I work a job I don’t necessarily care for, or save up enough money for something I really want to do. I can live my life fully now, unpaused, for the first time in my life. It’s been very liberating, both mentally and physically.
38 isn’t old at all. I’ve got nearly a decade on you and run a farm and have a normal 8-5 job. You sound like you just need to stop thinking you’re to old. The saying “you’re only as old as you think” is really true. I feel more fit now than when I was in my 20s.
Wow reading about pensions my mind just assumed you were properly old. YOU ARE ONLY 38?! Congrats on the financial stability!
I also have moved around a lot, mostly for work, all exciting opportunities. The first few years going home feels like nothing ever changes but I recently went to my home town for a wedding and saw some friends for the first time in 15 years. Wow did the passage of time hit me like a truck. The years add up.
I was in the mountains hiking with an 85 and 82 year old a few weekends ago. They crushed. We may be older but we are still a lot closer to 18 than 85.
Yes, I know exactly what you mean. A lot can be explained by the lack of material resources (not all).
I think I’m in the process of pausing myself.
i was raised in a high pressure household and school was always always the pause. im only 23 now but im still struggling to figure out who i am since i never really got the chance to. responsibilities will always creep in, you have to be super intentional about making time for you. maybe start with a once a week class on something that interests you. as busy as you are, you can find a couple hours one day a week. prioritize movement, eating well, and sleeping enough so you have more energy, and therefore time during the day.
I’m working on a 2.5 year degree to upgrade my credentials while working part time and i’ve been on autopilot/pause the entire time. I can’t remember the last time I did something because I wanted to do it and not because i had to or it was in my schedule. Oh well I’m almost done, my remedy will be a nice vacation and having evenings and weekends back.
Thankfully in my youth I was given the space to be my true self, so now that I have a job/wife/kids with a ton of responsibility and have to “pause” some of my self, I don’t mind it was I was really quite self centered and self absorbed for the first 30 years of my life. I balanced school with going out or doing my hobbies.
My true self now is a passion for my family and my job, and I know that long term my kid will become distant and I wont always work so for the moment I am happy to be “paused” and still carve out some time for myself 3-4 hours a week to enjoy my hobbies by myself. But the real trick is integration, my son knows that the real me is someone who wants to do a lot of activities with him all the time, and so I take the time to participate in his hobbies, and naturally he is very interested in learning mine or watching me do mine.
my father was this way - i didnt get to know the real him until i was in my mid-late 20’s. though i think its great that he can be himself again, there is a bit of resentment that i didnt mean enough to him to stop working for once and interact with me on a human level while growing up.
we arent super close, but we are friendly to each other. having slightly less money by working less and spending more time with the kid would mean you have to find some free things to do… #worth
there has been a meme making the rounds about “if you work really hard this could be you” with a picture of a gravestone saying you worked hard. dont be that guy <3
