Almost nobody’s life feels how they thought it would

CORE INSIGHT

I turn 50 today. Like a lot of people, I assumed that getting older would result in an internal experience of feeling more settled, more certain, and more satisfied. I had an idea of what my life would look like and feel like internally. In essence, I would “arrive” rather than perpetually being in a state of improvising and correcting.

Part of me thought I would lead a more conventional life. Partner, kids, predictable career trajectory. Because I didn’t follow that path, part of me believed that the uncertainty might be because I missed the exit on the highway to adulthood. But what I’ve come to understand is that almost nobody’s life feels the way they thought it would. Even the people who did take the more conventional route and checked the boxes they were told would make them feel complete can struggle with the discrepancy between what they thought it would feel like and what it actually does.

This doesn’t mean that something has gone wrong. It means many of us misunderstood what adulthood would actually feel like from the inside. The internal experience of being alive remains far more dynamic than most of us could ever imagine when we were young. Adulthood doesn’t arrive when we reach satisfaction and certainty, but when we become more capable of holding uncertainty, disappointment, change, and complexity without assuming we’ve failed at life.

“There is no arriving in this life.”

— James Baldwin

PATTERN REFRAME

Humans are prediction-making creatures. Your nervous system is constantly attempting to create safety by trying to imagine and control the future. Most of us carry some version of the belief that if we can just do life correctly, eventually we’ll arrive at a stable internal state where the self-doubt quiets down and things finally make sense. So when adulthood still feels uncertain or different than we imagined, we often interpret that as failure. The more useful question may not be “why don’t I feel the way I thought I would?” but “what expectations about adulthood and satisfaction have I been unconsciously measuring my life against?”

MY FIELD NOTES

​One thing I do when I fantasize about some alternate version of my life is not stopping at the fantasy itself. I take it a step farther where I imagine the hardships that might come with that life. Life contains tradeoffs and every path would come with its own flavor of suffering. When we fantasize, we usually compare the full reality of our lives against the imagined benefits of another one. I’ve found it grounding to remember that no alternate version of my life would have exempted me from uncertainty, self-doubt, disappointment, or difficulty. It simply would have asked different things of me.

LAB EXPERIMENT

This week, if you notice yourself fantasizing about an alternate version of your life, continue the thought experiment all the way through. Imagine the tradeoffs, limitations, responsibilities, disappointments, and griefs that parallel life might have carried too. And don’t forget to factor in the relationships, experiences, growth, and moments of meaning you would have had to forgo in order to live that other life.