Realizing that you have been doing something wrong in your life is not bad.
Realizing that you have wasted another year is not bad.
Realizing that you are missing out on something is not bad.
But, not changing your life is bad.
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The Happy Hermit 
If a person at age of 40 years is not successful and was average student during education even for law studies and Master studies. Can he change himself now? Should he further study or should do any menial work. I am very confused and disappointed due to my stagnant life.
My article “How to be happy” might help. In it, I detail some practical steps.
What do you enjoy? Do you enjoy studying? Then continue. Would be happier in another job? Try something else? You are not too old at 40 (I am 39), because we are all going to live until 75 or 80 now, so you still have plenty of time left. Too much time to do anything else than pursuing your own dreams.
Maybe you are focused on work/career too much. I discovered that there are much nicer and more exciting things in life, so I reduced my work as much as possible. I am poorer now, but I have much more time and I am happier and lead a more interesting life. I am myself.
Seems so easy when I read you… but what to do when you know you’re not happy but you don’t know what to change or what to do to be happy…?
I consider work as a modern and perhaps the most vicious form of slavery, but who can decide not to work ?
Let’s say I find a way to get enough money to merely survive without having to work… then what else to do (for free) during an entire day especially if you’re alone?
If I could I would buy a wonderful house, plant my own veggies, make my own bread, meet a lot of people, sing, eat, paint, think, think and think again, go to the movies with friends, help others the best I can and erase what I consider as being an absolute nightmare and the deepest scar on the society’s face : homelessness.
This makes me realize that happiness is an illusion and perhaps it does not exist.
I try to give some detailed advice in my article “How to be happy”. The first step is to get rid of everything that makes you unhappy.
I don’t think work is slavery. It’s voluntary. Not many people can afford not to work at all, but of those who are lucky enough to be reading this blog, most can work less.
As to what to do all day, you will of course do the things that make you happy. You already mentioned many of these, although I would skip the house-buying part because that’s just a big stone tied to your leg and even if the slavery comparison was over the top, then you will be in servitude to the mortgage lender, probably for the rest of your life.
Working is not voluntary at all. Working is an obligation to be a part of society. If you don’t work, you’re out of the system. Not even considered as human anymore. you have to be/do something because in this society your job will become constitutive of first your social and later your own private identity. Sometimes it defines your entire life..
Only those who are not forced to work because they have enough money or an other source of subsistence which can provide enough for them to survive without having to actually pick a job and work to get it, work voluntarily.
When I wrote “buying a house” the idea was buying it “cash”…or else it has no point…
To me a house has much more value than just a pile of stones, to me it means family and a refuge. I reckon this is vision is very personal though..so is happiness..
But everyone can work LESS and can make something else the center of their life. Like I did when I quit my job as a lawyer. I don’t define myself by work anymore, but by my thoughts and my ideas or my actions.
What does society think about me? I couldn’t care less. That’s an important step on the way to freedom. You don’t need to do anything just because others expect it from you. It’s your life, not theirs.
…Good point.
I have to admit you’re right.
I feel the most difficult part is to break free from the society’s expectations.
I also feel like this is the key to one’s happiness although it’s the most difficult part to realize.
…but why does the Change Something doesn’t lead anywhere in the diagram? :)
It’s a cliffhanger.
Reblogged this on teaching knowledge and creativity and commented:
Simple way of thinking! But completely true!