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.
Honestly I can’t remember the last time my life was on “Play.” I’ve been stuck in the same job so long it’s had two name changes and an acquisition since I started. It’s decent money and I can tolerate the work which is largely why I’m still there, because almost everyone I knew when I started has left or been fired. And I’m so afraid that if I leave or get let go I won’t be able to find anything else because the job market’s been absolute dogshit.
I’ve been experimenting with my gender presentation. I did a full body shave and picked up a skirt. I don’t think it’s helped me feel better about my body. I just kind of want to be a brain in a jar or a stuffed animal or something that doesn’t look like a complete pile of shit no matter how it’s dressed up.
Does anyone else
Yes
Ever since I got home from getting kicked out of boot camp nothing feels real. Everything is on pause and I can’t enjoy my hobbies.
I liked manga and decided to buy some. But once I bought some I stopped enjoying it. I’ve always wanted a dirt bike, got that. Now I don’t even wanna ride it.
Hey there, fellow tired and paused Dad!
I felt every word of what you said, and my advice for you is what I’m learning to tell myself every day.
Just let your freak flag fly, my friend.
There’s a cynical way to look at this. Nothing means anything, and there are no more rules anymore. We’re on the Titanic worrying about about which forks to use and whether we’re wearing the right shoes for dinner. Eat with your hands and wear clown shoes!
And there’s also a positive, constructive way to look at this. Whatever we’ve been doing, as a culture, as a generation, isn’t working. Maybe a generation of dads (and moms and all other people) pausing themselves hasn’t been good for us. Be the weird, awesome, thoughtful guy you seem to be, and your son will probably do the same. We’re not the hope for the future, but our kids are, and they deserve to see the unpaused us.
What have you paused? Pick up that old hobby. Remember your passion. Start over if you have to. Be a kid with your kid and figure out what you want to be when you grow up.
I don’t mean to preach. I’m mostly talking to myself here. But I wish you the best.
golden comment. Doubly bookmared See you space cowboys!
How, when you have no energy and time?
Yeah, I don’t really know the answer to that. I may have misread OP’s question. I took it as a “how do I get back to the me that’s under all the adult garbage?” when maybe it’s more about not having time or energy to find themselves.
I don’t know how to answer that question, except to say we can always find ways to be better, more authentic versions of ourselves. From the clothes we wear to work or the music we listen to in traffic, to the conversations we have during dinner and the ways we talk about shows we’re binging.
Maybe there’s no time to add anything new, but we probably have the ability to make the time we have more expressive and more meaningful.
Dunno, man. I’m working it all out for myself too. Good luck to you.
Re-evaluate what you actually need. Almost everyone can free up time and energy from stuff they shouldn’t actually care about, but do care because of societal or familial or whatever pressures.
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.
True, 38 isn’t that old. But keep in mind, I’m 100% disabled according to the VA. Two decades of military service has wrecked my body, so I’m unable to work any physically demanding job. Heck, I struggle just to go up and down stairs in my own house without pain in my knees and back.
Which is a shame, because I was an extremely fit and active person in my youth. That’s part of the reason I joined the military - I was in the best shape of my life and could keep active all day without breaking a sweat. I’m actually frustrated now that just walking from my house to my mailbox takes me out of action for an hour or two.
I keep telling myself I’m young, but my body’s acting like it’s 80 years old. That’s the one downside to military service; it can easily overstress your joints and physically age you much faster than normal.
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.
YOU ARE ONLY 38?!
I was 38 when I retired three years ago, actually. I’m about to turn 41 in a few months. Sorry if I didn’t write that clearly in my comment.
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.
I feel this. In my early years of the military, I used to take a month off every year and go home to chill with family and friends. The first few years of that, it was like nothing changed. But then I started dating my future wife and spending my time off traveling and honeymooning with her. When I did finally go home again, I almost didn’t recognize it. My friends and family had moved further away, my hometown had changed, everything was suddenly different.
The question is, do you know the real you?
Unwinding is important, make sure to have fun time, both you fun time and you+others fun time. Involve the kid(s) when you can/want, even if it’s a cursory involvement. (I’m finding my kid loves watching me play some video games, like it’s a weird long movie)
My niece liked watching my dad play Diablo 2. He told her he was putting the enemies to sleep.
Can confirm. I used to sit on my dad’s lap watching him play Serious Sam and Diablo 2.
Thanks to YouTube, bad guys get booped
The question is, do you know the real you?
According to the Writer in Stalker, we never know who we really are or what we really want.
WRITER: I don’t know. Maybe. Anyway – I’m sorry, but… You are so foolish! You don’t have an idea about what’s happening here! And how do you think, why did Porcupine hang himself?
STALKER: He came to the Zone with a selfish purpose and sacrificed his brother in the “meat grinder” because of the money…
WRITER: That I can understand. But why did he hang himself? Why did he decide not to return – absolutely not after the money this time, but after his brother? Ah? Why did he give up?
STALKER: He wanted to, he… I don’t know. In several days he hanged himself.
WRITER: He understood here, that not all dreams come true, but only the most precious ones! And you’re just shouting in vain!..
WRITER: That, what is in accordance with your nature, your essence, is what comes true here! That essence that you have no idea about, but it sits in you and rules you all your life! You understood nothing, Leather Stocking. Porcupine was not overcome by his greed. He crawled on his knees in this very puddle begging for his brother. And he got a lot of money, and couldn’t get anything else. Because a Porcupine gets everything what’s porcupine-like! And conscience, throes of the soul – it is invented, it‘s brain work. He understood that and hanged himself. I will not go into your Room! I do not want to spill all the trash that has accumulated inside me, on anybody’s head. Even on yours. And afterwards run my head into the noose like Porcupine. I’d rather drink myself to death quietly and peacefully in my stinky writer’s private residence. No, Big Serpent, you are bad in sorting people out, if you lead such ones like me into the Zone. And then afterwards … ah… How do you know, that this miracle really exists? Who told you, that dreams really come true here? Did you see anybody, who would have been made happy here? Ah? Maybe Porcupine? And actually, who told you about the Zone, about Porcupine, about this Room?
Similarly, from the Don Hertzfedlt film “Everything will be Okay”:
Bill dropped his keys on the counter and stood there staring at them, suddenly thinking about all the times he’d thrown his keys there before, and how many days of his life were wasted repeating the same tasks and and rituals in his apartment over and over again. But then he wondered if realistically this was his life and the unusual part was his time spent doing other things.
I still don’t know what the takeaway from stalker is, and I’m assuming that’s an intended outcome from those that made it at this point lol Did they go into the room or not?
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.
This book could be recommended in those cases: https://archive.org/details/philosophicalpro0000hege/mode/2up and try to read everytime that you are idle, because maybe there is not an ideal place to concentrate about you and you have to include your life in the capital (capitalist system) rhythm by force.
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.
Yup. Have been feeling like this for almost five years, since I started univeristy.
I started struggling with anxiety and depression shortly after I moved to another town. That, plus the exams accumulating and other minor stuff really did put my life on pause. After two years I was able to get sort of a break from uni, and I was able to unpause myself. I started going out with ppl and cultivating my interests, at least for a year. Now I’m trying to get my degree, and I should be able to in two months (shit it’s so close).
I’m still struggling with anxiety a lot, but I feel like the only way out is by finishing university. Once I do that, I hope I’ll be able to actually unpause my life, or at least find a good balance.
Sorry I don’t really have any good advice, but know that you’re not alone in this.
It doesn’t actually change being away from university.
The only way it changes is if you change your mindset.
Also you went through that during a pandemic if I have my math right. I feel for all the youngsters that dealt with that during their most formative years such as university. I work at a uni and the kids were not OK.
The first year or so, yes. It really didn’t help making friends in a new city.
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
Sorry friend, no clue what you are meaning.
I am only posting as motivation that it can be different.
Here is permission to unpause.
