After scrolling through some posts here, I noticed the patterns: women talking about the moment, while men talk about the realization. Women are more calm while men seem depressed and overreact.
I see the same patterns with my group of high school friends. The females are calmer, happier, and likely the happiness depends on what happens to them and the perspective they see their life. They tend to be happier if they enter life peacefully, like loving only one or two people, marrying soon after university, having their first apartment and babies before 30. They say they have more freedom and find it easier to reach a state of happiness. They also tend to have decent husbands or boyfriends who are often a league above my male friends.
My male friends seem to struggle more. Among a circle of 11 people I have observed, maybe only two show the same level of happiness. Ironically, the first one is the one who married the prettiest and sweetest girl in our class, the one everyone used to have a crush on. He won the love lottery, and I believe his 18 years of love for his wife is what has fueled his spiritual life, he needs nothing else and be happy just having her around. The other one is quite the opposite. He gained financial freedom early in life and enjoys a life filled with new wonders. He has a passion for his work that no one can match, also no one can match his number of girlfriends either. He is the kind of man we used to dream of becoming.
Then in the middle are average guys like me, married or not, but often bland or depressed. We’re often stuck with jobs, family, wife, kids… We do not have the luck of having found the one nor the talent to change our circumstances like those two. Yet we still have the responsibility to keep moving forward.
Now I am standing on the 22nd floor waiting for the meeting. My job is good, but I am losing control over it. My boss has asked me to take over this ongoing project, which I have no interest in. My girlfriend encourages me by saying there a good opportunity, and I could get a promotion and a good bonus at the end, as I have been doing this for about 10 years. But now I dont want to. I also dont have the energy to tell her and explain myself. Sometimes I wish I had the talent and courage to start anew, to feel fresh again.