[joshkojoras]

^^ This comment sums up the entire philosophy of happiness very well, although you first have to go through life to get the context to understand it.

I'm over 40 and single and childless. I work in Tech, have a good salary, a house, a car, investments and a second property. I have everything people work for in life but I'd give it all up for a family. I wish I hadn't been so proud and arrogant and full of myself when I was younger and made different decisions. I'd much more prefer to not have the material wealth that I have today, but instead have a home to come to after work and kids to wake me up in the morning.

I used to shrug it off in the sense that there is still time and as years went by I suddenly woke up one day to be 40y old and realised the time left me behind. I have more money than I need but have nothing that needs me. And it's nice to be needed.

I did achieve a lot in terms of professional career but now I can't help but feel that I was scammed. Nobody cares about the things that I had built or features I helped develop and ship, I doubt anyone can even see them. All those decades of my life completely invisible to the world. All I'm left with now is money and countless mental health conditions I have to deal with as a consequence of my life choices.

And I don't believe for one second that there are people who are 40-50 without any dependencies and feel happy in life. That's just bull shit. The reason why people say that is because they keep their minds preoccupied and when you don't have time to think you have no problems. The problem with that is that eventually kicking the can down the road doesn't work anymore and you reach a point when you have to stop and take a break. And that's when all your baggage comes rushing forward into your consciousness and you crash.

I often remember Blaise Pascal's quote: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

[abc123abc123]

Plenty of time left. Create a tinder account, or adopt a child. Adpoting a child is the most self-less thing you could do. There are countries where single men are allowed to adopt. If you are rich, move there, become resident, adopt, and move back. Problem solved! As a bonus, being a single father then makes it more probable for you to meet a woman.

[throwaway1492]

This, I got married at 40 to a 36 year old. We both wanted kids and a family but for reasons it hadn’t worked out for either of us. This wasn’t a Disney romance by any means but we get along and we put in the work to make it work. We had two kids back to back and I can say without a doubt what we have built is greater than any one of us.

Trust there are some really great women in their thirties, they may not have been your first choice, you probably wouldn’t have been theirs either, but from where I sit it was worth it.

[ane]

It is a good reminder that most of us that work in software engineering will never build anything remarkable and will fade into history. Even if you do brilliant engineering work for a company, said work was commissioned by the company and the intellectual property rights belong to said company. It wasn't yours to begin with.

[throwaway920102]

You could easily still have a marriage and children.

[JuniperMesos]

Children are not typically known for sitting quietly in a room alone. Blaise Pascal himself was unmarried and childless, and died at the relatively young age of 39.

[littlexsparkee]

Just because you can't relate to a way of living doesn't mean it doesn't exist.