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How different age groups perceive life

Saslou

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I'm 32.

Do you think life is easy/hard, a struggle?

I find life to be more of a struggle these days than previously. I just presumed things would get easier with age as i'd of accumulated a wealth of knowledge and experience. Although i've gained so much, obstacles remain the way of what i want. Lesson learned - Never presume.

Do you feel like you have a lot of control over how your life goes?

No. I used to be a control freak but life showed me something valuable (divorce) and i quickly realised ultimately you have little control other than your individual actions. Although more laid back than previously, i have little control over my job prospects, my teenage children's behaviour and ambitions *sigh*

Have you found a specific outlook towards life that helps you a lot?

When you fall off the horse, dust yourself down and get back on .. If you need time to recuperate, then do so .. Meditate when life is getting you down, there is nothing better than quietening the mind.

Personally, i find a good sense of humour helps.

Do you have goals in your life that you think you will achieve or are your goals out of reach?

I've never made myself any long term goals, i like to be as flexible as possible. I've made goals with someone which although personally i didn't believe anything this cool could ever happen to me and it did for a brief moment in time.

My goal for going to Canada is out of reach now (well 3 months from now) and i've got rid of everything which reminds me of it. I've told myself that this isn't for me because something better is going to come along. I have to think this or else i am just a big fat failure.

In the future i suppose i am capable of anything ..
 

gromit

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Please tell us your general age group (under 20, 20's, 30's, 40's etc.)
mid/late 20s

And then tell us how you perceive life. Do you think life is easy/hard, a struggle?
Mostly easy, some parts a struggle. I feel a lot more responsibility now than I used to when I was younger. I guess I feel the pull of both pleasure and responsibility now.

Do you feel like you have a lot of control over how your life goes?
Mostly yes, but not over other people, who tend to impact my life in a lot of ways. I don't want to live in a vacuum. The factors that other people introduce are what make life interesting. However, if somebody is being destructive, I'm much much better at limiting their influence.

Have you found a specific outlook towards life that helps you a lot? (for example, you have learned that perseverence is the key to success or that tolerance is the key to relationships).
Hm. I do believe that good things are in store for me, that all I need to do is want it, work for it, watch for it. I don't really want anything desperately at the moment. Except for someone to solve family problems - lol - that will not happen though.:dry:

Do you have goals in your life that you think you will achieve or are your goals out of reach?
I don't know what my goals are. I guess be happy, make money, make people happy, have a family at some point, but I can't reeeeally control that last one though. :D
 

King sns

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I'm 26 and finding that life is opening all the doors instead of shutting them for the first time. Resistance is less,money is good, I've got a good idea of who I am and what I am capable of, and have the tools to do what I need to do. I'm also in great health and single, of course- (nothing holding me back.)

In general, I understand that life will not always be the same, and that this may be the only time I have to act. I feel as though I'm on the lucky end of the spectrum compared to the general public.

Right now, I enjoy doing things as I feel the time is right. Always have been an independent fighter/survivor type person. Now I feel like I don't need as much of the fighting and surviving part and more just going what the flow of where life is taking me- being open to opportunities and acting on them as they come to me naturally. I found that my purpose and goals may be much larger than originally imagined, and that they could actually happen on their own if I just quietly listen to my heart.
 

Snoopy22

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Do you think life is easy/hard, a struggle?
Depends on your situation growing up, if you grew up with wealth and pampered, driving a compact car could be a major inconvenience. I would say medium (but without the knowledge of past living conditions, this answer is of little use).

Do you feel like you have a lot of control over how your life goes?
No, life has too many variables, I feel lucky for 20% control (it’s difficult to control others decisions, sicknesses ect). Adaptability to situations is important.

Have you found a specific outlook towards life that helps you a lot? (for example, you have learned that perseverance is the key to success or that tolerance is the key to relationships).
Being pessimistic; with the hope that the more pessimistic, the more good things will show themselves. (expect the worse and be glad for anything that isn’t). Also, monogamy and honesty are the only thing to tolerate from a relationship (no less is acceptable (there’s more then two questions in the above).

Do you have goals in your life that you think you will achieve or are your goals out of reach?
They range from achievable to non-achievable, too easy makes you lazy; too difficult makes you lose hope.

Over 45 less then 50.
 

Red Herring

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Please tell us your general age group (under 20, 20's, 30's, 40's etc.)
31

And then tell us how you perceive life.
Complex, fascinating, sometimes cruel, sometimes incredibly beautiful...something to be observed and studied and analyzed and never stops to amaze you and make you wonder.

Do you think life is easy/hard, a struggle?
The occasional struggle is part of it. Good, bad, easy, tough - most of that is in the eye of the beholder. The world just is. The evaluation is up to you.
That being said, when and where you are born and who your parents are as well as genetics plays a considerable role. There's the micro level where nobody puts a gun to your head to stop you from doing what you want and the macro level where there are statistically observable structural big picture obstacles.
Right now, life is mostly good. I am actively working on a few things to get rid of some self-imposed obstacles to happiness.

Do you feel like you have a lot of control over how your life goes?
I didn't give this much thought when I was younger. Psychologists say that people with an internal locus of control (who perceive themselves to be in control of their own fate) tend to be happier and more successful in life - even when they are deluding themselves. Now that I am in my early thirties I have reached a point where I can detach myself from my upbringing and past experiences and analyze my past, present and future in a more objective manner than when I was younger. That helps me to reevaluate some core perceptions about myself and life in general. So in that respect I feel more in charge now.
On the other hand, I have already made some important decisions and there are a few paths that I will no longer be able to take (or not as easily). But there are also plenty of windows of opportunity that haven't even opened yet because I still need more life experience or professional experience. I think these cancel each other out.

Have you found a specific outlook towards life that helps you a lot? (for example, you have learned that perseverence is the key to success or that tolerance is the key to relationships).
- I have discovered that so many of the things we perceive as absolutes as a child are actually human mental constructs. (My mum told me when I was still in elementary school that justice was a concept in people's heads but not something that precedes humans)
- There are at least two sides to every story and many, many shades of grey. I am increasingly reluctant to form a firm black-and-white opinion on many things.
- Few people try to be "evil" on purpose. They either don't think or are well meaning but happen to have a different (sometimes screwed up) value system.
- As they say in German: "Es wird nichts so heiß gegessen wie es gekocht wird" (literally "nothing is eaten as hot as it is cooked", i.e. don't believe the hype or the scare mongering. The devil is not as black as he is painted.) Life experience helps with that, I guess (and hope).

Do you have goals in your life that you think you will achieve or are your goals out of reach?
See above.
I don't really have too many specific goals at the moment and take each day as it comes. Once I settle on what I want to do next with my life I will take appropriate action.
 

chickpea

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i'm 20

life's a bitch, nah better yet a dumb broad
and i bet i can fuck the world and make it cum hard
 

Lily flower

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I see a general pattern of general optimism in early 20's stretching into thinking life is difficult in early 40's. I wish someone over the age of 45 would actually get on the internet sites so we could see if the pendulum swings back as you get older.
 

kelric

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I'm 40.

Do you think life is easy/hard, a struggle?
If we're limiting this to what I think that life, for me personally, is like, I think it's too generic a question -- some aspects are easy, some are hard. I'm fortunate that (at least for now) I'm not struggling economically. I'll never be rich, but I'm doing okay -- and although I've worked to get where I am, I wouldn't say that I've "struggled" to do so. On the other hand, when it comes to relationships and finding a place in a social group, I'm all but hopeless. I've little if anything in the way of a social support structure, and the stressful and more-or-less chronic feeling that if I slip up, even a little, that I'll fall a long way with nobody to help me up is not a good one.

Do you feel like you have a lot of control over how your life goes?
It's like a river. I have enough control to learn how to swim, but the current is infinitely stronger than my best efforts. On occasion, the river will take me somewhere close enough to where I want to be that I can guide myself there temporarily... but that's largely a matter of chance.

Have you found a specific outlook towards life that helps you a lot? (for example, you have learned that perseverance is the key to success or that tolerance is the key to relationships).
Honestly, I don't really think in terms of specific outlooks very much... so I'm having a hard time pointing to any one thing. If anything, it would be that so little in the world is actually black-and-white. More is subject to the variances in opinion and circumstance than more-immature-me might have originally thought, and that simple answers are almost always incorrect (or at best, ignorant) ones. Nothing is all bad. Nothing is all good. Truth (and a certain kind of complex beauty) lies in the middle. I believe that this is a generally correct outlook, but it's seldom useful or practical in being a key to success, etc. Maybe taking time to remind yourself of what you have to be thankful for (however small it may be on any given day). That can help keep you balanced over a short term down-time.

Do you have goals in your life that you think you will achieve or are your goals out of reach?
I'm not particularly goal-oriented, so no. Not in the way where I'd say "if I work at X, I will oneday get Y, which would be awesome!". There are a few "I'd better do X, or I'll wind up in position Y, which would suck" things, but those aren't goals that I aspire to. Simply a way to avoid unfortunate circumstances. I have dreams, but they're pretty idealistic and completely unrealistic in this day and age -- nothing I could do would change that, so they're not really "goals".
 

Lark

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I see a general pattern of general optimism in early 20's stretching into thinking life is difficult in early 40's. I wish someone over the age of 45 would actually get on the internet sites so we could see if the pendulum swings back as you get older.

I'll be honest that my level of optimism has stayed pretty constant and steady, although it has been tempered by knowledge or information.

Some life milestones dont live up to the hopes or expectations or perhaps you learn a bit about why the ideologies, religions or philosophies you where thrilled about when you where younger have a dark side, imperfections or have legitimate challengers but its not a lack of optimism.
 

Silveresque

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Please tell us your general age group (under 20, 20's, 30's, 40's etc.)
I'm 18.

And then tell us how you perceive life.
Life is whatever you make of it.

Do you think life is easy/hard, a struggle?
Life just is. I never saw it as easy or hard.

Do you feel like you have a lot of control over how your life goes?
Sort of. I can control the general direction, but I can't guarantee I'll make it anywhere.

Have you found a specific outlook towards life that helps you a lot? (for example, you have learned that perseverence is the key to success or that tolerance is the key to relationships).
The key to successful procrastination is really to wait until the second to last minute, that way you still have extra time if things don't go as well as you expect.

Do you have goals in your life that you think you will achieve or are your goals out of reach?
I don't set goals. I just move toward what I want and see how far that takes me.
 

FunnyDigestion

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I'm kinda feeling dead-end-ish with life lately, to be frank... due to circumstance. What is it with circumstances? They're always so shady. I'm finna change that though. Life is hard & a struggle, & painful, but also struggling is how you grow, & on the other side of every pain is a happiness. When I was 20 I felt like the world was my lemon, like I could do anything. Now a lot of what seemed so great to do doesn't seem that important. But I'm bout to get on some new shit. I'm going into my (trademarking this) 'Orange Period.' Like Picasso's blue period, the inverse. Orange being the complement of blue. Just gettin' on some new shit is what I'm concerned with here. A lot of good things are gonna happen to me soon, I'm relatively certain about it.

:coffee: ... nose 2 teh grindstone
 

Synapse

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Please tell us your general age group
34 and on a life path of the most extraordinary kind. :D

And then tell us how you perceive life.
...In brief.

I feel life is prebirthed and this artifact of conception we portray as our stations of life are created from contracts that manifest into this world by our preconceived notion of karma and the kind of learning we wish to become aware of in our current incarnation.

Having mentioned contracts, I would now like to discuss the mirroring effect and living in sufferance to our mirrors. Early on in life before we become influenced by our birthgivers, families, friends and society our innate ability in comprehension is different. Indeed our rate of exploration and enchantment with the world is such that we go around doing until controls and restrictions become conditioned into our psyche to stop doing such and such a thing and to become dulistic oriented, that everything is piled into good or bad, our senses become limited, our perceptions change, our hearts start closing to the hurts that are becoming apparent. Then our minds become the primary focus of our lives. And in this living world it is with our minds that we find ourselves thinking without having the opportunity to open our hearts and thinking and feeling our way with our hearts. Because it is too painful from all the experiences in the world that are telling us our mind is the center of the universe when our hearts are.

Then there is our response rates created by a mirroring effect that is in sufferance to our emotions. As a direct reflection of who we are from our conditioning we attract, indeed become the mirrors of our lives, and this is deeper than the surface infrastructure I speak of. In these mirrors we are in effect being shown that which we are often times running away from. We may call this in Carl Jung speak sense Anima and Animus. The minute you change this, the in sufferance changes and mirrors stop having the control in our lives we feed to them without knowing how to forgive, release and create a sense of gratitude that all of it was a manifestation brought about from our pasts to our present so that we may learn, learn deeply of the nectar of life and the station of living we have been creating, giving and receiving in this time reality.

Do you think life is easy/hard, a struggle?
Anyway the reality isn't whether life is easy or hard, or a struggle for struggle is much the same as hard or survival mentality that is lumped in with a poverty mentality instead of an abundance mentality. This is a limited belief.

Now I could discuss why society creates, indeed programmed a poverty mentality subconsciousness but that would drag on and go into the psychology of money, love and power.

What I would like to say is when you restore, reclaim and become certain in your presence as a human being with self belief in your spirit, your essential unshakable, unbreakable power source, the center of your being. Then life is neither easy nor hard nor a struggle, it is now an acceptable form of living, because you are starting to change the perceptual limitation that a, life is meant to be about hard work to achieve all your goals and ambitions or none. b. life is meant to be about easy work to achieve all your goals and ambitions or none.

When your restore your heart, your inner passion, your inner being to understand that you are more than the station of impediment then you start transmuting your light, your energy into alignment with your dreams, your life's purpose and any obstacle that comes your way is no longer an obstacle by circumstance, environment or limitation but by choice, freedom and creation.

Do you feel like you have a lot of control over how your life goes?
Having said that, when you are able to rebalance your entire being, your feminine and masculine shadows, (anima and animus for Jungian enthusiasts) then your ability to create the fluidity in your life becomes your source of power instead of giving away your power by asking for approval, indeed by having others strip you of your control, balance and security by undermining all of this you start actually moving forward with a sense of assertion and confidence that is now psychologically profound. And many of your life scripts in your emotional, physical and conscious bodies become in alignment to who you are and then having control over your life isn't a matter of question, it is certainty.

And I would like to say that this is more than having control on how your life goes for this is a perceptual thing, almost an inbred competitive thing, perhaps saying when you have a lot of certainty and presence over your life is better.

Have you found a specific outlook towards life that helps you a lot? (for example, you have learned that perseverence is the key to success or that tolerance is the key to relationships).
Gratitude, Certainty and Presence creates confidence, assertion and affirmation.

Perseverance entails a survival instinctual variance in behaviour and this would then feed into a particular loop and I would like to say it is a quality born from uncertainty. You persevere to become certain in your success, for how long does that take? It is a form of sufferance, to persevere is to be in sufferance to your human condition. Tolerance is a interesting word, how far does one tolerate and persevere a relationship? how far does one tolerate anything, does tolerance stem from a sense of stubbornness to persevere in sufferance to the situation thinking the longer we are there the sooner this will change?

Personally I prefer peace without perseverance and patience without tolerance. For it is peaceful to be rested, and it is patient to be kind. While tolerance is all very well and good, it is while in a state of patience does one appreciate the gift of gratitude that tolerance wouldn't.

Do you have goals in your life that you think you will achieve or are your goals out of reach?
Yes I have goals that I am certain I will achieve and my goals are no longer held in place by limitations. For the greatest limitation we can place upon ourselves is the belief that any and every kind of information that comes to us is from outside sources. When our reality comes from understanding our inner consciousness first. When we can do this like a wave our whole infrastructure, intellectual, emotional and energetic quantum collapses from thinking and feeling the reality we are finding ourselves in is unchangeable, for life, in sufferance to every and any obstacle that comes our way. This is where dreams and goals start and end.
 
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I'm told I'm in my 20s.
Do you think life is easy/hard, a struggle?
Life is just a thing and it's people who make things hard or easy.
Do you feel like you have a lot of control over how your life goes?
I'd like to think I am 100% in control, but in reality it's about 50%. Meaning I could slit my wrists now and hope I'd die, but by some fucked up twist of fate I could end up surviving anyway.
Have you found a specific outlook towards life that helps you a lot?
Don't be kind or mean for the sake of being so, be kind or mean because it's going to get you ahead.
Do you have goals in your life that you think you will achieve or are your goals out of reach?
I don't have any goals at this time. I'm just shuffling along and if I happen to do something spectacular I guess I'll call it goal and cross it off my list.
 

Lily flower

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Well I read an article about this - sorry I don't have the link at this second. It says that happiness starts out high in the 20's, hits a low point at age 45, then climbs steadily to hit a high point at age 65.
 

Synapse

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Well I read an article about this - sorry I don't have the link at this second. It says that happiness starts out high in the 20's, hits a low point at age 45, then climbs steadily to hit a high point at age 65.

More likely this would be an issue when dreams are out of alignment and mid life crisis sets during 45. If people are in alignment to their dreams then life is in balance. My 20s, I wish were happy days. Starting to be now though has some way to go before I reach my forties.
 

cascadeco

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Well I read an article about this - sorry I don't have the link at this second. It says that happiness starts out high in the 20's, hits a low point at age 45, then climbs steadily to hit a high point at age 65.

Yay, my 20's were probably my most unhappy, confused years of my life (generally speaking), and my teens weren't much better. From my perspective 30's are WAY better, as I had worked through most of the elements causing me such discord in those prior decades, and am now in a better position to navigate through, and understand, myself and life. I've also heard many state kind of the opposite of your article, that 40's are better than 30's. And so on. It's really pretty individual I think.

I think that if someone had the best time of their life in their teens and 20's, then they may not have had many challenges, or even had a need to broach certain life topics/thoughts (and there's nothing wrong with that), so they're bound to dip down a bit and the sheer contrast will be painful. Whereas someone who had it rougher in their teens/20's may have already come to terms with many elements of life/ come to know themselves well, so that their golden years are later on. But then you have a big subset of very bitter older people who are having a rough go of it, and they would say life was much better in their younger years. I mean, you can go back and forth on this - it's why I think it's very individual.

I think a big piece of the 'golden years' though (at whatever age it happens) isn't necessarily that it IS easier/things really ARE that much better - but rather it's the mindset that allows one to be ok and happy and accepting/at peace with much of what comes ones' way. As others have said, life is what you make of it. Much of it is perception. What angle are you looking at it? And if you're happy, you're happy. Even if tangibly you're dealing with things that you wouldn't have been able to cope with when younger.

I suppose we all go through many of the same phases, just at differing times in life. :shrug:
 

KDude

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Early 30s. I'm pretty sure I'm far behind most in my "age group".

How do I percieve life? I think it's full of unnecessary paperwork and cockblocking. I would have made a decent caveman or criminal actually. Cutting my way through everything seems like the most expedient thing to do to get "control" of one's life. And I was on my way in doing as much when I was in my teens. I had to do something stupid though and get "morals".

Only problem is that I never learned to adjust to...umm.. playing the whole game of life, I guess. I'm not responsible exactly. So I feel like I'm going nowhere. I don't have it in me anymore to be as aggressive as I once was, and I don't have it in me to play along and be another rat racing, hard working, blue collar chump. I just float around.

I'm sure I'm being vague and/or none of this makes sense.

Oddly though, I'm kind of happy. I'm pretty sure I have less stress than most people my age. No crow's feet either.
 

Rasofy

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Please tell us your general age group (under 20, 20's, 30's, 40's etc.)
23.
And then tell us how you perceive life.
Life is a journey. Limited and supposed to be pleasant.
Do you think life is easy/hard, a struggle?
Depends on how easily you are satisfied and how far you wanna go. Easy lives lead to stagnancy and depression, while hard lives make you evolve. Pressure makes diamonds. As long as you have some control over it, a challenging life is much preferable.
Do you feel like you have a lot of control over how your life goes?
No. I earned enough money to do almost everything I want, but I hate the son condition. Crap, I want to be treated like an equal. That's gonna get more manageable once I leave home, fortunately.
Have you found a specific outlook towards life that helps you a lot? (for example, you have learned that perseverence is the key to success or that tolerance is the key to relationships).
Learn with your mistakes. Even better, learn with other people's mistakes. It is hard to avoid mistakes once you are emotionally invested, so go easy on yourself. Just face reality and be stronger next time.
Do you have goals in your life that you think you will achieve or are your goals out of reach?
Goals out of reach are dreams. I don't fool myself. Ok, at least not consciously.
 
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