About to turn 30. Any advice on how to deal with the depression?

Some may say I "wasted" my 20s- changing majors, dropping out of school, going back, trying 3 different careers, multiple countries. When I turned 30, I was in deep debt (student loans + credit cards), a year or so into my 4th career and a few years into a marriage that I couldn't admit wasn't going to work out. Some of my friends were years into their careers, financially successful, some already had kids, I felt like I was woefully behind and would never catch up.

Fast forward and by my late 30s I'm debt free, make more money that I ever imagined, in a wonderful 2nd marriage, my 4th career turned out to be perfect for me and everything is on track. A lot can change in a few years, if things are not working now, doesn't mean they won't work in the future. Explore, learn about yourself and others, take calculated risks and keep going.

>I feel like I owe myself a lot, and even though I'm in a relationship now, I can't stop thinking about the opportunities that I missed with girls when I was younger.

If you love the someone you're with, you don't care about other opportunities. What would be the point? Some special organs that another person doesn't have? Keeping score of how many times you've got laid?

On the other hand, if you don't love someone, then it doesn't really matter if you get other opportunities - they're just empty fun for an hour or so but feeling empty afterwards.

Sure, it's cool to be a "player" for a little while in your late teens/early 20s, but it gets boring soon, just as the fun with alcohol and partying and many other things. Most of the people you know that 'did' go to parties and such, are dead bored of them at this age.

Also, is all this a real desire - things you really want to do today, or merely a response to a fear of having missed out? These two cases are not the same.

Lastly, you're just about to turn 30. You are still young, and can do anything you like to turn your life around. Heck, even someone at 40 or 50 could...

As for "transitioning to the industry" it's probably not a bad idea. Modern academia sucks, and unless you've made it somehow, it can be even more work and less pay than the industry. Heck, people make money even as nomads working remotely (and I'm not talking nomads making money by selling the nomad lifestyle: I mean people really working remotely from some city in Thailand and co, without vlogging about it). Plus, the modern industry (if we're talking IT) is hiring...

In one year you could revolutionize your life, if you really wanted it. Based on your comment this could be a reasonable 12 months plan:

- Get out of academia

- Get a 6 figure paying job in the industry

- Get out of your current relationship

- Rent a one bedroom apartment in a major city close to work and go on binge dating until the feeling of regret will be gone

It is likely that after taking all these steps you’d not be feeling depressed anymore, and life would have brought you in some interesting places.

I shared similar emotions in regards to dating in my mid 20s (specifically my girlfriend at the time had significantly more dating experience than me and that made me feel utterly inferior), so I did exactly that. I broke up with her, moved from the suburbs to a major city, and after casually dating ~50 women over the course of the following 4 years, I finally settled with my current partner and couldn’t be happier, we’ve been together 5 years and going strong. On top of that I have fun memories of my previous dating phase, which did a lot to boost my self confidence and tame any “missed out” feelings.

You’re 30, you have your whole life ahead of you and you greatest achievements are likely going to come from work you haven’t even thought of yet.

Identify what you truly enjoy, people you like to be with and set goals you want to aspire to. Make sure you spend your next 10 years focused on those things.

I'm sorry you've been going through this. I can relate somewhat. I have been successful by most standards, but made large sacrifices for "paths less taken" that didn't work out like I'd hoped. That included a prestigious PhD, which I did complete but was a grueling experience that ravaged my mental health (grad school can be absolutely brutal for this). Everything culminated between 35-40, a hard season of questioning the direction of my life, feeling restless and dissatisfied, and yearning for something I couldn't name.

You will find plenty of practical advice (such as about career changes), which may be helpful. Professional mental health care can also be important. But I'd also encourage you to take the "inner journey" aspect of this seriously. When we enter these listless seasons, it's often because our soul is alerting us to something in our life that isn't working for us... and thus offering us an opportunity to learn and grow. The darkness has a lot to teach if you do the inner work to slow down and listen to what it has to say. During these years I gained a lot of empathy and wisdom about life.

Passing through these seasons is a universal part of the human experience, and you'll find some wonderful guides. Some of my favorite resources include this article by David Brooks [0], "Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life" by James Hollis, "Let Your Life Speak" by Parker Palmer, "Falling Upward" by Richard Rohr, "Crossing the Unknown Sea" by David Whyte, and "Reboot" by Jerry Colonna.

I also wrote a book about my own experience, titled "Eating Glass: The Inner Journey Through Failure and Renewal", designed to help others navigate these seasons. I have numerous free chapters here [1]. My main goal for the book is just to help others going through these seasons, so if you email me, I'll send you a free digital copy. I sincerely wish you luck finding your way through this season.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/moral-revo... [1] https://markdjacobsen.com/eating-glass/

First, don't feel like you traded serious relationships for academia. A lot of younger relationships don't work because the people aren't grown up enough. (For me, I had to become less of an arrogant jerk. That took a bit of time.) So don't kick yourself, looking back and saying "I could have dated..." You could have, and you might have enjoyed it, but put your mental energy into chasing the relationship you're in now.

In fact, don't look back much. You want to learn from past mistakes, sure. But if you've had a car accident, and as you drive off you're staring in the rear-view mirror at the accident, you're going to have another one, because your attention is on the accident, not on your driving. Learn from the past, but put most of your attention on what you're doing now.

You sound unfulfilled in academia. It often is unfulfilling. But so is working in industry. Fulfillment isn't going to come from either of those places; both are ultimately empty. But fulfillment might come from your relationship. Don't sacrifice that for either a degree or a job. (Personally, I'd say that even a relationship isn't ultimately enough; real fulfillment comes from knowing God.)

But you didn't actually say that you were unfulfilled, you said that you'd never be appreciated. Do you need to be? You are unlikely to be, either in academia or in industry. (Again, though, you might be in your relationship.)

Oh, and in your title you said "depression". You're in grad school. It's amazing how high a percentage of grad students suffer from depression - like, 60+%. The depression isn't necessarily telling you that there's something wrong with you, or that you don't belong in academia. It's telling you that there's something fundamentally wrong with grad school. (Which, if you can't change it, may be telling you that academia isn't where you should be.)

No real conclusions, just some thoughts that you may or may not find useful...

> I also think about dropping out of the PhD program and transitioning to the industry, maybe because I feel like I'll never be appreciated in academia and maybe because I feel like I need a new beginning.

In my years in the industry, I have worked with several people who had finished their PhDs. Their PhD was only useful for one of them in one occasion, when our employer needed someone with a PhD to receive some state grant. Other than that, we solve the same problems with similar degrees of success. The only difference is that they are significantly older.

I know where you're coming from. I just turned thirty, and haven't done nearly as much as I wish I had. For me, I mostly just wish I had worked harder, but also some of the social/romantic things you mentioned. My sole qualification for posting is that I successfully avoided feeling awful at the transition to 30.

This is not really about "turning 30". It's about regrets. I won't pretend these are invalid regrets; "we all make mistakes", while true, is not a very good excuse for any particular mistake, no matter what anyone says who is trying to cheer you up.

But regrets are a universal problem. There's only one thing you can really do about them: try to do better in the future. Think carefully about what you could have done differently with the information you had then, but don't dwell on them. That will just turn into another regret down the road.

Make a plan. Execute. "Just do it" is another awful cliche, but has a large kernel of truth to it.

Even if you know this intellectually, the tricky part is getting yourself to believe it, down in your gut where you actually act on it day to day. If I ever figure out the easy way to do this, I'll write a book, but I don't think there is one. Thinking hard about what you want from life will probably help. That's the closest to advice I can do.

39.5 here: you're young. You might not believe it, but you actually are. Plenty of time to course-correct or even start over. Rather than finding coping mechanisms for the crippling depression of having arrived at an advanced age without accomplishment, go fix what you see as the problem(s) while you're still young enough to benefit maximally from the improvement.

Industry is not a bad idea. But most crucially, the thing you feel is an identity slipping away. Academia has priesthoods, and so does industry. When you fall out of the fold, it can be a hard crash. People who can't find a fit tend towards taking odd jobs or a van down by the river. That's the real thing driving discontent at 30 - "I'm not making it, maybe I'm all washed up." But you are most likely done with priesthoods. Your second act looks different from your first.

Studying something of genuine interest is a crucial first step. It may be apparently trivial, in which case you call it "art". It may be of obvious import, and then it is "philosophy". The thing you study and the thing that brings in money may coincide, and that will make for a contented life for a time. But there will be little public indication that you might be succeeding at the personal journey. You must create your own rubrics and principles of operation.

You are still quite young, and you have plenty of time to correct those aspects of your life in which you feel deficient.

-- 61 yr-old guy

Learn from it. Otherwise you're going to experience these same regrets when you're about to turn 40, 50, 60, 70, ...

Figure out your goals/principles/mission today. Then make that happen now.

There's never going to be a right time to do anything other than now. Because you're never going to be any younger.

You are setting your expectations on marketed social norms which are pretty much meaningless. Who cares if you didn't go to parties? Being mature earlier is a bliss not a curse. Anyway check these out and good luck:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG1WzYaHQeh6LV3eFcdxR... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdKM8n7mwq0&list=PLG1WzYaHQe...

/u/poem_for_your_sprog

  I should have hurried youth, in truth,
  And moved more quickly on -
  I should have made the most of youth,
  Before the time was gone.
  
  I should have followed fancy, free,
  Before it thought to fade -
  I should have picked a good degree,
  Or found myself a trade.

  I should have stopped to stare above;
  To share another's dreams -
  I should have never welcomed love,
  And lost it all, it seems.
  
  No matter what the aim or end -
  No matter what you do -
  Regrets are part of life, my friend:
  Don't let them conquer you

Remarkable research by Benjamin Hardy on the impact our environment has on the body/mind/spirit.

Rotate your environments-getting out of your rut by literally changing your physical surroundings throughout the day or week.

> https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35604684-willpower-do...

Self-compassion is key. Forgive yourself for the things you didn't do, but also know that regret over inaction is just a feeling, and feelings are not perfectly reliable. Regret is a heuristics informed by your values and perception. It can be good for you if you use it for good, just don't be entirely duped by it.

There is no golden path, spending your twenties travelling the world or chasing a different career still could have led you to disappointment. Ultimately happiness can be learned, and can have little prerequisities if you learn to love yourself.

I for example usually treat myself as a blob of fancy goo, I try, I fail, I forgive myself, I keep on trying. I try to accept that I can't control everything, I try to accept my limitations. Paradoxically once that happens, once there is no judgment the motivation to defend myself by entertaining delusions goes away and reality takes it's place. Only when I have a solid grasp on reality I can overcome my limitations.

Here's a path that has worked for many people from all kinds of life paths.

Leave academia. It's intellectually sterile, economically exploitative, and will implode sooner rather that later.

Get an industry job. The market is hot, and any experience you have will pay off far more than academia ever might. Don't worry if the job isn't "groundbreaking" or "cutting edge." Don't look for satisfaction in your work, that's a dead end.

Instead, get a life partner. If you're concerned that you will be outcompeted, your goal here is not to get the world's most attractive or fascinating person. Most people make ok life partners. Don't wait to make a deep, profound connection with some kind of mystical soul mate who understands you implicitly. That's a dead end.

It's more important that your partner is fecund. With a child on the way, you will find that your interests and aspirations will become narrow and clear: a large house on an attractive lot far from the city, a car large enough to carry a growing family in comfort, a quality school system with great student outcomes, a support network of local parents. But don't live through your children. They could never live up to the hopes and fantasies your mind will pile on them. That's a dead end.

Instead, get a vintage "mechanic's special" sports car and drag it into your garage. Spend your weekends trying to repair it. Get into craft beer appreciation. A good board game can shave off a good 2-3 hours of unfilled time. I've had a surprising amount of fun driving a riding mower in little circles. It's the little things in life.

I've seen a lot of restless, neurotic twenty and thirty-somethings who experienced a lightbulb moment of epiphany and became dedicated, purpose-driven, calm, and determined adults when they understood what a good life is about.

Quit academia, it’s a black hole that will consume you and never reward you. Industry pays better and gives you more options. You are wasting 100s of thousand in opportunity costs by staying. You probably won’t discover anything great and even if you do you won’t get anything for it. Use your talent to make money use your money to live life.

Don't beat yourself up. You can take a leave of absence or internship before completely dropping out. Take some time to try those things you think you missed out on. If after that, you may or may notfeel like returning to grad school. Some decisions take time and space to make.

I’ve heard it said that life doesn’t really start until 40.

As you grow up I think you get to know yourself better, you get better emotional stability, etc, and doors open up for you to really dive in and find and enjoy genuine happiness with less drama and less confusion. The only doors that really close as you get older are physical ones, and you can do things to slow that down. Everything else is a social construct.

Your 20s are about feeling things out and making mistakes. Some people make stereotypical “mistakes” like drinking too much and getting into trouble; others make different “mistakes” like spending too much time on their career, or choosing the wrong career, or burning out. I think these are equally valid and necessary as learning experiences.

Answering the question in the title is hard for me, but I can give you a side tip on this:

> I feel immense regret for a lot of things that I didn't do in my 20s.

First, it is natural to feel this way. It means you appreciate yourself and your time. Now, the past is past. No matter how much you think about what you did or didn't do, nothing will change your "lost time". The only thing you can change is your future, try to make better decissions using the wisdom you have gained.

Finally, if you fail to make the most out of your years to come, don't beat yourself. Failure is the basis for success. We all fail and we use the failures to succeed further down the road.

Also, keep a few close friends near you and love them :)

Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both -- Kirkegaard

The number thirty seems like a big deal at the time. In hindsight it was a minor speedbump not much different than any other birthday. Thirties can be one of the most enjoyable times in life, with an open mind.

I read an article by a guy who had terminal cancer at around 30, maybe he was 32.

He said something like, “Ever ygray hair is a somewhat a blessing because you’re at least getting to experience more of your life, you at least have the option to experience growing older, it’s not a luxury I’ll receive.”

Also growing “old” is still largely optional, keep your mind plastic, keep fit, keep strong, eat well, sleep well and you’ll feel twenty hours while life. I know many older people who told me they felt twenty even when they died.

You still have time, get moving in the direction you want to be heading!

Most of us are generally very hard on ourselves. Every 5 - 10 years we all look back and regret something. To balance this you need to also look at things you did that you are proud of or made you happy. To get into the habit of appreciating your life, start keeping a "Gratitude" diary or blog, and list at least 1 thing every day that made you feel good. It can be something as simple as "old lady smiled at me" to something bigger "bought a new car for mom & dad!".

I turn 30 in the summer. I feel immense regret for reasons I can’t really explain. I’ve been in the military (I felt like I belonged in the military more than any other place in life), I’ve had great jobs, made a lot of money, own a condo, am as “set” as I possibly could be at current job, have the ability to jump to other jobs.

Relationships haven’t been great, but also never really a problem or something I’ve overly desired. I do value some really close friends I’ve made through dating.

I don’t feel free.

Hey, I feel vaguely similar, although on a much milder basis. I go from starry eyed to quite a bit of regret and contempt. I am not happy with that, and I am working on it, at the same time it is what it is. I used to be simply starry eyed.

While I am no therapist, I know a thing or two about sacrifice, perhaps less than you, but enough to perhaps have a fun (or interesting/stimulating) chat about it.

If you're up for a Google Meet, feel free to email me (see my profile).

> I also think about dropping out of the PhD program and transitioning to the industry

Yes, do this. It’s a good start towards being happier. Academia is largely thankless BS and if you don’t already love it then you probably won’t ever.

Get yourself healthy, paid, entertained, etc. first - before you start running around trying to change the world and do meaningful stuff.

You won’t be of much use to anyone else until you’ve got yourself squared away.

dating got a lot more successful for me after I turned 30 so don't feel bad about missing out. Rather, start focusing on it now because you have some leveling up to do.

I empathize with you. You conned yourself into academia.

If you regret not having enough partners. Don't regret, probably, you wouldn't have much anyway. Top 20% gets 80% of the action. You aren't in the top 20%.

Academia is awful. Again top 20% of the students get 80% of the attention and opportunities. Seems you aren't in the top 20%.

So what to do from here? First stop digging. If you don't want to marry the girl you are with, Cut the relation, don't be a moron, don't make her loose time. Go to a church and set your life in order. Hear Jordan Peterson on YouTube. Get an entry level job in tech. Go for data analyst or systems administrator. If you are able to land a developer job, great. Currently you are worth close to 0 to the market. You are useless, but you are smart and you can learn. Swallow your pride and get some useful skills.

Go outside more. Exercise to exhaustion. Stop feeding negative thought patterns. Have fun.

I think you should do LSD.

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." -- George Eliot

as someone in his 30s I think Rick gave a good advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgAL4L1sXtg

OK first off, why should the specific age of 30 be allowed to carry all this extra meaning? 30 is just 29 + 1 or one less than 31. There's nothing inherently significant about it. All it means is: [number of times the earth has gone around the sun since you were born] modulo [number of fingers you have] = 0. It's 11110 in binary, or 1E in hex. Not such a round number now, eh?

By the way, the time when you were born, from whence we counted world-revolutions just now, is not at all important either. Only about 1/365th of the world's population gives a shit. heh heh

I'm messing with you a little bit and yet I'm not. Keeping it light-hearted because really it doesn't matter. It's not something to take seriously. Life, I mean. Not serious. Count me 100% in favor of a new beginning, because those are cool and make for a great story someday. Also, sadly I think academia in general might be a lost cause at this point, arguably a waste of time, and certainly a whole big whoppin' pile o'bullshit and sacrifice, as you have so astutely realized.

I don't know if I'll end up in the minority in this thread but I think you should spend some time doing the things you missed out on. But I also think you should just work it into your normal routine. Don't like, go on a 3-week herpes-catching spree in New Orleans or something, just make time every day for something fun and social. If you're doing something that prevents you from having any free time at all, that thing is unustainable, as you have, again, so astutely realized.

If sex were excruciating and millions of years of evolution hadn't selected so strongly for wanting to mate with as many people as possible from as many different tribes or genetic lines as possible, I'd say yeah probably on your deathbed you'll be totally indifferent to all the kids and grandkids you spawned, all gathered around you, and instead be thinking fondly of your PhD and/or immensely regretting that you didn't finish one. Not bloodly likely. I think life is about human relationships basically. Although according to evolution, it's not even that: life is basically for mating, and everything else is extraneous, except to the degree that it helps you get laid. I said according to evolution, all right? jeez! Evolution is dumb. It all (life I mean, and especially mating, but both) is inherently kinda dumb. Sex is dumb but we, also, are somewhat dumb. Maybe your only purpose here is to pass on some genetic material. After that, maybe nobody gives a shit, so however you spend your time after your genes have deserted your sinking-ass ship, it had better be whatever you actually and truly want to do. Get as many PhDs as you want, but they're optional and should be something YOU enjoy doing.

I don't mean to make light too much. Well yes I do. But nonetheless I remember being a bit depressed when I hit 30. On the day itself my pals took me to a drag-queen show and they had a big closed-circuit TV screen showing close-ups of onstage action as well as occasionally people the queens would pick out from the crowd to pick on. Well of course my buddies told them it was my 30th birthday and they did sing for me, also snarkily offering condolences, thanks a lot, but that meant the camera, behind the crowd and slightly above, was pointed at me for a bit and there on the screen I saw the back of my head for the first time in a while, already going bald. FUUUUUUUUU...

Then a big recession hit, I lost my "big, important" job, suddenly had time to kill and basically kicked off about 5 years of, if you'll pardon me, eating so much goddamned pussy that I barely had time for chores. Yes I'm a heterosexual male, my pronouns are (he, him, his penis). Such a thing is generally not compatible with being "in a relationship," but trust me, you're not "in" the relationship you're in, until you're so sick of hanging out with half-assed trollops, and so amazed to find a partner of quality, that you're actually relieved to be done with dating. Like there's not a trace of regret for the past because the present and future are so much better. That's where you want to be. That relationship will be the keeper. But oddly enough I think it'll have less to do with the relationship itself or the partner, and more to do with just your being ready for it yourself.