While I'm not quite mid life age yet, 31, I feel like it's been an eternity since my true youth. My life has changed in almost every way possible in the last 7-8 years.
I used to be a semi-pro halfpipe snowboarder, and i did nothing but snowboard and skateboard almost every day. I even spent 5 weeks each summer in Whistler to keep training. At the tail end of my "career" (I never got a paycheck, just LOTS of product and contest winnings) I went to school for advertising and marketing, got a job, was overworked and underpayed and then I quit. I started building fence and decks, solely because i could, and needed a paycheck. Ended up doing that for a while as I was making triple what I used to.
Then an old snowboard injury took me out of the building game and I had to resort back to the design/advertising business...hated it more than the time before and quit once again.
I got stuck in limbo for a while, odd jobs, cash under the table and LOTS of support from my father who could see I was unhappy and down on life.
The i stumbled on this site and it changed my life, and that's no exaggeration.
After I started putting together Green Pre kits, I started to feel guilty when someone would ask me a question that I didn't know the answer to. So, i talked it over with my fiancee, and decided to go back to school for electronics engineering at the age of 27. That decision made a huge difference in my life. I focused hard on school, worked my ass off to pay for it and finally grew up and took responsibility seriously. Since then I have grown in every way imaginable and juggle diypartssupply.com, building fences and decks, and small cnc projects.
That's why I say that though I am still young, I've come a hell of long way from snowboarding/skateboarding everyday with no plans for the future and feel like it's been an eternity.
Now i have a small business, get a TON of deck work (I'm told that I'm very good at it, lol), I'm married, have a house, and a child on the way later this year.
The crisis that I find my self in is that I feel like I wasted a bunch of time years ago, and i can't get it back, and I need to learn to deal with that fact. I've come to terms with it mostly, but still regret how MUCH time I spent accomplishing nothing more than good times. Don't get me wrong, I value the experience and had a blast, but wish i had come to my senses earlier.
Rant over.