I am currently married, with 2 young kids. Going to hit 40 soon.
Born in SG, studied and worked here. By all accounts I have a comfortable life e.g. 5Cs all got. But there is a nagging feeling of doom around the corner; like you know everything is too good to be true so there must be something bad coming.
I’ve had friends say just live in the moment don’t overthink things but then I feel if I don’t make plans for the future then I wont be prepared for it. If I try making plans I feel the need to manage every contingency that it becomes super stressful. I then end up trying to processify everything and making it a repeatable task that requires minimal input and tweaking.
For example I hate monitoring investments, but believe in the value of saving. So will spend a few months studying the market and landscape, investigate the options, choose some investments, make it monthly deducting and then just let it go on by itself with sporadic checks. If it goes up or down I don’t feel anything as to me its a long-term investment so let it be.
I then force myself to try and be contented with life i.e. stay in same house don’t upgrade, deny some luxuries, don’t change car very often. After a few months I will be like why am I not pushing myself to achieve and strive for higher things. But then when I start doing the math of deciding to take larger investments e.g. car, house I will be worrying about economic and job uncertainty and if sensible to make such large financial decisions in such volatile times.
I feel I was more hardworking when I was younger and extremely driven in career and money making, then watching my bosses and colleagues I felt continuing to do so would be detrimental to having a happy family so switched track and tried to be more family focused. I love spending time with my kids and spouse, organizing family get togethers and stuff. But after that feel super drained and wonder if I actually made a difference e.g. won’t the kids have had the same level of happiness if I just sent them to some play area with other kids?
I just want to know if there are other people who feel the same way? Always double guessing yourself and wondering if you are doing the right thing. How do other people deal with it? Am I some neurotic case that needs help or normal?
P.S. None of this is said to make anyone feel bad, or judge others who do things differently.