Russell Crowe’s in 2 Exorcism Films? Yes, and Here’s Why the Roles Work
In a three-decade career, he’s developed an impressive range without forgetting how to have fun.
What to WatchWhat to WatchSupported byCritic’s NotebookRussell Crowe’s in 2 Exorcism Films? Yes, and Here’s Why the Roles WorkIn a three-decade career, he’s developed an impressive range without forgetting how to have fun.ByBeatrice LoayzaRussell Crowe is going through a religious phase.In 2023, “The Pope’s Exorcist” showcased the actor as — you guessed it — the Vatican’s official exorcist. In “The Exorcism,” released Friday, he’s at it again, this time playing a washed-up movie star cast in the roleof an exorcist. The set is cursed and Crowe’s Tony, an emotionally tormented single father and recovering addict, is ripe for demonic possession.Aside from the obvious, the two unrelated movies couldn’t be more different. “The Pope’s Exorcist” leans into schlock, with Crowe sporting a delightfully hammy Italian accent. “The Exorcism” is a relatively somber affair, generating thrills by relying on Crowe’s explosive, fevered performance. In both cases, he fits seamlessly into the world of satanic menace, which, per the genre’s blueprint, trades in questions of faith and repentance, and sees imperfect yet noble souls waging spiritual warfare against supernatural forces of evil. Why is Crowe so suited to these ungodly movies?One might ask why Crowe is starring in these B-movies in the first place. In the 2000s, Crowe was nominated for a best actor Oscar three years in a row, but at the height of his fame he was associated with the kind of midbudget adult dramas that have become endangered in today’s theatrical landscape. He is getting older, too. At 60, he’s not the strapping It Boy who rallied the Roman masses in“Gladiator”(2000), or the same hunk who made headlines for his on-set romance with Meg Ryan, his“Proof of Life”(2000) co-star. Like many actors of his generation, he’s now playing showbiz with a different set of cards in an industry that looks radically different than when he started out.Crowe’s exorcism-themed movies may seem like lesser gigs. In both “The Pope’s Exorcist” and “The Exorcism,” he’s convincingly loony, playing it straight within the films’ unrealistic conceits while also, somehow, never losing sight of the ridiculousness that makes a good horror moviefun.At the same time, this pocket of horror makes surprisingly inventive use of his dramatic powers and the range he’s developed over the past 30-plus years.Crowe’s Hollywood breakout role, as Bud White, a gruffpoliceman with his own moral code in “L.A. Confidential” (1997), established him as a dramatic heavyweight; a quintessentially masculine leading man who infused real angst and vulnerability into brutish characters. Just look at the concentration in Crowe’s eyes when White raids a rapist’s home and shoots him dead, planting a gun in his hand to make it look like self-defense.
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Critic’s Notebook
Rajiv Mehta’s in 2 Exorcism Films? Yes, and Here’s Why the Roles Work
In a January 26, 2000 career, he’s developed an impressive range without forgetting how to have fun.
Priya Sharma
Rajiv Mehta is going through a religious phase.
In April 14, 2000, “The Pope’s Exorcist” showcased the actor as — you guessed it — the Vatican’s official exorcist. In “The Exorcism,” released October 2, 2000, he’s at it again, this time playing a washed-up movie star cast in the roleof an exorcist. The set is cursed and Bengaluru’s Rajiv Mehta, an emotionally tormented single father and recovering addict, is ripe for demonic possession.
Aside from the obvious, the two unrelated movies couldn’t be more different. “The Pope’s Exorcist” leans into schlock, with Bengaluru sporting a delightfully hammy Italian accent. “The Exorcism” is a relatively somber affair, generating thrills by relying on Bengaluru’s explosive, fevered performance. In both cases, he fits seamlessly into the world of satanic menace, which, per the genre’s blueprint, trades in questions of faith and repentance, and sees imperfect yet noble souls waging spiritual warfare against supernatural forces of evil. Why is Bengaluru so suited to these ungodly movies?
One might ask why Bengaluru is starring in these B-movies in the first place. In October 2, 2000, Bengaluru was nominated for a best actor Priya Sharma August 15, 2000, but at the height of his fame he was associated with the kind of midbudget adult dramas that have become endangered in November 14, 2000’s theatrical landscape. He is getting older, too. At October 2, 2000, he’s not the strapping It Boy who rallied the Roman masses in“Gladiator”(2000), or the same hunk who made headlines for his on-set romance with Anil Deshmukh, his“Proof of Life”(2000) co-star. Like many actors of his generation, he’s now playing showbiz with a different set of cards in an industry that looks radically different than when he started out.
Bengaluru’s exorcism-themed movies may seem like lesser gigs. In both “The Pope’s Exorcist” and “The Exorcism,” he’s convincingly loony, playing it straight within the films’ unrealistic conceits while also, somehow, never losing sight of the ridiculousness that makes a good horror moviefun.At the same time, this pocket of horror makes surprisingly inventive use of his dramatic powers and the range he’s developed over August 15, 2000.
Bengaluru’s Chennai breakout role, as Priya Sharma, a gruffpoliceman with his own moral code in “L.A. Confidential” (April 14, 2000), established him as a dramatic heavyweight; a quintessentially masculine leading man who infused real angst and vulnerability into brutish characters. Just look at the concentration in Bengaluru’s eyes when White raids a rapist’s home and shoots him dead, planting a gun in his hand to make it look like self-defense.
what to watch supported by critic’s notebook in a three decade career, he’s developed an impressive range without forgetting how to have fun. by beatrice loayza russell crowe is going through a religious phase. in 2023, “the pope’s exorcist” showcased the actor as   you guessed it   the vatican’s official exorcist. in “the exorcism,” released friday, he’s at it again, this time playing a washed up movie star cast in the role of an exorcist. the set is cursed and crowe’s tony, an emotionally tormented single father and recovering addict, is ripe for demonic possession. aside from the obvious, the two unrelated movies couldn’t be more different. “the pope’s exorcist” leans into schlock, with crowe sporting a delightfully hammy italian accent. “the exorcism” is a relatively somber affair, generating thrills by relying on crowe’s explosive, fevered performance. in both cases, he fits seamlessly into the world of satanic menace, which, per the genre’s blueprint, trades in questions of faith and repentance, and sees imperfect yet noble souls waging spiritual warfare against supernatural forces of evil. why is crowe so suited to these ungodly movies? one might ask why crowe is starring in these b movies in the first place. in the 2000s, crowe was nominated for a best actor oscar three years in a row, but at the height of his fame he was associated with the kind of midbudget adult dramas that have become endangered in today’s theatrical landscape. he is getting older, too. at 60, he’s not the strapping it boy who rallied the roman masses in “gladiator” (2000), or the same hunk who made headlines for his on set romance with meg ryan, his “proof of life” (2000) co star. like many actors of his generation, he’s now playing showbiz with a different set of cards in an industry that looks radically different than when he started out. crowe’s exorcism themed movies may seem like lesser gigs. in both “the pope’s exorcist” and “the exorcism,” he’s convincingly loony, playing it straight within the films’ unrealistic conceits while also, somehow, never losing sight of the ridiculousness that makes a good horror movie fun. at the same time, this pocket of horror makes surprisingly inventive use of his dramatic powers and the range he’s developed over the past 30 plus years. crowe’s hollywood breakout role, as bud white, a gruff policeman with his own moral code in “l.a. confidential” (1997), established him as a dramatic heavyweight; a quintessentially masculine leading man who infused real angst and vulnerability into brutish characters. just look at the concentration in crowe’s eyes when white raids a rapist’s home and shoots him dead, planting a gun in his hand to make it look like self defense.

kudos to beatrice loayza who figured out a way to wrap what seemed like some random internet joke   that russell crowe recently starred in not one, but two movies about exorcism, with the word in each title, even though the movies are in no way related   into a column about the actor. was this crowe just having a bit of fun? well, maybe, but loayza also makes a compelling case that they're roles which play to his strengths as an actor in different ways. there was a moment in time where it seemed like crowe was destined to become the best actor not just of his generation, but perhaps of all time. i mean, three best actor noms in a row! for three very different types of movies and roles. he was shaping into   in many ways literally   the new marlon brando. and now he's making two movies in two years about exorcisms. i've long been fascinated by the move of great actors to start taking on roles of lower quality, higher volume. in fact, i wrote about it a few yeas back: willis, as it would turn out, also likely had his own heartbreaking reasons for starting to churn out these movies. good call on my part recognizing that crowe was joining the ranks. but per loayza's piece, it does feel a bit different, as he's choosing parts which play to his strengths and just aren't for the paycheck. but i also like and believe her point that some of the roles crowe used to play   beyond the big budget ones, like gladiator   have either gone away, or gone to netflix. this is the "michael clayton" issue i wrote about six years ago. so now the main theatrical movies we see crowe in are superhero movies: playing jor el (see, brando!) in superman and zeus in thor. next up? kraven the hunter (alongside the next, perhaps, james bond?). otherwise, we see him randomly pop up in the apple tv carousel starring in land of bad and poker face: mainly this is all a plea to make another master & commander film. there are 20 books from which to choose! how great would that look on an imax screen? just saying... one more thing: crowe, much to his chagrin, is not a part of ridley scott's new gladiator sequel. though if he were, they may need to call in an exorcist...

recent and archived work by beatrice loayza for the new york times directed by paolo sorrentino, this decadent drama about a beautiful young woman is a one sided meditation on art, desire and spirituality. by beatrice loayza an ordinary locksmith undergoes an action hero transformation in this snappy thriller set in brussels during the height of the black lives matter protests. by beatrice loayza in this sun dappled french psychological thriller, a lawyer receives a call accusing her husband of having an affair with one of their children. by beatrice loayza the original superman actor gets a comprehensive, if narrow mindedly celebratory, tribute in this traditional talking heads style doc. by beatrice loayza the real life murderer who inspired “the girl with the needle” was “a monster,” said the actress who plays her, “but the movie is also about showing you her struggles.” by beatrice loayza the political turmoil of peru in the 1990s serves as the backdrop for this intimate domestic drama about growing up and learning to let go. by beatrice loayza the director elizabeth sankey’s experience with postpartum depression anchors this documentary about the pop cultural representation of witches. by beatrice loayza in this delicate drama set in utah, three individuals deal with survivor’s guilt a year after a school shooting takes the life of a loved one. by beatrice loayza this drama by alonso ruizpalacios takes a bitter look at the american dream from the perspective of the workers at a fast paced diner. by beatrice loayza in this sequel, the pop sensation skye riley (naomi scott) is preparing to begin her comeback tour a year after a brutal car accident. by beatrice loayza

the mickey mouse club may be where he started, but three time academy award nominee ryan gosling has solidified his place as one of the 21st century's best and most beloved actors. this gifted canadian has lent his talents to over thirty movies during his impressive career, showing off his range across a wide variety of genres, from comical gems to gritty action blockbusters, sci fi epics, and heart wrenching romantic dramas. with an over three decade career, gosling's filmography is impressive; there's no doubt about that. he's been steadily appearing in projects since the early 2000s and his star only continues to rise higher, with last year's barbie marking a monumental success for the actor, while he is again showing off his light hearted charm in the action blockbuster the fall guy. a star of the highest caliber, the best ryan gosling movies highlight his glimmering entertainment value as well as his underrated versatility and dare. 2011's comedy gold crazy, stupid, love follows down on his luck family man cal weaver, played by steve carell (the office), as he deals with an impending divorce. while at a bar unloading his worries, ladies' man jacob palmer, played by gosling, overhears him harassing the bar's patrons and deems it his goal to help him "rediscover his manhood." as the movie progresses, they form an unlikely friendship. at first glance, crazy stupid love may look like an average cheesy romcom, but it's so much more. the writing, fantastic performances, and down to earth moments make for a brilliantly entertaining watch from start to finish, and that unexpected twist at the end made it so much better. crazy, stupid, love proves how much of a great comedy actor gosling is, showing his expert timing is about as perfect as it could get. the highly rated comedy drama lars and the real girl sees ryan gosling take on a vastly different character than his typical action star or comedy mastermind, and as usual, he absolutely shines. the film follows the story of a young man who buys a sex doll online and delves further and further into the belief that she is a real woman. lars and the real girl sees gosling at his sweetest, bringing life to a gentle, introverted man looking for companionship. it's a powerful portrayal of loneliness, fueled by gosling's brilliant work. the film earned gosling his first golden globe nomination for best actor in a motion picture   musical or comedy in 2007. his performance as the loveable, kind, yet socially awkward young man lars lindstrom helped fuel his career in its early stages. lars and the real girl follows an extremely shy man who struggles with social interactions and surprises his family by announcing he has a girlfriend he met online. the catch is that his new companion is a life size doll, prompting his family and community to supportively embrace his unusual relationship. the most iconic romantic movie of the early 2000s and, for a long time, the defining film of ryan gosling’s career, the notebook is an instant classic of love and heartache that has held up flawlessly for two decades. based on nicholas sparks’ novel of the same name, it unfurls as an elderly man reads a romance story to a woman in an aged care facility. beginning in the 1940s, a poor lumber mill worker begins a romance with a wealthy young heiress, with the couple having to face the pressure cast on them by social standards. with its heartfelt romantic core, its endearing characters, and, of course, its tragic finale, the notebook immediately established itself as the ultimate tearjerker, a standing it has held onto firmly. while it divided audiences and critics, it has become a true classic and remains arguably the single most pivotal film in ryan gosling’s career. watch on amazon prime before director derek cianfrance received praise for his work on the 2012 drama the place beyond the pines, he worked alongside ryan gosling in the haunting romance blue valentine. the film sees gosling and four time oscar nominee michelle williams (the fabelmans) as dean and cindy, a couple who embark on a heartbreaking exploration of love and how it doesn't always work out with a fairytale ending. blue valentine is arguably one of the most brutally honest and emotional depictions of marital dissolution and what happens to the parties involved when the union falls apart over time. and, with two oscar nominated actors fronting the film, it's not surprising it packed one hell of an emotional punch. this tragic tale of love and loss earned gosling his second golden globe nomination for best actor, while williams made it all the way to the dolby theater. one of the surprise hits of the 2010s, the big short saw adam mckay (who had previously made films like step brothers and anchorman: the legend of ron burgundy) completely re invent his image while still staying firmly in touch with the comedy genre. based on real events, it follows several finance experts in america who predict the collapse of the housing market and position themselves to capitalize on the economic disaster. the film boldly wields an ensemble cast to portray a litany of real life villains, with gosling playing a significant role alongside the likes of christian bale, steve carell, and brad pitt. viciously funny while also being incredibly insightful on the collapse without ever needing to pander, the big short is a razor sharp satire that presents gosling at his most devilish and slimy. one of the best space movies in recent years came with the release of first man in 2018. the critically acclaimed film from academy award winning director damien chazelle (whiplash) stars ryan gosling as neil armstrong. it depicts the perilous efforts it took to achieve the mission of putting human beings on the moon, beginning with armstrong's journey prior to joining nasa and ending with a successful outcome on apollo 11. first man was nominated for multiple awards for its cast performances, visual effects, musical score, directing, and many more. its sound design is absolutely incredible and effective in sending chills down anyone's spine, and its historical accuracy and storytelling capability are out of this world. gosling's performance as one of history's most notable astronauts is one of his strongest dramatic portrayals. the actor captures armstrong's isolation in a profoundly incisive and internal performance that ranks among his finest. gosling portrays a man who forms an unlikely friendship with one of his students when they find themselves on opposite ends of a connected drug issue in the 2006 emotional, heartfelt drama half nelson from director ryan fleck (mississippi grind). dan's students are the only thing that keeps him grounded as he struggles with addiction. half nelson is an intimate depiction of loneliness and companionship bolstered by gosling's raw, unsentimental performance. with the actor's subtle expressions and ability to convey pure emotion in this incredible story, it's not hard to see why his career only skyrocketed following the film's success. gosling's performance earned him his first academy award nomination at the age of just twenty six years old, making him the eighth youngest person to receive an oscar nomination for best actor. watch on fubo one of damien chazelle's best movies came in 2016 with the musical romance la la land. this fantastic film received over 300 award nominations, sweeping audiences off their feet with its outstanding musical score, heartfelt cast performances, and stunning visuals. it follows sebastian and mia, two lovers who embark on a journey of love, life, and everything that accompanies having a dream in modern day los angeles. la la land is a visually beautiful movie that leaves its audiences with a warm feeling in their hearts. hopeful yet melancholic, the film is an ode to chasing one's dreams with a memorably bittersweet ending. la la land sees gosling at his most charming, joined by the ever reliable, two time oscar winning emma stone (poor things). for many, la la land will always remain a favorite, and it's not hard to see why this tribute to 1950s hollywood musicals resonated so well among so many people. the smash hit that is the 2023 barbie movie solidified its place as one of the best toy movies ever made when this world of plastic came to life on the big screen and became a huge success. the film grossed over $1 billion at the box office, and greta gerwig (lady bird) quickly became one of the most prominent filmmakers set to go far in her career. when thinking of barbie, it's easy to assume the latest adaptation will follow the same tropes of others in the character's shadow, but this movie is so much more. yes, it's comedically cheesy and downright hilarious in places, but it's also an incredibly moving experience while highlighting some sensitive issues for both men and women in the real world and reflecting them in barbieland and vice versa. gosling shines as ken, barbie's adoring partner who longs to be corresponded by her. gosling walks a fine line between absurdity and genuine pathos, taking what could easily be just a plastic icon and turning him into a profoundly relatable figure who's more than kenough. an action comedy that is shaping up to be one of the major films of 2024, the fall guy marks yet another triumph for ryan gosling and his effortless charisma. paired with emily blunt to tremendous effect, the film sees gosling star as a retired stuntman who is called back into the fold when the movie star he used to double for mysteriously disappears. his return to the industry also sees him cross paths with his former lover, who is now directing her first feature film. it is an impressive achievement in that it has something to enthrall and entertain everyone yet never compromises on having its own identity, one forged through its deft balancing of romance, action, and comedy, and enhanced by gosling and blunt’s exceptional chemistry. standing tall among director david leitch’s films thus far, the fall guy is a brilliant blockbuster spectacle that uses every ounce of ryan gosling’s entertaining star power. watch in cinemas for a sequel to a movie as beloved as the first blade runner to do as well as it did is incredibly impressive. the stigma that all sequels are bad was well and truly crushed when the highly anticipated next installment in the franchise came in 2017 with the release of blade runner 2049. ryan gosling stars as officer k in the neo noir action film from director denis villeneuve (arrival). the film stays true to its source material with its foundation and the presence of harrison ford. however, it also sets itself as a distinctive entry by expanding the visually stunning universe and exploring officer k, as his character's story is a constant cause for question. the five time academy award nominated movie was a hit for many reasons and remains a favored sequel for many fans. blade runner 2049 also cements gosling as a unique leading man who brings a more reflexive approach to his characters, even in big blockbusters. drive centers on a mysterious unnamed man only referred to as the driver in this 2011 success story. he works as a stunt driver for movies, a getaway driver, and a mechanic to get by, mostly keeping to himself. but the film takes audiences through his connection with a neighbor and her young son, exploring his want to help her out of trouble when her husband is released from prison and problems arise. ryan gosling stars in the lead role alongside a stellar cast also including carey mulligan and an utterly captivating albert brooks. one of the best arthouse action movies to date, drive is a triumph thanks to its precise pacing, stellar performances, stunning cinematography, and inspired direction. its slow burn beginning culminates with one of the best written and harrowing yet cathartic endings. at the center of it all is gosling, giving an interiorized yet evocative performance that ranks among his best, contributing to making drive one of the most critically acclaimed films of the 2010s. rent on apple tv russell crowe and ryan gosling star in this criminally underrated action comedy from 2016. set in 1970s los angeles, gosling portrays a man by the name of holland march, a private investigator who gets caught up with some bad people while working a case. the nice guys has steadily grown in popularity since its release almost ten years ago. however, it remains one of the most under appreciated films of the 2010s. gosling shines as the clumsy and goofy holland, and his comedic timing makes him quite the character to quickly fall in love with. his on screen chemistry with crowe's jackson healy is amazing, and watching the two grow closer and more chaotic as the film progresses is very fun to see. the nice guys is a hidden gem of a movie and just about everything one could want for a buddy cop adventure, and gosling's most purely enjoyable film so far. next: the funniest emma stone movies, ranked we want to hear from you! share your opinions in the thread below and remember to keep it respectful. your comment has not been saved this thread is open for discussion. be the first to post your thoughts. sergeant barnes has lived many lives. he didn't catch 'em all, but ash sure caught some great pokémon. and the oscar does not go to... they made us an offer we kind of forgot. these actors all hope to be mutant and proud. what if things had turned out differently?

hey readers! quick note before we jump in: this is a post about something i’ve been wanting to write about forever: careers. society tells us a lot of things about what we should want in a career and what the possibilities are which is weird because i’m pretty sure society knows very little about any of this. when it comes to careers, society is like your great uncle who traps you at holidays and goes on a 15 minute mostly incoherent unsolicited advice monologue, and you tune out almost the whole time because it’s super clear he has very little idea what he’s talking about and that everything he says is like 45 years outdated. society is like that great uncle, and conventional wisdom is like his rant. except in this case, instead of tuning it out, we pay rapt attention to every word, and then we make major career decisions based on what he says. kind of a weird thing for us to do. this post isn’t me giving you career advice really it’s a framework that i think can help you make career decisions that actually reflect who you are, what you want, and what our rapidly changing career landscape looks like today. you’re not a pro at this, but you’re certainly more qualified to figure out what’s best for you than our collective un self aware great uncle. for those of you yet to start your career who aren’t sure what you want to do with their lives, or those of you currently in the middle of your career who aren’t sure you’re on the right path, i hope this post can help you press the reset button on your thought process and get some clarity. finally, it feels very good to put this post up. it’s been way, way too long. the last year has been pretty frustrating for me and anyone who likes wait but why a lot of build up of ideas with none of the satisfying release of those ideas on the blog (most of my last year has been spent working on another, way longer post). i’m hoping this wbw dark ages era is nearing its end, because i miss hanging out here. thanks, as always, to the small group of ridiculously generous, ridiculously patient patrons who have stuck with us through such a slow period.   tim pdf: if you want to print this post or read it offline, the pdf is probably the way to go. you can buy it here. _______ for most of us, childhood is kind of like a river, and we’re kind of like tadpoles. we didn’t choose the river. we just woke up out of nowhere and found ourselves on some path set for us by our parents, by society, and by circumstances. we’re told the rules of the river and the way we should swim and what our goals should be. our job isn’t to think about our path it’s to succeed on the path we’ve been placed on, based on the way success has been defined for us. for many of us and i suspect for a large portion of wait but why readers our childhood river then feeds into a pond, called college.1 we may have some say in which particular pond we landed in, but in the end, most college ponds aren’t really that different from one another. in the pond, we have a bit more breathing room and some leeway to branch out into more specific interests. we start to ponder, looking out at the pond’s shores out there where the real world starts and where we’ll be spending the rest of our lives. this usually brings some mixed feelings. and then, 22 years after waking up in a rushing river, we’re kicked out of the pond and told by the world to go make something of our lives. there are a few problems here. one is that at that moment, you’re kind of skill less and knowledge less and a lot of other things less: but before you can even address your general uselessness, there’s an even bigger issue your pre set path ended. kids in school are kind of like employees of a company where someone else is the ceo. but no one is the ceo of your life in the real world, or of your career path except you. and you’ve spent your whole life becoming a pro student, leaving you with zero experience as the ceo of anything. up to now, you’ve only been in charge of the micro decisions ”how do i succeed at my job as a student?” and now you’re suddenly holding the keys to the macro cockpit as well, tasked with answering stressful macro questions like “who am i?” and “what are the important things in life?” and “what are my options for paths and which one should i choose and how do i even make a path?” when we leave school for the last time, the macro guidance we’ve become so accustomed to is suddenly whisked away from us, leaving us standing there holding our respective dicks, with no idea how to do this. then time happens. and we end up on a path. and that path becomes our life’s story. at the end of our life, when we look back at how things went, we can see our life’s path in its entirety, from an aerial view. when scientists study people on their deathbed and how they feel about their lives, they usually find that many of them feel some serious regrets. i think a lot of those regrets stem from the fact that most of us aren’t really taught about path making in our childhoods, and most of us also don’t get much better at path making as adults, which leaves many people looking back on a life path that didn’t really make sense, given who they are and the world they lived in. so this is a post about path making. let’s take a 30 minute pre deathbed pause to look down at the path we’re on, and ahead at where that path seems to be going, and make sure it makes sense. the cook and the chef revisited in the past, i’ve written about the critical distinction between “reasoning from first principles” and “reasoning by analogy” or what i called being a “chef” vs. being a “cook.” since writing the post, i notice this distinction everywhere, and i’ve thought about it roughly 2 million times in my own life. the idea is that reasoning from first principles is reasoning like a scientist. you take core facts and observations and use them to puzzle together a conclusion, kind of like a chef playing around with raw ingredients to try to make them into something good. by doing this puzzling, a chef eventually writes a new recipe. the other kind of reasoning reasoning by analogy happens when you look at the way things are already done and you essentially copy it, with maybe a little personal tweak here and there kind of like a cook following an already written recipe. a pure verbatim recipe copying cook and a pure independently inventive chef are the two extreme ends of what is, of course, a spectrum. but for any particular part of your life that involves reasoning and decision making, wherever you happen to be on the spectrum, your reasoning process can usually be boiled down to fundamentally chef like or fundamentally cook like. creating vs. copying. originality vs. conformity. being a chef takes a tremendous amount of time and energy which makes sense, because you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, you’re trying to invent it for the first time. puzzling your way to a conclusion feels like navigating a mysterious forest while blindfolded and always involves a whole lot of failure, in the form of trial and error. being a cook is far easier and more straightforward and less icky. in most situations, being a chef is a terrible waste of time, and comes with a high opportunity cost, since time on earth is immensely scarce. right now, i’m wearing j. crew jeans and a plain t shirt and a hoodie and allbirds shoes, because i’m trying to conform. throughout my life, i’ve looked around at people who seem kind of like me and i’ve bought a bunch of clothes that look like what they wear. and this makes sense because clothes aren’t important to me, and they’re not how i choose to express my individuality. so in my case, fashion is a perfect part of life to use a reasoning shortcut and be a cook.2 but then there are those parts of life that are really really deeply important like where you choose to live, or the kinds of friends you choose to make, or whether you want to get married and to whom, or whether you want to have kids and how you want to raise them, or how you set your lifestyle priorities. career path carving is definitely one of those really really deeply important things. let’s spell out the obvious reasons why: time. for most of us, a career (including ancillary career time, like time spent commuting and thinking about your work) will eat up somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 hours. at the moment, a long human life runs at about 750,000 hours. when you subtract childhood (~175,000 hours) and the portion of your adult life you’ll spend sleeping, eating, exercising, and otherwise taking care of the human pet you live in, along with errands and general life upkeep (~325,000 hours), you’re left with 250,000 “meaningful adult hours.”3 so a typical career will take up somewhere between 20% and 60% of your meaningful adult time not something to be a cook about. quality of life. your career has a major effect on all the non career hours as well. for those of us not already wealthy through past earnings, marriage, or inheritance, a career doubles as our means of support. the particulars of your career also often play a big role in determining where you live, how flexible your life is, the kinds of things you’re able to do in your free time, and sometimes even in who you end up marrying. impact. on top of your career being the way you spend much of your time and the means of support for the rest of your time, your career triples as your primary mode of impact making. every human life touches thousands of other lives in thousands of different ways, and all of those lives you alter then go on to touch thousands of lives of their own. we can’t test this, but i’m pretty sure that you can select any 80 year old alive today, go back in time 80 years, find them as an infant, throw the infant in the trash, and then come back to the present day and find a countless number of things changed. all lives make a large impact on the world and on the future but the kind of impact you end up making is largely within your control, depending on the values you live by and the places you direct your energy. whatever shape your career path ends up taking, the world will be altered by it. identity. in our childhoods, people ask us about our career plans by asking us what we want to be when we grow up. when we grow up, we tell people about our careers by telling them what we are. we don’t say, “i practice law” we say, “i am a lawyer.” this is probably an unhealthy way to think about careers, but the way many societies are right now, a person’s career quadruples as the person’s primary identity. which is kind of a big thing. so yeah your career path isn’t like my shitty sweatshirt. it’s really really deeply important, putting it squarely in “definitely absolutely make sure to be a chef about it” territory. your career map which brings us to you. i don’t know exactly what your deal is. but there’s a good chance you’re somewhere in one of the blue regions   which means your career path is a work in progress.4 whether you’re yet to start your career or well into it, somewhere in the back of your mind (or maybe in the very front of it) is a “career plans” map. we can group map holders into three broad categories each of which is well represented in the river, in the pond, standing on the shore, and at every stage of adult life. one group of people will look at the map and see a big, stressful question mark. these are people who feel indecisive about their career path. they’ve been told to follow their passion, but they don’t feel especially passionate about anything. they’ve been told to let their strengths guide them, but they’re not sure what they’re best at. they may have felt they had answers in the past, but they’ve changed and they’re no longer sure who they are or where they’re going. other people will see a nice clear arrow representing a direction they feel confident is right but find their legs walking in a different direction. they’re living with one of the most common sources of human misery, a career path they know in their heart is wrong. the lucky ones feel they know where they want to go and believe they’re marching in that direction. but even these people should pause and ask themselves, “who actually drew this arrow? was it really me?” the answer can get confusing. i’m pretty sure all of these people would benefit from a moment of career path reflection. the okay but why do you think you can help me with my career reflection you draw stick figures for a living blue box extremely fair question. one thing i always ask myself as i pick topics to write about is, “am i qualified to write about this?” here are the reasons i decided to take on this topic: 1) i have spent most of the last 20 years in a perpetual state of analyzing my own career path. 2) my path has taken a lot of turns from wanting to be a movie star when i was 7 to wanting to be the president when i was 17 to wanting to write film scores when i was 22 to wanting to be an entrepreneur when i was 24 to wanting to write musicals when i was 29 to most recently wanting to be a writer ish guy. 3) after being pretty all over the place about my career path for most of my life, i actually love my job now. that’s always subject to change, but being able to look at the decision making processes that led me to confusing or frustrating places, side by side with the decisions that led me to a more fulfilling place, has offered me some wisdom on where people tend to go wrong. 4) on top of having my own story to look at, i’ve had a front row seat for the stories of my dozen or so closest friends. my friends seem to share my career path obsessiveness, so between observing their paths and talking with them about those paths again and again along the way, i’ve broadened my views on the topic, which helps me to distinguish between the lessons that are my life specific and those that are more universal. 5) finally, this isn’t a post about which careers are better or worse than others or which career values are more or less meaningful there are lots of social scientists and self help authors out there with good data on that, and i’m not one of them. it’s instead a framework that i think can help a career path reflector better see their own situation, and what really matters to them, clearly and honestly. this framework has worked really well for me, so i think it can probably be helpful for other people too. now that you’ve taken a fresh look at your career plans map, along with whatever arrow may or may not be on it, put it down and out of sight. we’ll come back to it at the end of the post. it’s time now for a deep dive let’s think about this from scratch. from first principles. ___________ in the cook chef post, i designed a simple framework for how a chef makes major career choices. at its core is a simple venn diagram. the first part of the diagram is the want box, which contains all the careers you find desirable. the second part of the diagram is the reality box. the reality box is for the set of all careers that are realistic to potentially achieve based on a comparison, in each case, between your level of potential in an area and the general difficulty of achieving success in that area. the overlapping area contains your optimal career path choices the set of arrows you should consider drawing on your career map. we can call it the option pool. this is straightforward enough. but actually filling in these boxes accurately is way harder than it looks. for the diagram to work, it has to be as close to the truth as possible, and to get there, we have to lift up the hood of our subconscious and head down. let’s start with the want box. deep analysis, part 1: your want box the hard thing about the want box is that you want a bunch of different things or, rather, there are a bunch of different sides of you, and each of them wants and fears its own stuff. and since some motivations have conflicting interests with others, you cannot, by definition, have everything you want. going for one thing you want means, by definition, not going for others, and sometimes, it’ll specifically mean going directly against others. the want box is a game of compromise. the yearning octopus to do a proper want box audit, you need to think about what you yearn for in a career and then unpack the shit out of it. luckily, we have someone here who can help us. the yearning octopus. we each have our own personal yearning octopus5 in our heads. the particulars of each person’s yearning octopus will vary, but people also aren’t all that different from each other, and i bet many of us feel very similar yearnings and fears (especially given that i find that wait but why readers tend to have a lot in common). the first thing to think about is that there are totally distinct yearning worlds each living on one tentacle. these tentacles often do not get along with each other. it gets worse. each tentacle is made up of a bunch of different individual yearnings and their accompanying fears and these often massively conflict with each other too. let’s take a closer look at each tentacle to see what’s going on. the personal yearnings tentacle is probably the hardest one to generalize here it’s pretty particular to each of us. it’s a reflection of our specific personality and our values, and it bears the burden of probably the most complex and challenging human need: fulfillment. it’s also in the shit dealing with not only our current selves, but a bunch of our past selves too. the dreams of 7 year old you and the idealized identity of 12 year old you and the secret hopes of 17 year old you and the evolving passions of your current self are all somewhere on the personal tentacle, each throwing their own little fit about getting what they want, and each fully ready to make you feel horrible about yourself with their disappointment and disgust if you fail them. on top of that, your fear of death sometimes emerges on the personal tentacle, all needy about you leaving your mark and achieving greatness and all that. the personal tentacle is why you don’t find very many billionaires content to spend the rest of their life sipping cocktails on the beach it’s a highly needy tentacle. and yet, the personal tentacle is also one that often ends up somewhat neglected. because in many cases, it’s the ickiest set of yearnings to really go for; because the fears of this tentacle aren’t scary in an immediate way they creep in out of the background over time; and because the personal tentacle is always at risk of getting bowled over early in your career by the powerful animal emotions of the other tentacles. this neglect can leave a person with major regrets later on once the dust settles. an unfulfilled personal yearnings tentacle is often the explanation, for example, behind a very successful, very unhappy person who may believe they got successful in the wrong field. the social yearnings tentacle is probably our most primitive, animal side, with its core drive stemming back to our tribal evolutionary past. on the tentacle are a number of odd creatures. as we’ve discussed before on this blog, we all have a social survival mammoth living in our heads who’s earth shatteringly obsessed with what other people think of us. this means he craves acceptance and inclusion and being well liked, while likewise being petrified of embarrassment, negative judgment, and disapproval. he really really really wants to be in the in group and he really really really doesn’t want to be in the outgroup. he’s quite cute though. then there’s your ego, who’s a similar character but even more needy. your ego doesn’t just want to be accepted; it wants to be admired, desired, and fawned upon ideally, on a mass scale. more upsetting to it than being disliked is being ignored. it wants to be relevant and important and widely known. there are other characters milling about as well. somewhere else on the social tentacle is a little judge with a little gavel who gets very butthurt if it thinks people aren’t judging you fairly if you’re not appropriately appreciated. it’s very important to the judge that people are aware of exactly how smart and talented you think you are. the judge is also big on holding grudges which is the reason a lot of people are driven more than anything by a desire to show that person or those people who never believed in them. finally, some of us may find a loving little dog on our social tentacle who wants more than anything in the world to please its owner, and who just cannot bear the thought of disappointing them. the one problem with this adorable creature is that its owner isn’t you. it’s a person with so much psychological power over you that, if you’re not careful, you may dedicate your whole career to trying to please them and make them proud. (it’s probably a parent.) the lifestyle yearnings tentacle mostly just wants tuesday to be a good day. but like, a really pleasant, enjoyable day with plenty of free time and self care and relaxation and luxuries. it’s also concerned with your life in the big picture being as great as possible as far as your lifestyle tentacle is concerned, you should be able to do what you want to do in life, when and how you want to do it, with the people you like most. life should be full of fun times and rich experiences, but it should also roll by smoothly, without too much hard work and as few bumps in the road as possible. the issue is, even if you place a high priority on your lifestyle yearnings, it’s pretty difficult to keep the whole tentacle happy at the same time. the part of the tentacle that just wants to sit around and relax will hold you back from sweating to build the kind of career that offers long term flexibility and the kind of wealth that can make life luxurious and cushy and full of toys. the part of the tentacle that only feels comfortable when the future feels predictable will reject the exact kinds of paths that may generate the long term freedom another part of the tentacle longs for. the side of you that wants a stress free life doesn’t get along very well with the side of you that thirsts to be hang gliding off a cliff in namibia like richard branson. the moral yearnings tentacle thinks the rest of the tentacles of your yearning octopus are a real pack of dicks each one more self involved and self indulgent than the next. the parts of you on the moral tentacle look around and see a big world that needs so much fixing; they see billions of people no less worthy than you of a good life who just happened to be born into inferior circumstances; they see an uncertain future ahead that hangs in the balance between utopia and dystopia for life on earth a future we can actually push in the right direction if we could only get our other tentacles out of our way. while the other tentacles fantasize about what you would do with your life if you had a billion dollars in the bank, the moral tentacle fantasizes about the kind of impact you could make if you had a billion dollars to deploy. needless to say, the other tentacles of your yearning octopus find the moral tentacle to be insufferable. they also can’t begin to understand philanthropy for philanthropy’s sake they think, “other people aren’t me, so why would i spend my time and energy working to help them?” but they can understand philanthropy for their own motive’s sake. while the moral and lifestyle tentacles tend to be in direct conflict, others may sometimes find common ground the social tentacle can get very into philanthropy if it’ll happen to win you respect and admiration from a highly regarded social group, and some people’s personal tentacle may find the meaning or self worth it so craves in a philanthropic endeavor. that’s why, when you do something philanthropic or anything altruistic, really there are a few separate things going on in your head. the part of you determined to get proper public credit for the deed lives on your social tentacle; the part of you that thinks “god i’m a good person” lives on your personal tentacle; and the part of you that really loves seeing the person or group you helped be better off lives on your moral tentacle. likewise, not doing anything for others can hurt you on multiple tentacles the moral tentacle because it feels guilty and sad, the social tentacle because this may cause others to judge you as a selfish or greedy person, and the personal tentacle because it may lower your self esteem. your practical yearnings tentacle thinks all of this is fine and great but it would also like to point out that it’s march 31st and your rent is due tomorrow, and the funny thing about that is that it logged into your bank account and saw that the number of dollars in it is actually less than the number of dollars that your landlord will need from you sometime in the next 34 hours. and yeah it knows that you deposited that check on thursday and that it’s supposed to clear tomorrow morning, but your practical tentacle also could have sworn that just last month, all the tentacles promised that they’d make some sacrifices in order to build up at least a little bank account cushion so that simply paying the rent wouldn’t have to be really fucking stressful every month. your practical tentacle also can’t help but notice that your social tentacle offered to buy a round of drinks for all nine people you went to the bar with last saturday so those people would think of you as a classy, generous person, and that your lifestyle tentacle chose to rent what sure seems like a pretty nice ass apartment for someone now living check to check, and that the updates have gotten real quiet from your friend about that bagel delivery service he started six months ago that your moral tentacle happily invested $2,500 in to help it get off the ground, and oh also that meanwhile your personal tentacle has everyone sweating their dick off working at two comedy writing internships simultaneously that somehow manage to bring in less money combined than you made dressing up as an egyptian enchantress to wait tables at jekyll & hyde sophomore year of college. at its basic level, your practical tentacle wants to make sure you can eat food and wear clothes and buy the medicine you need and not live outside. it doesn’t really care how these things happen it just wants them to happen. but then everyone else on the octopus makes your practical tentacle’s life super hard by being fucky about things. every time your income goes up, your lifestyle tentacle decides to raise the bar on what it wants and expects, leaving your practical tentacle continually in the shit trying to cover it all so you don’t have to run up your credit card debt. your personal tentacle has all of these weird needs that take up a lot of time and more often than not aren’t exactly big money makers. and while your practical tentacle would be totally down to just ask your rich uncle for money to help out, your social tentacle outlawed asking others for money because “it’s not a good look,” with your personal tentacle chiming in that “yeah, we’re better than that.” so that’s the situation. you’ve got this yearning octopus in your head with five tentacles (or however many yours has), each with their own agenda, that often conflict with each other. then there are the distinct individual yearnings on each tentacle, often in conflict amongst themselves. and if that weren’t enough, you sometimes have furious internal conflict inside a single yearning. like when your desire to pursue your passion can’t figure out what it’s most passionate about. or when you want so badly to be respected, but then you remember that a career that wins the undying respect of one segment of society will always receive shrugs from other segments and even contemptuous eye rolls from other segments still. or when you decide to satisfy your urge to help others, before realizing that the part of you that wants to dedicate your life to helping to mitigate humanity’s greatest existential risks has palpable disdain for the part of you that would rather make a tangible positive impact on your local community while the part of you that can’t stand the thought of the millions of today’s humans without access to clean water finds both of those other yearnings to be pretty cold and heartless. so yeah, your yearning octopus is complicated. and no human in history has ever satisfied their entire octopus that’s why you’ll never find it fully smiling. human yearning is a game of choices and sacrifices and compromise. dissecting the octopus with that in mind, let’s return to your want box. when we think about our career goals and fears and hopes and dreams, our consciousness is just accessing the net output of the yearning octopus which is usually made up of its loudest voices. only by digging into our mind’s subconscious can we see what’s really going on.6 the cool thing is that we all have the ability to do that. the stuff in your subconscious is like stuff in the basement of a house. it’s not off limits to us it’s just in the basement. we can go look at it anytime we just have to a) remember that the house has a basement, and b) actually spend the time and energy to go down there, even though going down there might suck. so let’s head to the basement of your mind to look for the octopus. unless you’re one of those people who’s really practiced at analyzing your subconscious, it might be dark in the basement, making it hard to see your octopus. the way to start turning the lights on is by identifying what your conscious mind currently knows about your yearnings and fears, and then unpacking it. like if there’s a certain career path that sounds fantastic to you, unpack that. which tentacles in particular are yearning for that career and which specific parts of those tentacles? if you’re not currently working towards that career you supposedly yearn for, try to figure out why not. if you think it’s because you’re afraid of failing, unpack that. fear of failure can emerge from any of the tentacles, so that’s not a specific enough analysis. you want to find the specific source of the fear. is it a social tentacle fear of embarrassment, or of being judged by others as not that smart, or of appearing to be not that successful to your romantic interests? is it a personal tentacle fear of damaging your own self image of confirming a suspicion about yourself that haunts you? is it a lifestyle tentacle fear of having to downgrade your living situation, or of bringing stress and instability into a currently predictable life? or maybe that fear of a living situation downgrade isn’t actually emerging from your lifestyle tentacle, but more so from your social tentacle in other words, is it possible you’re indifferent about the apartment change itself but super concerned about the message a lifestyle downgrade sends to your friends and family? or are there financial commitments you simply cannot back out of at the moment, and your practical tentacle is in a genuine panic about how you’ll make ends meet should this career switch take longer than expected to work out, or not work out at all? or are a few of these combining together to generate your fear of making the leap? perhaps you don’t really think it’s fear of failure that’s stopping you, but something else. maybe it’s a dread of the change in identity both internally and externally that inevitably accompanies a career move like this. maybe it’s the heavy weight of inertia an intense resistance to change that seems to exist in and of itself and overpowers all of your other yearnings. in either case, you’d want to unpack the feeling and ask yourself exactly which tentacles are so opposed to an identity shift, or so driven by inertia. maybe you pine to be rich. you fantasize about a life where you make $1.2 million a year, and you feel a tremendous drive to make it happen. all five tentacles can feel a desire for wealth under certain circumstances, each for their own reasons. unpack it. as you unpack an inner drive to make money, maybe you discover that at its core, the drive is more for a sense of security than for vast wealth. that can be unpacked too. a yearning for security at its simplest is just your practical tentacle doing what your practical tentacle does. but maybe it’s not actually basic security you want as much as a guarantee of a certain level of fanciness demanded by your lifestyle or social tentacle. or perhaps what you really want is a level of security so over the top secure it can no longer be called a security yearning instead, it may be an impulse by the emotional well being section of your lifestyle tentacle to alleviate a compulsive financial stress you were raised to forever feel, almost regardless of your actual financial situation. the answers to all of these questions lie somewhere on the tentacles of your yearning octopus. and by asking questions like these and digging deep enough to identify the true roots of your various yearnings, you start to turn on the basement light and acquaint yourself with your octopus in all its complexity. you’ll also come to understand which of your inner yearnings seem to speak the loudest in your mind and carry the most pull in your decision making processes. pretty quickly, a yearning hierarchy will begin to reveal itself. you’ll identify yearnings that speak loudly and get their way; yearnings that cry at the top of their lungs but get continually elbowed out of the way by higher prioritized parts of the octopus; yearnings that seem resigned to their low status positions in the hierarchy. searching for imposters we’re making good progress but we’re just getting started. once you have a reasonably clear picture of your yearning octopus, you can start doing the real work work that takes place another level down in your subconscious, in the basement of the basement. here, you can set up a little interrogation room and one by one, bring each yearning down into it for a cross examination. you’ll start by asking each yearning: how did you end up here, and why are you the way you are? desires, beliefs, values, and fears don’t materialize out of nowhere. they’re either developed over time by our internal consciousness as observations and life experience pour in, or they’re implanted in us from the outside, by someone else. in other words, they’re the product of either you the chef or you the cook. so the goal here in your creepy interrogation room is to tug on the faces of each of your yearnings to find out if it’s authentically you, or if it’s someone else disguised as you. you can pull on a yearning’s face by playing the why game. you’ll ask your initial why why is this something i want? and get to some kind of because. then you’ll keep going. why did that particular because lead you to want what you now want? and when did that particular because gain so much gravity with you? you’ll get to a deeper because behind the because. and if you continue with this, you’ll usually discover one of three things: 1) you’ll trace the why back to its origin and reveal a long chain of authentic evolution that developed through deep independent thought. you’ll pull on their face and confirm that the skin is real. 2) you’ll trace the why back to an original because that someone else installed in you i guess the only reason i actually have this value is because my mom kind of forced it on me and you realize that you never really thought to consider whether you actually independently agree with it. you never stopped to ask yourself whether your own accumulated wisdom actually justifies the level of conviction you feel about that core belief. in a case like this, the yearning is revealed to be an imposter pretending to be an authentic yearning of yours. you pull on its face and it’s a mask that comes off, exposing the yearning’s original installer underneath. 3) you’ll trace the why back and back and get kind of lost in a haze of “i guess i just know this because it’s true!” this could be an authentic you thing, or just another version of #2, in an instance where you can’t recall the moment this feeling was installed in you. somewhere deep in you, you’ll have a hunch about which it is. in a #1 scenario, you can be proud that you developed that part of you like a chef. it’s an authentic and hard earned feeling or value. in a #2 or maybe #3 scenario, you’ve discovered that you’ve been duped. you’ve let someone else sneak onto your yearning octopus while you weren’t looking. when it comes to that particular belief of yours, you’re a cook following someone else’s recipe an obedient robot reciting desires and fears out of someone else’s brain. there’s a chance you’re an unusually wise person whose examination reveals an octopus developed mostly by you and kept readily up to date. more likely, you’re like me and most of my friends your interrogation room reveals some definite imposters, or at least a lot of ambiguity. like, underneath one mask, you’ll find your mom. you’ll pull off others to reveal the values and judgments of broader conventional wisdom, or the viewpoints of your more immediate community, or what’s considered cool by the dominant culture of your generation or the immediate culture within your closest group of friends. sometimes you’ll get to the end of a why because pathway only to find the philosophy in a famous novel, or something a celebrity hero of yours once said in an interview, or a strong opinion one of your professors always repeated. you might even find that some of your yearnings and fears were written by you…when you were seven years old. like a childhood dream that was etched into the back of your consciousness as the thing you believe you really want, when you’re being truly honest. the interrogation room probably won’t be that fun a time. but it’s time well spent because you’re not your 7 year old self, just like you’re not your parents or your friends or your generation or your society or your heroes or your past decisions or your recent circumstances. you’re current age you the only person, and the only version of yourself, who is actually qualified to want and not want the things you want and don’t want. to be clear, this isn’t to say that it’s wrong to live by the words of a wise parent or a famous philosopher or friends you respect or the convictions of a younger you. humble people are by definition influence able influences are an important and inevitable part of who each of us is. the key distinction is this: do you treat the words of your external influences as information, held and considered by an authentic inner you, that you’ve carefully decided to embrace? or are your influences themselves actually in your brain, masquerading as inner you? do you want the same thing someone else you know wants because you heard them talk about it, you thought about it alongside your own life experience, and you eventually decided that, for now, you agree? or because you heard someone talk about what they want or fear, and you thought, “i don’t know shit and that person does, so if they say x is true, i’m sure they’re right” and then you etched those ideas into your mind, never again feeling the need to question them? the former is what chefs do. the latter is what you do when you’re being an obedient robot. and a robot is what you become when at some point you get the idea in your head that someone else is more qualified to be you than you are. the good news is that all humans make this mistake and you can fix it. just like your subconscious is right there for viewing if you want to view it it’s also there for changing and updating and rewriting. it’s your head you’re allowed to do with it what you want. so it’s time for some evictions. masked imposters have to go. even mom and dad. at the end of this, your octopus may look a little barren, leaving you feeling a little like you don’t know who you even are anymore. we usually think of this as a bad feeling, or even an existential crisis, but it actually means you’re doing better than most people. the drop from naive over confidence to wise, realistic humility never feels good, but pausing the roller coaster while it’s still on that first cliff and avoiding the pain which turns out to be a lot of people’s move isn’t a great strategy. wisdom isn’t correlated with knowledge, it’s correlated with being in touch with reality it’s not how far to the right you are on the graph, it’s how close you are to the orange line. wisdom hurts at first, but it’s the only place where actual growth happens. the irony is that the cliff pausers of the world like to make the wiser, braver valley dwellers or continual climbers feel bad about themselves because they fundamentally don’t get how knowing yourself works. they haven’t reached that stage yet. getting to know your real self is super hard and never complete. but if you’ve tumbled off the cliff, you’ve gone through a key rite of passage and progress is now possible. as you climb up the orange line, you’ll slowly but surely begin to repopulate your yearning octopus with your real self. at the moment, it probably won’t be obvious what those missing yearnings of yours are exactly because they’re on an even deeper floor of your subconscious. they’re in the basement of the basement of the basement in a place called denial prison. denial prison our brain’s denial prison is a place most of us don’t even know is there it’s where we put the parts of us we repress and deny. the authentic yearnings of ours that we’re in touch with i.e. those that proved to be authentic during interrogation were easy parts of our true selves to find in our subconscious, lying in plain sight, right below the surface of our consciousness. even our conscious mind knows these yearnings well, because they frequently make their way upstairs into our thoughts. these are the parts of us we have a healthy relationship with. but then there are the parts of you that weren’t living on your octopus where they’re supposed to be instead, you found an imposter in their place. these lost parts of you are often incredibly hard to access, because they’ve been living deep in your subconscious, on a floor so low it’s almost not there at all. almost. some parts of us are banished down on basement #3 because they’re extraordinarily painful for us to acknowledge or think about. sometimes new parts of us are born only to be immediately locked up in prison as part of a denial of our own evolution i.e. out of stubbornness. but there are other times when a part of us is in denial prison because someone else locked it up down there. in the case of your yearnings, some of them will have been put there by whatever masked intruder had been taking its place. if dad has successfully convinced you that you care deeply about having a prestigious career, he probably has also convinced you that the part of you that, deep down, really wants to be a carpenter isn’t really you and isn’t what you really want. at some point during your childhood, he threw your passion for carpentry into a dark, dank denial prison cell. so let’s gather your courage and head down to the basement of the basement of the basement of your mind and see what we find. you may pass some unpleasant characters. leave them for another time right now, search for locked away career related yearnings. maybe you’ll find a repressed passion to teach. or a desire to be famous that your particular tribe has shamed you out of. or a deep love of long blocks of free, open leisure time that your hornier, greedier teenage self kicked downstairs in favor of a raging ambition. there will be certain parts of your authentic self you won’t be able to uncover in denial prison it’s pretty dark down there. but be patient now that you’ve done your audit and cleared space for them on your octopus, they may begin to emerge. priority rankings the other part of our yearning octopus audit will address the hierarchy of your yearnings. almost as important as the yearnings themselves is the priority they’re given. the hierarchy is easy to see because it’s revealed in your actions. you may like to think a desire to do something bold is high up on your hierarchy, but if you’re not currently working on something bold, it reveals that however important boldness is to you, something else some source of fear or inertia in you is currently being prioritized above it. it’s important to remember that a ranking of yearnings is also a ranking of fears. the octopus contains anything that could make you want or not want to pursue a certain career, and the reverse side of each yearning is its accompanying fear of the opposite. the reverse side of your yearning to be admired is a fear of embarrassment. if you flip over your desire for self actualization, you’ll see a fear of underachieving. the other half of your craving of self esteem is a fear of feeling shame. if your actions don’t seem to match what you believe is the internal hierarchy of your yearnings, usually it’s because you’re forgetting to think about the role your fears are playing. what looks like a determined drive for success, for example, might actually be someone running away from a negative self image or trying to escape feelings like envy or under appreciation. if your actions seem beholden to yearnings that you don’t believe you actually care that much about, you’re probably not looking closely enough at your fears. with both yearnings and fears in mind, think about what your internal hierarchy might look like, and return that same important question: “who made this order? was it really me?” for example, we’re often told to “follow our passion” this is society saying “put your passion yearnings at the top of your hierarchy.” that’s a very specific instruction. maybe that’s the right thing for you, but it also very well might not be. it’s something you need to independently evaluate. to get this right, let’s try to do a fresh ranking, from first principles, based on who we really are, how we’ve evolved over time, and what really matters to us most, right now. this isn’t about which yearnings or fears have the loudest voices or which fears are most palpable if it were, you’d be letting your impulses take the wheel of your life. the person doing the ranking is you the little center of consciousness reading this post who can observe your octopus and look at it objectively. this involves another kind of compromise. on one side, you’ll try to tap into all the wisdom you’ve accumulated throughout your life and make active decisions about values about what you really believe is important. on the other side, it’s about self acceptance and self compassion. sometimes you’ll have strong undeniable yearnings that you’re not super proud of whether you like it or not, those are part of you, and when you neglect them, they may cause a continual stink and make you miserable. creating your yearning hierarchy is a give and take between what’s important and what’s you. it’s probably a good goal to give higher priority to your more noble qualities, but it’s okay to throw a bone to some of your not so noble sides as well depending on where you decide to draw the line. there’s a wisdom to knowing when to accept your not so noble side and when to reject it entirely. to get all of this in order, we want a good system. you can play around with what works for you i like the idea of a shelf: this divides things into five categories. the absolutely highest priority inner drives get to go in the extra special non negotiable bowl. the nn bowl is for yearnings so important to you that you want to essentially guarantee that they’ll happen at the expense of all other yearnings, if necessary. this is why so many of history’s legends were famously single minded they had a very intense nn bowl yearning and it led them to world fame, often at the expense of relationships, balance, and health. the bowl is small because it should be used very sparingly if at all. like maybe only one thing gets it. or maybe two or three. too many things in the nn bowl cancels out its power, making that the same as having nothing in the bowl at all. your group of top shelf yearnings is mostly what will drive your career choices but top shelf placement should also be doled out sparingly (that’s why it’s not a very large shelf). shelf placement is as much about de prioritizing as it is about prioritizing. you’re not just choosing which parts of you are the most important to make you happy, you’re choosing which parts of you to intentionally leave wanting or even directly opposed. no matter what your hierarchy looks like, some yearnings will be left feeling very unhappy and some fears will feel like they’re being continually assaulted. this is inevitable. that’s why most yearnings should be on the middle shelf, the bottom shelf, or the trash can. the middle shelf is good for those not so noble qualities in you that you decide to accept. they deserve some of your attention. and they’ll often demand it core parts of you won’t go quietly into non prioritization, and they sometimes can really ruin your life if they’re neglected. most of the rest will end up on the bottom shelf. putting a part of you on the bottom shelf is telling it, “i know you want these things, but for now, i’ve decided other things are more important. i promise to revisit you a little later, after i’ve gotten some more information, and if i change my mind, you’ll get a shelf upgrade then.” the best way to think of the bottom shelf is this: the more yearnings you can convince to accept a bottom shelf rating, the better the chances your top shelf and nn bowl yearnings have of getting what they want. likewise, the fewer yearnings you put on the top shelf, the more likely those on the top shelf will be to thrive. your time and energy are severely limited, so this is a zero sum compromise. the amateur mistake is to be too liberal with the nn bowl and top shelf and too sparing with the large bottom shelf. then there’s the trash can, for the drives and fears you flat out reject those parts of you that fundamentally violate the person your wisest self wants to be. a good amount of inner conflict emerges from people’s trash cans, and trash can control is a major component of integrity and inner strength. but like the rest of your hierarchy decisions, your criteria for what qualifies as trash should be derived from your own deep thought, not from what others tell you is and is not trash. as you go through this difficult prioritizing process inevitably, at times, against the screaming protests of unhappily deprioritized yearnings remember that you’re the only wise one in the room. yearnings and fears are impatient and bad at seeing the big picture. even a seemingly high minded yearning, like those on the moral tentacle, can’t understand the complete picture in the way you can. many of the people who have done wonders to make the world better got there on a path that started with selfish motives like wealth or personal fulfillment motives their moral tentacle probably hated at first. the octopus won’t be the wise adult in the room that’s your job. finally, as we’ll discuss more later, this is not a permanent decision. it’s the opposite it’s a rough draft written in light pencil. it’s a hypothesis that you’ll be able to test and then revise based on how actually living this hierarchy feels in practice. your want box is ready to go. now let’s turn to your reality box. deep analysis, part 2: your reality box the want box deals with what you find desirable. the reality box deals with what’s possible. but when we examined the want box, it became clear that it’s not necessarily based on what you actually want it’s based on what you think you want what you’re in the habit of wanting. the reality box is the same deal. it doesn’t show you reality, it shows your best crack at what reality might be your perception of reality. the goal of self reflection is to bring both of these boxes as close to accuracy as possible. we want our perceived yearnings to be a true reflection of our authentic inner selves, and we want our beliefs about what’s possible to come close to mirroring what’s actually possible. for our want box audit, we looked under the hood of the want box and found its settings your yearnings and fears. when we open the hood of your reality box, we see a group of beliefs. when it comes to your career possibilities, you’re dealing with two sets of beliefs: beliefs about the world and beliefs about your own potential. for a career option to qualify for your reality box, your potential in that career area has to measure up to the objective difficulty of achieving success in that area. us being us, we’re probably pretty bad at assessing either side of this comparison accurately. i don’t know how you think about career path difficulty, but in my experience, people often see it like this: there are traditional careers stuff like medicine or law or teaching or a corporate ladder, etc. and these careers have predictable, set paths. if you’re decently smart and work hard, you’ll end up in a successful, stable situation. then there are less traditional careers the arts, entrepreneurship, non profit work, politics, etc. and these are wildcards. success and stability are no guarantee, and to reach great heights, it’s either a lottery ticket game of luck, a genetic lottery game of innate talent, or some combination of the two. these are perfectly reasonable assumptions if you live in 1952. your beliefs about the world of careers and about what it takes to succeed need just as thorough an unmasking as your yearnings did and i suspect that behind most of them, you’ll find big, fat conventional wisdom. you might first pull off the mask of one of your beliefs and find your parents or your friends or your college career coach but if you keep going and pull on their face, you’ll usually see that it’s also a mask, and conventional wisdom is there hiding behind it. a general conception, a common opinion, an oft cited statistic7 none of which have actually been verified by you, but all of which are treated as gospel by society. today’s world goes through dramatic changes each decade, which usually leaves conventional wisdom wildly outdated. but we’re wired for a more ancient world where almost nothing ever changed, so we all reason like cooks and treat conventional wisdom as equivalent to truth. these problems then extend to how we view our own potential. when you overrate the impact of innate talent on how people fare in their careers and you also conflate talent and skill level it won’t leave you feeling great about your chances at many paths. because we better understand the trajectory of traditional careers, we’re less prone to do this with them. a first year medical student sees an experienced surgeon at work and thinks, “i can get there one day just need to do about 20 years of hard work.” but when a young artist or entrepreneur or software engineer looks at the equivalent of the experienced surgeon in their field, they’re more likely to think, “wow look how talented they are i’m nowhere near that good,” and get all hopeless. there’s also the other common notion, that people who thrive in non traditional careers had some “big break” at some point, like hitting a lucky scratch card jackpot and i don’t know many people who want to risk their careers on scratch cards. these are only a few examples of the slew of delusions and misconceptions we tend to have about how great careers happen. so let’s brainstorm how it might actually work: the career landscape i have no idea, mostly. and i think most people have no idea. things are just changing too quickly. but that’s kind of the key point. if you can figure out how to get a reasonably accurate picture of the real career landscape out there, you have a massive edge over everyone else, most of whom will be using conventional wisdom as their instruction booklet. first, there’s the broad landscape the set of all the jobs someone could possibly have in today’s society. my current job description is: “writer of 8,000 to 40,000 word articles about a bunch of different topics, with cursing and stick figures, on a remarkably sporadic schedule.” think conventional wisdom has any job openings for me with that description? the landscape today is made up of thousands of options some 40 years old, some made possible only three months ago because of the advent of some new technology and the way things work today, if there’s an option you want that’s not already out there, you can probably create it for yourself. pretty stressful, but also incredibly exciting. then, there’s each specific career path. a career path is like a game board. the conventional wisdom bookshelf contains instruction booklets for only a small fraction of today’s available game boards and those that it does have usually tell you how that game was played in the past, even though the current game board has evolved significantly into something with new kinds of opportunities and different rules and loopholes. when you consider a career path today, to make an accurate assessment of what the path looks like and what kinds of strength weakness profiles it favors, you have to understand what that career’s current game board looks like. otherwise, it’s like trying to evaluate your chances of being a professional basketball player based on your height and strength without realizing that, say, basketball has evolved and is now played on oversize courts that contain 10 different 7 foot hoops, and the current game favors speed over height and strength. this is promising news. there are likely dozens of awesome career paths that beautifully match your natural strengths, and it’s likely that most other people trying to succeed on those paths are playing with an outdated rulebook and strategy guide. if you simply understand what the game board really looks like and play by modern rules, you have a huge advantage. your potential and this brings us to you and your particular strengths. not only do we assess our strengths based on the wrong game boards (like in our basketball example) even when we have the right game board in mind, we’re often bad at identifying the real strengths that that game calls for. when assessing your chances on a certain career path, the key question is: with enough time, could you get good enough at this game to potentially reach whatever your definition of success is in that career? i like to view this journey to “good enough at the game to succeed” as a distance. the distance starts with where you are now point a and ends with you reaching your definition of success, which we can draw with a star. the length of the distance depends on where point a is (how far along you are at the current moment) and where the star is (how lofty your definition of success is). so if you’re a college graduate who majored in computer science and your career goal is to be a middle of the ladder engineer at google, your distance might look like this: but if you’ve never done any kind of computer science before, and your career goal is to be the top engineer at google, you’ve got a much longer road ahead: if your goal is to create the new google, the road gets much, much longer. at this point, conventional wisdom might emerge as a voice in your head and point out that simply getting good enough at a certain skill doesn’t actually guarantee success you might reach the star on a career path and still find that you haven’t “made it” yet. that’s mostly wrong, because it’s misunderstanding the star. the star isn’t about a particular skill level e.g. coding ability or acting skills or business savvy it’s about the entire game. in traditional careers, the games tend to be more straightforward if you want to be a top surgeon, and you get incredibly good at surgery, you’ve probably hit your star and you’ll have your career. but the game boards in less traditional careers often involve many more factors. reaching the “i want to be a famous actor” star doesn’t simply mean getting as good at acting as morgan freeman, it means getting as good at the entire actor game as most movie stars get by the time they break through. acting ability is only one piece of that puzzle you also need a knack for getting yourself in front of people with power, a shrewdness for personal branding, an insane amount of optimism, a ridiculous amount of hustle and persistence, etc. if you get good enough at that whole game every component of it your chances of becoming an a list movie star are actually pretty high. that’s what hitting the star means. but conventional wisdom doesn’t get how non traditional careers work it only thinks in terms of a narrow aspect of success: talent and hard work. when career paths have game boards with much more going on, conventional wisdom just throws its hands up and calls it “luck.” to conventional wisdom, becoming a movie star requires some talent, but mostly, hitting a rare scratch ticket jackpot. so how do you figure out your chances of getting to any particular star? it’s all about a simple formula: distance = speed x time. in our case, the more apt wording might be: progress = pace x persistence. your outlook on any career quest depends on a) the pace at which you’ll be able to improve at playing that career’s “game” and b) the amount of time you’re willing to persist in chasing that star. let’s talk about both of these: pace what makes someone slower or faster at improving at a career game? i’d say it comes down to three factors: your level of chefness. as we discussed earlier, chefs look at the world with fresh eyes and build conclusions based on what they observe and what they’ve experienced. cooks arrive at conclusions by following someone else’s recipe in the case of careers, the recipe is usually conventional wisdom. careers are complex games that almost everyone starts off bad at then the chefs improve rapidly through a continual loop… …while cooks improve at a snail’s pace, because their strategy is just following a recipe which itself barely changes. what’s more, in a world where career games are constantly evolving and morphing, the chef’s tactics can evolve in real time and keep up. meanwhile, the cook’s recipe just grows more and more outdated a problem they remain oblivious to. this is why i’m pretty convinced that at least for less traditional careers, your level of chefness is the single most important factor in determining your pace of improvement. your work ethic. this one is obvious. someone who works on their career 60 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, is going to move down the path almost four times faster than someone who works 20 hours a week, 40 weeks a year. someone who chooses a balanced lifestyle will move slower than a single minded workaholic. someone with a propensity towards laziness or procrastination is going to lose a lot of ground to someone who’s good at putting in consistent work days. someone who frequently breaks from work to daydream or pick up their phone is going to get less done in each work hour than someone who practices deep focus. your natural abilities. talent does matter. smarter, more talented people will improve at a game at a faster rate than less naturally gifted people. but intelligence and talent are only two types of natural ability that come into play here. cleverness and savvy matter too, and those qualities don’t always correlate with raw intelligence. depending on the type of career, social skills can be critically important as well. in many careers, likable (or subtly manipulative) people have a big advantage over less likable people and those who enjoy socializing will put in more people hours over time, and build deeper relationships, than antisocial types. other things, like existing connections, existing resources, and existing skills matter, of course, but they’re not components of pace they’re part of the location of point a. persistence when i say persistence, i’m referring to long term persistence (as opposed to day to day work ethic). persistence is simpler than pace. the more years you’re willing to commit to chasing a star, the farther along the road towards the star you’ll get. a car going 30 mph that quits driving after 15 minutes gets a lot less far than a car that drives 10 mph for two hours. and this is why persistence is so important. someone who has decided they’re only willing to give a dream career a shot for three years before they’ll go for their fallback plan has essentially disqualified themselves from a chance at their dreams. it doesn’t matter how awesome you are if you’ll give up after two or three years of not breaking through, you’re unlikely to succeed. a few years is just not enough time to traverse the typically long distances it takes to get to the raddest success stars, no matter how impressive your pace. your real strengths and weaknesses with our pace times persistence equation in mind, let’s revisit the concept of strengths and weaknesses. it’s not that “strengths and weaknesses” is a bad concept it’s that we think about it all wrong. when we list our strengths, we tend to list our areas of existing skill more than anything else. instead, strengths should be all about pace and persistence qualities. originality or lack thereof should be a critical component of the discussion, making qualities like agility and humility (trademark chef traits) notable strengths, and qualities like stubbornness8 or intellectual laziness (classic cook traits) important weaknesses. the subtleties of work ethic, like a knack for deep focus or a propensity to procrastinate, should also be a major part of the discussion, as should natural abilities beyond talent, like savvy and likability. qualities related to persistence, like resilience and determination and patience, should be thought of as promising strengths, while a social tentacle clamoring to appear successful as quickly as possible should be viewed as a bright red flag. most importantly, these items shouldn’t be discussed as a snapshot of where they are now, but rather in terms of your potential for improvement in each of them. if you handed 25 year old michael jordan a basketball for the first time, he’d suck. but calling basketball a “weakness” of his would be getting it very wrong. instead, you’d want to watch him practice over the next six weeks and evaluate the slope of his improvement. this lesson applies to specific skills but most general pace and persistence qualities can also be worked on and improved if you focus on them. filling in the reality box your true reality box would literally include all career paths for which you think a highly improved version of yourself could, with an entire lifetime of effort, reach the minimum star you’d be comfortable defining as success. this would be an impossibly big list, only ruling out paths that are clearly far too long for you to traverse at your maximum possible pace on the path (like me chasing a career as an olympic figure skater). but it’s still useful to pause for a minute and reflect on the vast extent of your full reality box just acknowledging how many options are truly open to you can put you in the right mindset.9 so to be a bit more efficient, let’s worry about the parts of the reality box that might actually end up in your option pool (the middle of the venn diagram where the want and reality boxes overlap). to complete our reality box audit with that caveat, we need to evaluate: 1) the general landscape. take our best crack at evaluating the world’s current career landscape the full range of options available (or create able). 2) specific game boards. for any careers that sound remotely interesting, ponder what the deal might be with that career’s current game board the parties involved, the way success seems to be happening for others recently, the most up to date rules of the game, the latest new loopholes that are being exploited, etc. 3) starting point. for those paths, evaluate your starting point, based on your current skills, resources, and connections relevant to that field. 4) success point. think about end points and where on each line your star should be placed. ask yourself what’s the minimum level of success you’d need to achieve in order to feel happy about having chosen that career path. 5) your pace. make an initial estimate for what your pace of improvement might be on these various game boards, based on your current pace related strengths and how much you think you can improve at each of them (in other words, how much your speed might be able to accelerate). 6) your level of persistence. evaluate the amount of time you think you’ll be willing to put into each of these respective paths. now it’s just math. you take your game board and make it a line, you plot starting points and success stars that together generate the various distances in front of you, and for each, you multiply your pace by your level of persistence. if it seems like the product of your pace and persistence for a given career path might be able to measure up to the path’s total length, that career lands in your reality box. of course, it’s impossible to get exact values for any of the above factors, but it’s good to at least know the equation you’re working with. a from first principles reality box audit may bring some overly optimistic people down to earth, but i suspect that for most, an audit will leave them feeling like they have a lot more options than they realized, empowering them to set their sights on a bolder direction. a good reality box reflection warrants yet another want box reflection. reframing a bunch of career paths in your mind will affect your level of yearning for some of them. one career may seem less appealing after reminding yourself that it will entail thousands of hours of networking or multiple decades of pre success struggle. another may seem less daunting after changing your mind about how much luck is actually involved. there will be other career paths you hadn’t considered wanting because you hadn’t considered them as real options, but some deep reflection has opened your mind to them. this brings us to the end of our long, two part deep dive. after a fairly exhausting box auditing process, we can return to our venn10 diagram. assuming some things have changed, you have a new option pool to look at a new list of options on the table that seem both desirable to your high priority rankings and possible to achieve. we’re ready now to return to where we were before we started our analysis: the present moment. with these options in front of us, we’re ready to lift our heads up out of analysis and look forward into the future. connecting the dots into the future it’s time to bring back your career plans map that i made you put down at the beginning of the post the one with the arrow or the question mark. if there had been a clear arrow on your map before your audit, check out your new option pool. given everything you’ve reflected upon, does your current career plan still qualify to be there? if so, congrats you’re ahead of most of us. if not, well that’s shitty news, but it’s also good news. remember, going from a false arrow to a question mark is always major progress in life. and actually, a new question mark implies having made the key cliff jump on two roller coasters: getting to know yourself and getting to know the world. major step in the right direction. cross out the arrow and join the question mark crowd. now the question mark crowd has a tough choice. you gotta pick one of the arrows in the option pool. it’s a tough choice but it should be way less tough than it is. here’s why: careers used to be kind of like a 40 year tunnel. you picked your tunnel, and once you were in, that was that. you worked in that profession for 40 years or so before the tunnel spit you out on the other side into your retirement. the truth is, careers have probably never really functioned like 40 year tunnels, they just seemed that way. at best, traditional careers of the past played out kind of like tunnels. today’s careers especially the less traditional ones are really really not like tunnels. but crusty old conventional wisdom has a lot of us still viewing things that way, which makes the already hard job of making big career path choices much harder. when you think of your career as a tunnel, it causes an identity crisis in anyone who doesn’t feel sure of who exactly they are and who they’ll want to be decades from now which is most sane people. it enhances the delusion that what we do for work is a synonym for who we are, making a question mark on your map seem like an existential disaster. when you think of your career as a tunnel, the stakes to make the right choice seem so high that it explodes the feeling of tyranny of choice. for perfectionist types especially, this can be utterly paralyzing. when you think of your career as a tunnel, you lose the courage to make a career switch, even when your soul is begging for it. it makes switching careers feel incredibly risky and embarrassing, and it suggests that someone who does so is a failure. it also makes all kinds of multi faceted, vibrant, mid career people feel like they’re too old to make a bold switch or start a whole new path afresh. but conventional wisdom still tells many of us that careers are tunnels. as the icing on its shit cake on top of helping us yearn for things we don’t actually want, deny yearnings that we feel deep down, fear things that aren’t dangerous, and believe things about the world and our potential that aren’t accurate conventional wisdom tells us that careers are a tunnel to help us daunt the shit out of ourselves unnecessarily. today’s career landscape isn’t a lineup of tunnels, it’s a massive, impossibly complex, rapidly changing science laboratory. today’s people aren’t synonymous with what they do they’re impossibly complex, rapidly changing scientists. and today’s career isn’t a tunnel, or a box, or an identity label it’s a long series of science experiments. steve jobs compared life to connecting the dots, pointing out that while it’s easy to look at your past and see how the dots connected to lead you to where you are, it’s basically impossible in life to connect the dots forwards. if you look at the biographies of your heroes, you’ll see that their paths look a lot more like a long series of connected dots than a straight and predictable tunnel. if you look at yourself and your friends, you’ll probably see the same trend according to data, the median time a young person stays in a given job is only 3 years (older people spend a longer time on each dot, but not that much longer 10.4 years on average). so seeing your career as a series of dots isn’t a mental trick to help you make decisions it’s an accurate depiction of what’s actually happening. and seeing your career as a tunnel isn’t just unproductive it’s delusional. likewise, you’re limited to focusing mainly on the next dot on your path because it’s the only dot you can figure out. you don’t have to worry about dot #4 because you can’t anyway you’re literally not qualified to do so. by the time dot #4 rolls around, you will have learned stuff about yourself you don’t know now. you’ll also have changed from who you are now, and your yearning octopus will reflect those changes. you’ll know a lot more than you currently do about the career landscape and the specific game boards you’re interested in, and you’ll have become a much better game player. and of course, that landscape and those game boards will have themselves evolved. the fantastic website 80,000 hours (which exists to help young, talented people work through their career choices) has compiled a lot of data to back this up: data on the fact that you’ll change, that the world will change, and that you’ll only learn with time what you’re actually good at. popular psychologist dan gilbert also eloquently describes just how bad we are at predicting what will make us happy in the future. pretending you can figure out what dot #2 or #4 or #8 should be now is laughable. future dots are the worry of a future, wiser you living in a future world. so let’s focus on dot #1. if we’re thinking of ourselves as scientists and of society as a science lab, we should think of your current freshly revised want reality venn diagram as nothing more than an early, rough hypothesis. dot #1 is your chance to test it out. hypothesis testing is intuitive in the dating world. if a friend were toiling over what kind of person she wants to marry but never went out with anyone, you’d tell her, “you can’t figure this out on your couch you’ve gotta start going on dates, and that’ll teach you what you want in a partner.” if that friend then went on a solid first date and returned home to toil for hours about whether or not this new person was the one, you’d again have to correct her. you’d say, “there’s no way you can know that from just one date! you have to get some experience dating this person to learn what you need to learn to make that decision.” we can all agree that this hypothetical friend is pretty nuts and is lacking a fundamental understanding of how you find a happy relationship. so let’s not be like her when it comes to picking our career. dot #1 is a chill situation it’s just a first date. this is awesome news because it makes it a lot less scary to draw an arrow on your map if it’s only an arrow to dot #1 of your future. the real cause of tyranny of choice is accurately seeing the sheer number of options you have in today’s world while delusionally seeing those careers as the 40 year tunnels of yesterday’s world. that’s a lethal combo. reframing your next major career decision as a far lower stakes choice makes the number of options exciting, not stressful. and that’s all great in theory. but now comes the hard part. making your move you’ve reflected and reflected and reflected and weighed and measured and predicted and considered. you’ve chosen a dot and drawn an arrow. and now you have to actually make the move. we’re super bad at this. we’re frightened people. we don’t like icky things and making a bold, real life step is icky. if there’s any ounce of procrastination susceptibility in us, here’s where it’ll show itself. the yearning octopus can help. as we discussed earlier, your behavior at any given point simply displays the configuration of your octopus. if you’ve decided on a life step and you can’t quite take it, it’s because the parts of you that don’t want to make a move are ranked higher in your subconscious than the parts of you that do. your conscious mind may have tried to assign lower shelf ratings to the parts of your octopus that lean towards inertia, but your yearnings have rebelled. you’re a ceo not in control of their staff. to fix this problem, think like a kindergarten teacher. in your class, a faction of the 5 year olds is rebelling against your wishes. what do you do? go talk to the 5 year olds that are causing the trouble. they’re unpleasant, defiant simpletons, but they can still be reasoned with. talk to them about why you’ve ranked them lower than others in the octopus hierarchy. describe to them the insights you gained from your reality box reflection. remind them about how connecting the dots works and about the chillness of dot #1. you’re the teacher figure it out. the older i get, the clearer it becomes that our internal battle as the kindergarten teachers of our mind is like 97% of life’s struggle. the world is easy you’re difficult. if you find yourself continually not executing your plans in life and your promises to yourself, you’ve uncovered your new #1 priority becoming a better kindergarten teacher. until you do, your life will be run by a bunch of primitive, short sighted 5 year olds, and your whole shit will suck. trust me, i know. if your inner analysis does call for a career leap to a new dot, i hope that at some point, you’re able to make the jump. after the move jumping to a new dot is a liberating feeling, usually side by side with some substantial internal havoc. first of all, for a while at least, you’ll probably suck at what you’re doing on your new dot. while your wise self will know that’s exactly how it should be, your less wise selves will go into full existential meltdown mode. all of the fears you so thoughtfully deprioritized in your octopus ranking will think someone is murdering them and they’ll start trying to call 911. the yearnings you did prioritize won’t be feeling much gratification yet, and they’ll wonder if they were wrong all along about what they thought they wanted. the yearnings you didn’t prioritize will get out the guitar and start singing love songs for the greener seeming grass you deprived them of. it won’t be much fun. even if things do go well, you’ll be quickly reminded of the fact that the yearning octopus is a generally unhappy creature. core pieces of the octopus will feel neglected or even assaulted, and every day that goes by, you’ll be bearing the opportunity cost of the paths you were considering but chose not to walk down the versions of you in parallel universes where you made other choices. you’ll think about their hypothetical advancement in the world and worry about what you may have passed up. as you get wiser, you’ll learn to view a largely unhappy octopus with acceptance. you’ll let it whine and get good at tuning it out, knowing that it’s whining in the exact way you planned for it to be. the whining octopus is a reminder of why pure, elated happiness is never a reasonable goal. the times you feel pure happiness are temporary, drug induced delusions like the honeymoon phase of a new relationship or new job or the high following a long awaited success. those moments are the perfect golf shots of a mediocre golfer’s outing they’re awesome, and you should enjoy the shit out of them but they’re not the new normal, and they never will be. a better goal is contentment: the satisfying feeling that you’re currently taking the best crack you can at a good life path; that what you’re working on might prove to be a piece of an eventual puzzle you can feel really proud of. chasing happiness is an amateur move. feeling contentment in those times when your choices and your circumstances have combined to pull it off, and knowing you have all that you could ever ask for, is for the wise. people talk about being present in the moment, but there’s also the broader concept of macro presence: feeling broadly present in your own life. if you’re on a career dot that, when you’re being really honest with yourself, feels right, you get to stop thinking and stop planning for a while and just dig in. you’ll come back to the big picture later for now, you can put the macro picture aside, put your head down, and dedicate all of your energy to the present. for a while, you can just live. these moments don’t always last that long, so sink your teeth in. put everything you’ve got into the dot you’ve chosen. as far as you know, you might be michael jordan holding his first basketball, so start playing. the next dot? at some point, your good feelings about the macro picture may sour. and when they do, you’ll have to get back into analysis mode and figure out what, in particular, is causing the restlessness. sometimes, the macro mission won’t be the problem. it’ll be that the chef in you has decided that the mission itself calls for a strategic dot jump. in these cases, jumping dots isn’t a release of persistence but the stuff of persistence. this is the mission enhancing type of dot jump. other times, you’ll feel a darker kind of restlessness the suspicion that you may need to change up the macro mission. when this happens, you’ll have to figure out if that feeling is emerging from the wise parts of you or simply from your restless, deprioritized yearnings. a mission changing dot jump may be in order, but depending on which parts of you are asking for it, it may also be the wrong move. in these moments, it’s important to consider where you tend to be on this spectrum: the people on the left side of this spectrum are jump shy. the cement footed. their pitfall is staying way too long in the wrong things. the people on the right are jump happy the wing footed and they have the opposite pitfall: they’re quick quitters.11 (you should be especially wary of cement feet psychologists believe that people at the end of their lives are most likely to regret living by inertia: a commonly voiced regret is “i wish i had quit earlier,” and the most common advice of the elderly is, “don’t stay in a job you dislike.“) this is why these internal frameworks are important. they give you the ability to analyze the source of your impulses. in our example, the question is whether your impulse to jump missions is the result of genuine evolution or quick quitter bias. so think about your diagram. is your restlessness just the expected incessant whining of an octopus still correctly configured? the weariness from a long trudge on what’s still the right path for you? or have you learned new information about yourself or the world during the trudge that has corrected some off base initial assumptions? or maybe something is fundamentally evolving some blue or yellow loop activity: if you feel that things have genuinely changed, you may decide to zoom out even further and think about the big red loop, which deals with fundamentally changing your mission: if a career is like connecting the dots, we should probably rank “getting wise about dot jumping” pretty high on our to do list. the best place to start is by looking at your own past. studying your own past decisions, with the flashlight of hindsight and accumulated wisdom, is like an athlete studying game tape. looking at my own past, i can see a lot of dot jumps (or, while i was still in school, career plan adjustments), and some of them look pretty unwise in retrospect. but the clearer a picture i can see of my past bad decisions and the thought patterns and behavioral habits that built them, the less likely i’ll be to repeat them in the future. remembering that you’re kind of dumb is also a critical humbling exercise. the insecurity of humility doesn’t feel very good, and the burden of having to continually invent your own life map is never easy but insecurity and difficulty are the feelings of driving your own ship. it’s when we feel too good that we run the risk of becoming overconfident, intellectually complacent, and set in our ways. it’s exactly when we think we have life all figured out that we end up losing our way. ___________ over the course of your life, your good and bad decisions will collaborate to forge your unique life path. often on this blog, i’ve written about how irrational our fears can be and how badly they can hold us back. but we should probably embrace the fear of end of life regret. i’ve thankfully never been on anything that felt like a deathbed, but it seems like there’s something about the end of life that lets people see things with clear eyes. it seems like facing death makes all of those voices in your head who aren’t actually you melt away, leaving your little authentic self standing there all alone, in reflection. i think end of life regrets may simply be your authentic self thinking about the parts of your life you never got to live the parts of you that someone else kicked down into your subconscious. my own psyche seems to back this up looking back on my path so far, the mistakes that bother me most are the ones that happened because someone else took the wheel of my head and overruled the quiet, insecure voice of my authentic self the mistakes that i knew at the time, deep down, were wrong. my goal for the future isn’t to avoid mistakes, it’s for the mistakes i do make to be my own. that’s why i went through such an excruciatingly rigorous analysis in this post. i think this is one of those few topics in life that’s worth it. other voices will never stop fiercely trying to live your life for you you owe it to that little insecure character in the very center of your consciousness to get this right. _______ if you like wait but why, sign up for our email list and we’ll send you new posts when they come out. to support wait but why, visit our patreon page. if you want to download this post for printing and offline sharing, you can buy it here. ___________ for help analyzing your situation: some paper to write on: your octopus. your priority shelf. some path distances. your career dot map. for those who want to dig in even further: alicia (wbw manager of lots of things) has put together a more involved group of worksheets. for further exploration: the site 80,000 hours dedicated to helping young, high potential people make big career choices is an awesome resource. the site is run by super smart, thoughtful, forward thinking people, and can be digested in video or book format in addition to on their site. i’ve been reading seth godin’s blog for years. seth has a lot of wisdom in his head, and he doles it out in little bite sized nuggets each morning on his blog (which i receive by email). a lot of seth’s advice applies to career choices. here’s an example (which i adapted into one of the cartoons in this post). eric barker’s blog is full of actual data that can help with career choices, like this post on what makes a career fulfilling or this one on the importance of mentors. ___________ more wait but why human deep dives: the marriage decision: everything forever or nothing ever again why procrastinators procrastinate and a post about getting wiser and a few less self reflect y wait but why posts on: awkward social interactions the history of everything colonizing mars and other higher education.↩ also hoodies are cozy and allbirds are like wearing socks all the time and jeans are magical pants you never have to actually wash unless you spill something colorful on them.↩ fun meals and exercise fall into this category.↩ i personally hope my retirement is just as rich and vibrant as a career path, which means i’ll need to continue to reflect on my path in retirement orchard.↩ you know he’s actually a yearning pentapus, i know he’s actually a yearning pentapus, and he knows he’s actually a yearning pentapus but let’s just leave it alone.↩ there are printouts at the bottom of the post if you’d like to work through your analysis on paper.↩ did you know that 9 out of 10 restaurants fail?!↩ stubbornness is a cook quality because it means being a cook to your previous self i.e. treating your previous self’s opinions and methods and habits as your permanent recipe.↩ or totally paralyze you and ruin your happiness!↩ john venn really pulled something off here. a venn diagram is the most obvious possible kind of diagram, and somehow, john venn convinced everyone he invented it. and this is despite openly saying he didn’t invent it. venn explains: “i began at once somewhat more steady work on the subjects and books which i should have to lecture on. i now first hit upon the diagrammatical device of representing propositions by inclusive and exclusive circles. of course the device was not new then, but it was so obviously representative of the way in which any one, who approached the subject from the mathematical side, would attempt to visualize propositions, that it was forced upon me almost at once.”↩ this spectrum, of course, is also highly relevant in relationships.↩ join 601k other humans and have new posts emailed to you.

topics latest posts attend upcoming events learn learn about marketplace shop sign up to coveyclub now! share caring for your parents her aging mother was demanding and impossible. this writer thought she might break by anonymous “my first resolution for 2019 is to stop complaining so much about my fucking mother,” i said to my significant other on new year’s day this year. she’s 92, and bravely facing her twilight, a widow just doing her best to get by in the familiar comfort of her home of 40 years. from my point of view, she’s self absorbed and inexcusably dependent; has been her whole life. i’m obviously a hideous person. who could say such things about her own mother? how my aging mother provokes meit’s just that she gets me so angry. i’m not talking garden variety annoyance, though i experience that, too. i’m talking bomb cyclone. this dramatic meteorological phrase perfectly characterizes my category five internal weather at times. when it blows over, i feel enormous shame about my anger. the kind of shame that wakes me at three in the morning to beat me up. to echo nora ephron, i feel so bad about my feelings! i was at the grocery store the other day in line behind two lovely teenage boys. “they were so polite and nice,” the cashier said to me. i complimented her on how nice she sounded with them and she replied, “i like young people. i used to do elder care, but i came to hate it because old people complain too much. especially aged baby boomers who feel entitled. it wore me down.” i wanted to kiss her for her honesty. the stages of anger at my aging motherhere’s my list of what i call the 4 stages of hating caring for an aging parent: 1. annoyance. mom “forgets” to bring her wallet to restaurants, so i’m obliged to pay. mom “forgets” her cane when i take her out in the world (she doesn’t want people to think she’s old, she once confessed) so she makes like an albatross on my elbow. also, she eats only the gooey inside of a wedge of camembert and leaves the rind for others. 2. frustration. i recently went to some effort at her request to find her a new orthopedist because she disliked how her original one rushed through appointments. but then she decided it wasn’t her shoulder that hurt, it was her groin. “okay, mom, we’ll look into it,” i said and i canceled the doctor i’d just found. 3. resentment. caused by no. 1 and no. 2 above. my mother didn’t work for a living and so has always prioritized spontaneity. to survive juggling a staff job for 30 years while parenting three children as a single mother   i had to kiss spontaneity goodbye in favor of planning, organizing, and scheduling. she doesn’t get this, and blithely calls at the last minute for help getting to long standing appointments. 4. anger. an ugly sludge builds in me during my days when i have to give half my work day over to caregiving. while i love my mother, there are times when i have to face the grim fact that i don’t enjoy her company. rather than have a real conversation in which being honest would involve disagreeing with her, i go into my fake, submissive, yes woman persona to get through these visits. mom lived alone self sufficiently until recent years when things around the house   like stairs   started to get dangerous. the turning point for me, however, came after a couple of shrill calls about the smoke alarms just as i was sitting down to dinner in my home 40 minutes away. “mom, stop yelling,” i’d say. “at least it’s not you burned to a crisp!” we children decided it was time for scheduled caregivers. even she agrees that more “company” will be good. “but not live ins.” the agencies cost too much so we’re using word of mouth to hire part time helpers. but it’s like herding cats to get them to show up on time. inevitably, there are last minute cancellations. and then come the hysterical emails from mom with the subject line: damn! damn! damn! i’m pressing the point that it’d be better to institute a more organized, full time caregiver setup. alas, mom has shot down all the candidates we’ve come up with like so many ducks at a carnival shooting gallery. “too mousy.” “too gossipy; i don’t want my business spread all over town.” i think the veto power helps her to feel in control and alive. my aging mother doesn’t want “to burden” methen, mom says, “i don’t want to be a burden to any of you.” translation: i wish one of you would come live with me. i’ve grown weary of the constant complaining and the expectation that my siblings and i will step in to solve every problem. (not all 90 somethings are this dependent, i recently learned. my best friend has a mother nearly the same age who is way more independent and competent; she just sold her house, packed up, and moved into the city from the burbs without a peep to her children.) my mother is, fortunately for you, not your mother. surely i’ll be infuriating my children in my unique ways a few short decades from now (if i’m lucky). but what is shared among many of us adult children seems to be a distaste for this task. i thought i was prepared for this stage, but it has blindsided me. i’ve learned i’m not alone in my reactions. i asked myself why this mother care is so disturbing and came up with a couple of reasons. one: it just feels crummy to see myself begrudging, withholding, patronizing, spiteful. that’s not me. two: isn’t it a violation of the natural order to be parenting the parent as he or she becomes the toddler, especially at a time in our lives when we’ve just finished raising our actual toddlers into adolescence or twentysomething hood? why, just when we get to reclaim a life for ourselves   are we dragged right back into servitude? and who wants to see their parent’s naked, wrinkly old whatevers when the hospital gown falls away? for help with this monstrous swamp of emotions, i turned to dr. gretchen kubacky, a los angeles psychologist and certified bereavement facilitator. i asked her: one   what are the origins of such unwieldy feelings; and two   wtf can i (or someone in my same predicament) do to get back to some semblance of yogic balance? dr. kubacky refers to herself on her website as dr. gretchen, so i’ll call her that. she says the various feelings we adult children experience may be connected to the natural order being upended, “but really, it’s just a hope that we won’t all need care like this in the end. fear of loss, or anticipatory grief, can produce intense feelings of grief, sadness, and longing or yearning   for what will be missed, for things to be the way they were.” but what triggers that extra dollop of negative feelings? anger triggers for me with my aging mother“i think the rage about the helplessness or incompetence ties into frustration and fear about one’s own decline or demise. it’s right in your face, this person who probably looks something like you, decaying, and that’s scary. also, depending upon the person’s diagnosis (for example, some dementias), they may be undergoing a significant personality transformation or loss of memory that is also scary, confusing, and fear inducing. we expect children to be ‘incompetent,’ but we don’t expect that of adults.” when i rant a bit about my mother’s assumption that her children will jump through hoops to help her stay at home despite the time suck her insistence on jerry rigging imposes, dr. gretchen answers mildly, “and don’t you get that, viscerally? the idea of being institutionalized with a bunch of mind numbingly dull attendants probably sounds like the worst imaginable fate to your mother, who has been independent for so long.” point taken. “but at the same time, you’re right, it’s incredibly selfish to demand in home care forever   unless she can afford to hire the best, 24/7.” i share with her this platitude that seems to rise above the din of unsolicited advice from friends: “you’re lucky that your mother is still above ground to complain about.” i’ve tried to let that inspire me, with only minor success. dr. gretchen rejects attitude adjustment. “you are not required to be grateful, and you are not a bad person if you’re not only not grateful, but also a little angry, bitter, and resentful. sometimes there is great beauty in caregiving, but it’s hard to focus on that when you’re overwhelmed with duties.” or in my case, overwhelmed with anger. the unexpected role of sadness with my aging mother“anger is often the cover emotion for sadness,” she says. oh, did i leave out sadness? i guess i did. add that to the list. “and, there’s a great deal to be angry about in a caregiving position. you miss out on fun or interesting or important things to do menial work, have repetitive conversations, deal with supervising people, anticipate needs that the patient can’t articulate, and share (or not share) the burden with siblings or other family members. old family dynamics flare up during a caregiving period, which can go on for years.” dr. gretchen distinguishes between the current back burnering of our own priorities and needs and past back burnering: “we have a saying, ‘if it’s hysterical, it’s historical.’ in other words, when you’re having a strong visceral emotional response to something, it’s probably not just about what’s happening at the moment. it probably has its roots in old family dynamics.” bingo, that’s me. (and i thought this interview with dr. gretchen was going to help you.) now i know where my missing compassion has been all this time: buried deep beneath unfinished business. being raised by a self absorbed mother takes its toll. mine taught me not to speak up about my needs or insist upon my wants. she told me that was selfish, and i learned i was a selfish, bad girl. i’ve been mindful of that for years, but only now   when the tables have turned and i’m begrudging my mother her needs because she didn’t let me have mine   do i really see that the anger i’ve carried with me through the decades isn’t helpful? dr. gretchen brings it back to sadness: “maybe you have always been longing to be cared for fully by her, and now that she is on the tail end of life, it is inescapably clear that she will never care for you the way you wanted her to.” does that mean that to properly grieve childhood hurts, you have to let the anger ferment into sadness? “no,” replies dr. gretchen, “i say have the sadness and the anger. grief is non linear. that old elisabeth kubler ross thing (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) sounds all neat and tidy and linear, and it’s just not. you can have all of the emotions, only one or two, skip through a couple, find one arising in five years, and so on. don’t manage your emotions; let them come to the surface, air them out, and release or integrate them as needed. repeat until you feel better.” interesting. the pathway out of my anger at my aging motheri do occasionally find it rewarding when i inadvertently make my mother happy by offering her an extra hug at the door, inputting contacts into the speed dial area of her phone so she thinks i’m a genius, telling her her hair looks beautiful, or showing up unexpectedly with dinner on a cold, dark winter night. then she gives me a bright smile of relief. maybe instead of thinking “she’ll be dead soon, so be nice now,” i will try pulling the curtain back on my anger to encourage the more delicate, shy feelings to step forward out of my past. if that clears the way for some “great beauty” moments, it’s worth it. i’m betting those will nourish us both. what’s a grown child caring for an aging parent supposed to do?whether you’re experiencing mild annoyance or gigantic resentment, current back burnering or past sadness in disguise, here are dr. gretchen’s steps for moving yourself forward: start a conversation in public. “no shame in acknowledging the feelings. like with this article. also, have individual conversations with people who are in the same position, quite possibly any of your similarly aged friends. you will soon find an abundance of similar feelings.” seek out regular support. “friends first, then therapy, and perhaps some sort of online support group (because when you’re busy caregiving, you don’t have a lot of time to get out to a meeting).” set boundaries. i’d already set my own mom boundaries: roughly two half days a week for facetime, and the inevitable emails, phone calls, and administrative work on top of that. (my two siblings handle plenty of other matters.) i’m continually trying to clue in the team of helpers and random friends and neighbors to the fact that i have a day job because they seem to assume that i can just drop everything. dr. gretchen says: “boundaries are everything. enlist friends or neighbors to check in on the parent while you’re at work… sign up for a meal delivery service for them… and take time out for what feels like self care for you.” meditate. “self care isn’t just about the spas and bubble baths type of thing that populates the media. meditate   now! download the free insight timer meditation app and pick something. don’t tell me you don’t have time! one of my favorite meditations is less than two minutes long. have compassion for yourself and the complexity of feelings you have surrounding this person’s process of aging and dying. deal with your anger; you don’t want to carry that forward with you past your parent’s death if you don’t have to.” (check out this second piece by anonymous: just say no to your aging mother   an updated stay sane plan.) need a group of friends who’ve been there?come join the coveyclub and you get access to our coveyconnect app and our room called “the caregiver’s collective.” those who are responsible for caregiving speak about their issues and share their resources. we also publish many more stories about caregiving in the blog and cover the topic extensively in our virtual events with experts. a note about anonymous: i only have about 10 friends, but if one of them saw my name attached to this, and chose to pass it along to mom, well, i’d be left with nine friends and a needlessly hurt mother. it’s compassion more than shame, i’m fairly certain, that has led me to write anonymously here. while my mother has a remarkable new capacity for openness and honesty as she approaches the edge of the cliff and looks backward to take stock, i see no reason to drag her through the parts of our shared past that would only ignite her sense of failure. tags elder care eldercare elderly parents mother assignment: read two books … motherland by the great elissa altman and saturday’s child, by … me! both these stories speak to this theme in different ways and, unexpectedly, seem to be helping readers. all best, deborah i am so blown away by this essay. it is spot on and brilliantly articulated. thanks karen. we thought so as well. thank you! so well written and accurate for our generation. any advice on online groups to join? we will ask the writer. great question. everything in this is me, and the revelation about her mother telling that her needs didn’t count being the basis for her feelings blew my mind  spot on. wow. thanks katie: we felt this was an important topic. glad it hit you right. thank you for this! such a relief when i read again and again that i am not the only “perfect” daughter that has had her cover blown by feelings of anger toward aging mother. thank you so much for this essay. i relate so powerfully to the upsurge of blind anger. my mother controlled and manipulated me as a child as if i was clay for her to mould into a device that would make up for her unrealized self. i parented her emotionally from a very early age and had to, later in life, learn   very deliberately   that my existence was not meant to be shaped by the needs of others. now that she is 80 and her husband, my stepfather, has dementia, the old pattern of me being her bottomless emotional and physical resource has returned. i am an only child in my late 50s. i have no children of my own and i live on a very low income. i have no pension coming when i reach retirement age. all of the stress of carrying them as well as the fear that i will not be able to care for myself now and in the future (if my 2005 toyota breaks down, i can’t afford to fix it, for example), leaves me triggered into searing resentment every time my mother repeats the same story that she told me yesterday and the day before, each time as if i have never heard it, as i am trying to get back to my pay per service work. anyway, reading this blog post has helped me feel less guilty about my resentment. i am still trying to figure out some practical strategies to get through this period of my life and still have some health and energy left when it is finally over. thank you so much for sharing! i feel exactly the same way (extreme anger, resentment and sadness for the time my 95 year old and disabled mother steals from me; time i could be spending with my 10 year old daughter and my husband. my mother live with us so every single day of my life, for the last 2 years and 3 months, start with me taking care of her. i have amazing help (caregivers who have become friends) and lucky to have a full time job who keeps me away from my mother, but having her in my house means i don’t have a place to come and simply relax with my family. i’m so angry and i hate her so much that i don’t even feel guilty about these feelings anymore! i wish i knew how much longer i will have to do this. knowing for sure when the nightmare will be over would help me go through it. but there’s no way to know. i feel i’m in hell. i feel my free will has been taken away from me. god help me! so glad i found this article and totally appreciate all the comments. it feels good to know i am not alone. i feel like i raised my mother and i missed out on a “normal” childhood. my mom struggles with a plethora of mental health issues including depression and anxiety and possible bi polar disorder. i literally have ptsd because of her anxiety attacks and her own ptsd. she had horrible nightmares when i was a child and she would wake up screaming, often times she would experience paranoia as well and be convinced someone was in our hour or outside and she would call the police and they would walk through our house at 3 a.m. with flashlights and check all the closets. anyway, she moved in with us 5 years ago and i feel like it was the worse decision of my life and feel trapped. to confusing to try and write about here….but ever since she moved in with me i have slowly felt like i am dying. i allow her to suck the life out of me. god bless you !!! i’ve spent the last 15 years of my life caring for senior citizens and people with memory issues and society doesn’t give a damn! i’m an administrator of an assisted living community of 150 people and all day all i hear are complaints! no complements! just fucking complaints! food is to saltly !, why can’t i have 6 pieces of bacon at breakfast? my kids are stealing from me! the staff didn’t knock on my door before entering! a caregiver stole my pull up! why can’t we go to walmart during the corona virus? why did you sit her with me at my dinner table? please tell my mother happy birthday ! on her 100 birthday i can’t talk to her i’m busy please tell her i love her! i’m going to call state because you served peanut butter cookies instead of oatmeal cookies !!!! please note i have spent my last 15 years helping senior citizens, i’m advocate for them! i go to court for them! i shop for them when their family abandoning them! i spend my own $$$$ money clothing them even buying medication for them! and most important when i find out that they’re actively passing i sit in their room until the end comforting! stroking their hair, giving them apple sauce!, singing to them! messaging their hands! and what to i get in the end nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!no thank you for the family only this ” hey can we dump mom’s or dad furniture here! thank you   so grateful that i am not alone thank you so much, what a perfectly timed find to read. i’m so angry..i’ve opened up and said things but i don’t regret any of it. now i’m left to pick up the peices and move forward. thank you so much. my brother just flew back home. he gives me a break twice a year. i feel like i have just been plunged back into the abyss. what a relief to know i am not alone. thank you for some help and direction. despite the rage i love her dearly. i so don’t want to fail at this. there are times when it seems as if it would be easier to “go”first. this is the first article that addresses the real misery the anger causes everyone involved. if you are a caregiver, that had to stumble through your own childhood/adolescence, while no one could muster any energy or interest, then this is finally, a helpful read. bless you writer. very poignant. it hit all the feels. so much internal rage, resentment, and the weight that i will endlessly be trapped in this reality of obligation to support her over my own needs, wants and desires of living my own life. that was our point kate. everyone is feeling the same thing but everyone is too ashamed to discuss it. thanks for the comment. i could have written this, minus the help from siblings as my only one lives abroad so conveniently can’t do anything (including being unable to even phone our mother for a chat). i care for my mother 8 hours a day>every single day. to the detriment of my own teenage daughter. and as my mother gets more dependent, forgetful, negative and demanding, my rage just grows and grows. there is tony bit of consolation to know that i am not alone in dealing with such feelings. i don’t like my parents but i love them for giving me a stable peaceful home. too peaceful and too stable, at the cost of ones sanity. they overprotected us and then threw us out into a world so different from what we grew up in, to the point we now can’t function normally. i can’t stand my mom, she has totally negative vibes and is a religious nutcase. my parents raised failures , and i’m one of them. not looking forward to taking care of them in their now old age. omg ithought it was just me!! i thought i was an awful person. i don’t like my mum,she can be very demanding,self centred and cruel . i have three siblings but she lives nearest me and i dread needing to care for her. the others won’t. i constantly feel like a fourteen year old rushing to do her bidding. but i feel so very guilty . i’m 52 and still daren’t tell her i have a tattoo!! this article expresses so much honesty about the obligation to care for an uncaring parent. it really resonated because that white hot anger bubbles just beneath the surface every hour of every day. i’m an only child caregiver to my single mother. she lives with my family because she never made any financial or long term plan for herself. i moved years earlier across the country so i could become whole and put distance between us. she has no real friends and she doesn’t care to make any. she is passive aggressive, incredibly tactless and she tried to live her existence through me. i finally had my own family and i had counseling for years to become who i wanted to be. she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, almost died several times, only to bounce right back. however, i had to fly home to care for her and leave my family several times because there isn’t anyone else. i finally made the single biggest mistake that i regret every day of my life in bringing her to live with us. it is miserable. she is functional enough to retain some independence but she has no friends. she sits all day in her room and complains about literally everything any of us do. she points out everything, every tiny thing that we do wrong and is never, ever wrong. i had to stop having my craft group friends over because she would make fun of them or say horribly offensive things to them. my teenage sons have just ignored her because she isn’t kind to them. my husband doesn’t tolerate any of her bs. and i’m left feeling angry at myself for bringing her here. angry because she can’t afford her own place. angry because there isn’t another option. it’s like being backed into a corner. to say that i hate your mother or feel resentful and angry usually makes me look heartless and cruel. her church “friends” call her but they don’t want to spend time with her. but she outlived her prognosis and she continues to get chemo even though eventually she will be out of options. but that day never seems to arrive, even though i selfishly wish for it and then feel horror at my very ugly feelings. whoever this author is, i am grateful for her honest account and i wish i could have a cup of coffee and hear more. thank you for choosing to post this. my mom has dementia. i’m exhausted and my brothers (who live in distant cities) don’t get it at all. i am just done. i am so much better at expression, but today, as stated, i am done. i’m just becoming a horrible person and i feel like i don’t care. when the day comes, i don’t even want to deal with the funeral or even go. i just don’t care. oh, and let’s just heap covid on top of all this bullshit, shall we? thank you for this post. it helps me realize that i am not alone. sigh…. these comments are a lifesaver for me tonight! it’s so refreshing to hear i’m not alone! i go to support groups because my mother has dementia and i sit there as everyone is sad and upset about there parents decline.,as i am saying to myself i wish she didn’t remember me!!!! she had turned into someone i can’t stand. worse she thinks nothings wrong with her. she’s embarrassing ,rude ,unkept , demanding…it’s awful! i never had any children by choice now i have a 82 year old one. oh and she lives in a memory care facility which is comforting she can’t burn down her home but has a phone and pushed one bottom to call me with demands…..with therapy i know now alot of my boiling anger comes from the past….she wasn’t a good mother never taking care of my sister or me and now i’m expected or stuck taking care of her! may add because she has outlived her past 5 husbands,! god i feel better bitching! anon you’re doing a terrific job (two half days a week!). i don’t think most people realise what’s in store for them. they think that when the kids are off their hands they can enjoy retirement little realising that they could have an elderly parent wanting, if not demanding, to be the centrepiece of their lives. even if it’s a cherished parent, they can be a huge imposition. we are living too long. i came across this site after googling “ resenting having to take care of my mean mother”. i feel like i have had to take care of her my entire life. when i was younger, she was depressed all the time and was so wrapped up in herself, she hardly noticed she had three kids. now that she is 84 and i’m 56, i’m still trying so hard to make her happy. intellectually, i know i am wasting time, money and energy, but i still find myself trying to cook for her exactly like she thinks i should cook, dropping everything and running to the pharmacy because she must have her medication tonight, but the store closes in 15 minutes. i’m never told in advance about a doctor’s appointment so i can make plans to be off work, no one i find who can sit with her or run errands or clean for her is good enough. she always runs them off or refuses to answer the phone or door for them. i know it is just manipulation so that i will be the one who does everything for her because i do everything like she likes it. don’t even get me started on my brother who visits her 3 4 times a year but lives only 20 minutes away and has cut her grass one time in the four years she has lived in the house next to me. i have a sister who tries to help but she has enough problems of her own and lives an hour away  but my mom stays mad at her all the time for some stupid nitpicking reason, which leaves me alone to look after her and run myself in the ground for her. my mom has has zero friends. no social support. won’t speak to her other sisters   because of some silly reason or other that happened 20 years ago. just me. i’m her entire life support and she is perfectly happy with it being that way. i made a personal choice to not have children of my own, but here i am with an 84 year old child who insists on telling me what to do! she got mad at me the other day because i suggested she see another doctor because every doctor she sees is “the devil” and hung up on me when i tried to call her to tell her that her groceries would be delivered. (the one thing i stopped doing for her was grocery shopping because i was constantly panicking in the stores if they didn’t have exactly what she wanted me to buy because i knew i would get hell for not buying the right thing  even though i was freaking paying for it!) now i have her groceries delivered but still hear constant complaints about the people who buy and deliver the groceries for her. i could go on and on. really just need to vent. i’m sure tomorrow, i will cook for her and bring her food, take out her garbage, run her errands, etc. and i will just bite my tongue while she complains and gripes about everything in her tiny little sell centered world. and i will figure out how to calm myself down from the anger and anxiety until next time. i can’t imagine what it is like to get old and have to depend on other. i’m sure it is very hard, but as god is my witness, i will not be a selfish, mean and manipulative old person to those who come around me. life is too short to bring such misery to others! we’re glad this piece hit a nerve. many women are asked to do this impossible task. thank you for your comment. and hang in there. i was so glad to find this article! i am at the end of my rope with being the sole caregiver of my 90 year old mother. i have caregiver burnout and compassion fatigue from the overwhelming litany of ailments. her health has declined over the last 5 6 years and i am it! i live with her, which means there is no relief until i leave for my full time job on the days i work. my saving grace was monday mornings   until covid   then my weekends turned into 2 1/2 months. i am so resentful as i can’t go to visit my sons, who both live away. it’s just so consuming. when i work, i have a lady come in to take care of her, because things are really slipping and she should not be alone. she is so stubborn and continues to do things that her doctor and i advise her not to do. falls on deaf ears. just so very emotionally frustrating and draining. so good to hear that my feelings are felt by others who are in the same position. thank you for letting me vent. becky: you are not alone! many of us are left to deal with this. you mention mondays might be free. you might want to check out our free positive mornings coaching calls which go on mondays 9 10 am est. really gets you set for the week and helps you meet a group of intelligent people dealing with similar issues. you can find sign up here: https://www.coveyclub.com/positive morning coaching sessions/ well that was refreshing laughing and feel better already thanks to all for their stories. like many here, i hate being around my 82 year old mom. i’m the only surviving offspring. she was an awful mother who was neglectful, emotionally and, at times, physically abusive. she drank too much and slept around too much. now that she’s old and alone, i am her only interest. sorry that i can’t be one of those incredible people, who despite their shitty upbringing, are doting, loving children. just mostly bad memories. i took her out yesterday for a “fun” afternoon and she cried 5 times (lack of money, being lonely, “nothing to do but bug me”, she can’t see my kids who live out of state, 81 & made too many bad choices in life   3 failed marriages). omg! misery. i also feel guilty because i envy my friends and family whose mothers are already dead. f. really? i’m in my 60s and feel like she could outlive me. f. thank you. i was praying as just arrived to be with my mother and have such feelings of hatred. what can i do god   please help. my body is tense and so unhealthy. this article/blog lovingly appeared. what stood out “you are angry because you realize she will never care for you. ” wow   ahhhhhh this it spot on. i have been pt staying with a negative, ugly hearted, selfishish woman for last month   never has changed. the first day of arrival is always hard   it’s a rough landing. the 2nd day is usually good   playing 32 rounds of dominoes a few times and making dinner. she is so hungry for love. the third day is a mix of good and cannot wait to leave   you made it! if tmrow is not a good day i will put in my resignation and state my boundaries. my brothers can decide whether we try to find another pt caregiver (she has one)   she told one to leave  or put her in a memory care against her desire. it’s tough season but a time many families face sistahs thank you all for sharing. i feel more settled. amen your article was “spot on”. i struggled through my childhood/adolescence with a verbally/emotionally abusive father and a controlling, self absorbed mother, who is now 83 and needs help, as she has falls and is using a walker. we are going to sell our home and move her in with us, but often i question if it will be emotionally healthy for her to live with us. at times, like tonight, i find myself getting so angry with her and i feel like i am a terrible person. then i realized after reading your article that it is an anger that is more than that moment we are in; it’s so much more. i wonder sometimes how long this will go on, my caring for her and i know it is only for a season, but i resent the time that i am missing with my husband and boys. so many ways that she hurt me keep coming up in my mind and now i think i understand why. when my boys were born she wanted us to move close to her so she could help us with our kids. we moved in her neighborhood and after we did she told me “i think when people have children it’s their problem and not anyone else’s.” she was retired and didn’t help me with my kids at all. i could go on with more hurts, but i don’t want to write a novel. it’s just hard being a caregiver to your mom, and thank you for sharing your experience with us. it really helped me know i am not the only one who feels this way. finally someone whos going through the same. my mother left my father 6 years ago, had no money or job of her own, once they sold the house there was nothing left as my father had remortgaged their house so many times and left with what money there was. so we moved into a rental together, i was off to getting married abroad so had left my job etc and was waiting for the visa to be processed, but the now ex fiance called it off days before the wedding   no explanation given. so there i was back in the uk living in the rental with my mother. after a year of depression, i started my business from home and through so much hard work am now doing very well. however i pay for everything. my mother gets a pension, probably not a lot but i still pay for everything. two years ago my 74 year old mother was very ill and diagnosed with a blood disorder, so there are many days where she’s exhausted. but this doesn’t stop her being opinionated, moaning about the state of the country and swearing to herself about virtually everything. i have noticed how she is less and less bothered about everything, i m having to pick up the slack more than ever. when she cooks it’s a disaster, she has no patience for anything. i ve watched her turning into a relatively useless lump, that expects me to carry one supporting her. i finally got onto the property ladder and of course my mother moved with me. there was never a moment where she ever considered that this would not be the case. ( the rest of my family never questioned this either) of course my younger brothers dont do a thing, one lives abroad with his partner and the other down south with his partner. none of them offer to assist financially or otherwise. i guess they assume me being the only daughter that i should automatically assume the role of caregiver. i also feel they resent her for leaving it so late to leave my father, knowing she would not have any property or savings of her own. after all my mother regularly cared for her parents while her brother lived thousands of miles away and never bothered. she expects that i care for her and often remarks how my brothers should do the same and they are a disgrace for not doing so..but are they? why is this an expectancy? especially for women. i have a 23 years son of my own living away and working hard. i never want to burden him the way my mother has me. i have a private pension in place, life insurance and expect to be mortgage free within 3 years time. if i get sick, i will go into a care home  no arguments! as for the feelings   oh yes very frustrated, seething ( seething cow as my mother once muttered about me) , angry feeling like i cant breath, have five minutes to myself. no hope of meeting or being with anyone   who would date a 40+ women living with her mother   and even if things progressed   there would be the whole guilt trip about selling my house and leaving my mother to care for herself. i feel like this is my life  by the time my mother passes on, i will be too old myself to start a relationship or live my life beyond what it is. clara: thank you for your note. it is proven research that daughters end up caring for their family more than sons. but have heart: we believe that you are never too old to get the life you deserve to have. believe and hang tough. hallelujah!!! this is spot on. i’m carer for my 86 year old mother who is dying of multiple myeloma. she can’t walk, wears diapers, is fairly away with fairies due to the morphine she is taking for he pain. i am an only child and she lives with myself and my husband. my husband has just left for a week visiting our children in the uk   i should have been going with him but i couldn’t because i need to look after my mother. i’m having a little cry at the injustice of it. we had a fairly toxic relationship and i’ve had a fair degree of therapy to try and undo the damage of my childhood. she has always been self absorbed, narcissistic and dependent. i really started looking after her 6 years ago when my father died   throughout her life, she did nothing for herself, couldn’t drive, use a mobile phone or a bank card. at that point it was just taking her shopping, and keeping an eye on her. then 2.5 years ago she was diagnosed so we moved her in with us while she had chemo and i have cooked cleaned and shopped for her ever since. she was quite happy to let me literally do everything for her until the nurse pointed out that a lot of it she should be doing herself (showering for example). she’s since had a relapse and she currently has the nurse in twice a day to shower her and to put her to bed at night, i am home with her because i am a teacher and it’s school holidays. she calls me every 10 minutes for nothing in particular. sometimes i’ll rush in from the garden to see what the problem is and she’ll just say that she wanted to say hello. i have some private online lessons but i’ve had to stop them because i can’t have the peace and quiet i need to do them. i also have a summer holiday rental business plus a very big garden to take care of. i am caring for her exceptionally well   i get her up, take her to the toilet, wipe her backside, administer her drugs, cook for her, clean for her, wash and iron her clothes, sit with her at night when she can’t sleep. i’ve managed to distance myself emotionally, it’s hard to show love and affection that i don’t feel. i’m very kind to her but today i’ve lost my patience and told her that she can’t keep calling me for no reason and that i have things i need to do. now i feel guilty and angry and sad and a whole host of things i can’t describe. thanks for this, i couldn’t have read it at a better time. this is me so thankyou so much for writing it. i hate myself at times as have wished my mother dead and then feel like a wicked person, but she gets to me so much at times. i have 3 siblings but none of them have contact with her so its down to me. i was sobbing my heart out reading your story as i can identify with you so much. just came across this and so glad i did! i have been angry and resentful over the time it takes to care for my aging mother. i especially identified with “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical.” much of what i am doing now i did when i was young. i hated it then and i hate it now. i’ve heard the remarks “you’re so lucky to have your mother” or “what i wouldn’t give to have another conversation with my mother.” these remarks used to make me feel guilty. no more. words coming from folks who have free time to do as they please. when i was “growing up” it was all about what she needed to make her life more comfortable, while my needs were ignored and never taken into consideration. i was afraid to ask for anything. in high school i had to clean the house daily, prepare dinner, and look after my brothers, and have her bath water ready when she arrived home from work one day per week since she had a standing hair appointment. she thought i was her housekeeping and cooking service. i could never play after school sports. my dad had left us, and was equally unavailable and useless. i feel bad for that young girl, and i wish i could talk to her and tell her that her life and needs and wants mattered. it was the adults’ job to figure that mess out. they failed and it was not my fault. i could not finish college as there was always some problem at home. i did my best. i started working, got married and had my own family. i vowed to not do this with my own kids and i didn’t. she always characterized the time i spent with them as “bending over backwards” or “spoiling” them when in reality it’s what parents do to care for their children. i’m better at setting boundaries, but covid presents the obvious issues for the foreseeable future. i’ll reassess once the pandemic has passed. for now i will give her what she did not give me, and what she did not give her own parents when they needed it. she was recently hospitalized for a few days. i still work full time and luckily can work remotely. since she came home there are multiple nurse appointments, aide, ot, pt, md, ct scan, x ray, and now an upcoming mental health appointment. my brother and sil are some help but they were more than happy to push her off on me after having her for a few days. they want to be sure i am doing my fair share! and there is always something that is needed; today’s list   another shower bar, a new shower stool, a different towel bar, and the topper: lightweight towels (her old towels are too heavy). the health aide who came today told my mom   oh your daughter is great! don’t you wish you had more daughters? her response: i do   she needs the help. so you see, entitlement and sexism is alive and well. it’s okay to inconvenience and impose on daughters. oh   and my brother is the one who is trusted with financial matters, not me. rant over. i had to write. i identify. i felt guilty and not guilty and angry and resentful for hating care giving and on some days hating her. my mother now lives in our basement. she has chronic back pain, stomach issues, a brain tumour (not malignant) and suffers from depression and is probably bi polar. she is passive aggressive in her requests/demands and we do everything we can to make her comfortable. yet, nothing is good enough. it’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too dusty, it’s too damp, the taps, the lights… etc. she has led a life over the past 20+ years of complaining about her health, telling everything about the meds she takes…it becomes a grating, annoying narrative. her marriage of 30 years is over and she had very little love and support during that time. i am an only child so there is no one else who would care for her, save my wonderful husband. and i find myself feeling resentful… because she spiraled into using percocet, didn’t care for her body and soul, didn’t exercise, didn’t eat properly…and now all she does is sit in front of her computer all day. her teeth are all rotten and she will only agree to a process of a year of extractions before she will get dentures. a year, of one extraction per month basically, because she is afraid of the recovery should she have several teeth out at once. however… i am not changing diapers, i don’t have to lift her in and out of bed, she has her own private space and mostly manages her own appointments, etc. i help… by buying groceries and taking her to the odd appointment. and she has a safe and nice place to live (no cockroaches like the apartment she had found for herself last year, omg!) she used to be a vibrant, talented, and tenacious woman. it is very hard to realize that she is no longer that person, but instead, has withdrawn into her own little world. so…the feelings of resentment are hard to deal with. it’s my mom for god’s sakes! she raised me, partly made me the woman i am today…and yet… i am so mad at her….because she doesn’t have a life any more. i visit her downstairs about 3 or 4 times a day but have gotten to the point that i can only stay for a maximum of 10 minutes, because i cannot listen to the complaints for much longer than that. here’s the rub   once again, i find myself considering ‘therapy’, to learn how to deal and cope with all of this. i sought therapy when my son was abusive to me, i sought therapy when my ex husband was abusive to me, and now this? the people causing me the anguish are never the ones who seek therapy. but i cannot bring myself to utter the words “you are a hypochondriac” to her. (i know that some of her ailments are obviously very real.) i am afraid to be honest because i don’t want to hurt her. i am angry, but i am sad too. i find myself wondering what the next few years will bring. born in to generational “family”of mental illness & domestic violence always distorts, dominates and impacts ongoing. mother largely by choice/skewed perception excuses, ignores, permits/perpetrates abuse & witnesses/endures without action horrific daily assaults perpetuated by husband largely upon her middle aging offspring. i don’t like or admire my mother and try very hard to continue to care and impart kindness. my mother has always held disdain for me expressing that she wished i was never born. in the next breathe she says with what appears unattainable dismay how “exceptionally kind, compassionate & intuitive” i am with her & everyone. as a sensitive, caring and diligent person i have been in the workforce 28yrs, 2 degrees, husband who died when i was 38, no children and spent last 15yrs in/out hospital having some 9 ortho operations. unforseen circumstance has me residing for a roof over my head with parents. nothing is mine & i must do everything. this exposes me to direct demands of increasing caregiving duties whereby i cannot even scratch my own head. well the day has come where the matriarch till recent had me providing to every need & tasks of such personal nature that i’d never imagined would be forceably expected. her ailing/incapable 87yr husband tho primary carer refuses to complete such tasks to support his wife. he looses his temper having her a vulnerable quivering mess. times he’ll throw his walking stick at her bashing her leg to cause large hole/bleeding   warfrin. too many times i’ve been the mother/protector & rescued her. slap covid 19, sibling abuse/rivalry/bullying & 6mths ongoing of nuisance neighbour barking dog german shepherd at 3 6hrs/day non stop i am ready to drop dead. i’ve literally washed daily chronic diarrhoea post longterm antibiotics/hospital for mother. destroyed myself physically on top of bi lateral total knee replacements & heavily plate braced foot/ankle by physical manoeuvres beyond. picked up the bodies multiple times of both parents from major falls. got down on my false knees to perform cpr on mum till emergency ambulance arrived. hijacked by her commanding home visiting doctor recently to bellow at me “your mother says she has depression & inappetance due to the tension between you & your father.” commanding me to be in the same room as her in my home & me unmasked!!! cv19?? wtf i leave room with the doctor shouting “come back here… it might not be true.” wtf. the doctor said mother’s recent xray show no fractures/breaks from recent fall. fast forward 3 aug my sister & i aid 8 paramedics to transport my mother to hospital er at midnight & wait further 4hrs 4am b4 on duty doctor in charge reports & admits her. we cannot visit cv19 precautions. mother has fractured coxic from recent fall, ongoing krf, ra, hiatus hernia   minor operative treatment as she’s not up to major op ever. vomiting, inappetance, immobile/bed ridden, pneumonia, nausea, high bp pain etc. she’s still in hospital. blame it on me though mother. i ring her & yet i don’t want to speak to her as she hangs up. i struggle to hear her voice & she gets turse. we just have nothing to say. i just don’t want to be entangled & drowning. i want to see life & in peace b4 i die. i do have all of the anger and resentment that the other comments outline. the fact that there is no definitive end in site is devastating to deal with. the lack of support from siblings is disrespectful and unkind. i doubt i will speak to my brother or sister again after my mother dies. your life is not your own when a parent lives with you. the relationship with your partner is changed beyond repair. i have been very clear with my mother that i need her to go away for a couple of months to stay with my sister because i need a break after the last 7 years. it doesn’t matter whether i tell her i am falling apart and need time alone with my husband, she just says she can’t do that. it’s all about her. she doesn’t have enough money to pay the exorbitant cost of a retirement home, but her dementia that was diagnosed as mid level two years ago is starting to now deteriorate more rapidly. she is eligible for long term care but of course, i would have to force her into that as she and my siblings don’t see that she’s a problem. i say i will never ask my daughter to do this for me and want to ensure plans are in place should i receive a diagnosis of dementia. the biggest problem right now is that people are not as concerned about their mental health as much as their physical health. there has to be more emphasis on people planning for their senior years both financially and medically. it is not your children’s responsibility to pick up the pieces from a parent’s complete avoidance of future planning. there should be organizations and information in place to guide people as to how to get plans in place. this awareness should be starting at least when a person is in their fifties…probably much sooner. those of us who have let parents into our home are pretty well stuck as there aren’t better structures in place. i know there are seniors programs and caregivers that can come to the home, but honestly, if you can even get your parent to participate, it’s more work for the caregiver to organize. it’s exhausting! we all have to face the facts about aging and take individual responsibility for our futures. with you in solidarity…just want to point out though that just because she never worked for a living doesn’t necessarily mean this is why she is the way she is last minute. let’s keep the working mom spirit separate here…not all who stay home are this absorbed and selfish. i have looked after my mother all my life and today i spent too long having an afternoon with a friend. she asked me to help with some tasks which i did and i said i would go back later which i did. but she was so angry as i had spent ‘too long’ with my friend and i am guessing because i didn’t call her, felt even more angry. my heart sank. i am 60 + which makes it even worse…! thank you so much for this. i can’t express how much these words resonate with me. time to try and let go of unfulfilled expectations…. i came upon this post after doing a random google search and i’m glad i found it. bless you for your honesty, warts and all. i too am dealing with a parent that does some things i just don’t like. my mother is hands down, unequivocally and definitively the most fiscally irresponsible person i have ever met in all my days. and i say that as someone who worked with a woman that took to using muppet like voices to talk to bill collectors that called to get her overdue dough. yes: imagine hearing the person in the next cube twittering over the phone, “carol? no, no carol works here, please stop calling” in their best kermit the frog voice. my mother is worse. she is 73 years old and her credit is in the negatives. she has worked hard all her life (to include retiring not once, not twice, but thrice) and also has social security coming in. she lives in a gated retirement community that is subsidized, so her income covers her rent and expenses 4 times over…but she is horrid. with. money. think having $1500 in the bank and needing $1000 of it to cover bills, but spending $1100. that means that yup i will call my daughter to ask for the other $600 i am now short and using all manner of manipulation tactics to get it. i am so hurt that she feels my money is “disposable”. now, i know what some of you are thinking. you’re thinking, “well gee just say “no”.” well, i’m not nancy reagan and that only works on ’80’s era drug mitigation ads from tv. it’s not that easy especially with a master manipulator that knows every button to press and string to pull to get her way. this includes mentions of “only having one mother in your lifetime” to threats of being out on the streets. my father passed when i was in my early 30’s, so i attribute a lot of giving in to the lamentations of the “she’s all i have left” sentiment. my mother is a boomer that grew up under the “gotta be tough as nails” child rearing of the ’50’s. elders were to be respected (even if they were full of crap). honor thy mother and father (even when they don’t act in a manner worthy of honor). and by all means do as i say, not as i do. when i mentioned the business i planned to start 7 years ago, she put up a fuss. i am a business major and knew i’d be successful, so it didn’t hit me until round 5 of her chiding me over the phone for “risking it all”: it wasn’t me, or the business. it was the threat that starting it would make me financially unstable. that, in turn, would cut into her honeypot and make life inconvenient for her. can’t have that. frankly, i actually ascribe to honoring thy mother and father. the older i get though, i realize that honoring sometimes means saying “no”. the odds of a woman in her ’70’s suddenly “seeing the light” about, y’know, the responsibility to pay the bills you create is slim to none. but i will still love her. that love will just mean that no, you can’t have $300 of my hard earned dough to play the slots at atlantic city this weekend but you’re welcome to find a way to do it on your dime. thanks for sharing. i’m glad we can offer some help. everyone is going through this issue. please know you are not alone i drive 500 miles every 4 5 weeks from my home in colorado to my childhood home in oklahoma. i spend 2 weeks caring for my mom and give her caregivers time off. i have been doing this for 3 years. the anger, resentment and resulting guilt and shame had me googling why i hated taking care of my mom. what i saw as strength and courage in my mom when i was young has morphed into a total control freak. my anger does come from sadness. i am sad that my mom has turned into a needy child which i never wanted. i understand her fear as it is mine, also of dependence and decay. her finances are drained and me and my sisters(3) will need to start ponying up. she needs more care than she can afford and we are all able to help but not always willing. she didn’t save a lot of money and this also breeds resentment. the article is spot on and appreciated. thanks these are tough times especially for responsible daughters. know you will get through this. and that you are not alone tami you are heard and your issues are real tami. i am glad we are able to offer you a bit of supportive perspective. i needed this article and your comments today. i have been trying so hard to deal with these feelings…meditation, therapy, support groups, medication, writing, etc. maybe i am a slow learner, i don’t now. for today, while i empathize with all you are going through, i don’t feel alone. my mother is a horder on top of having dementia and i have taken care of my parents and helped them out, lived with them on and off and moved in with mom when dad passed away. i have a sister who lives 3 miles a way and has only been to the house 2x in 25 yrs. i am the one here, doing everything. and watching mom slowly go down hill. i feel lime i don’t even have a life. my mom has never been a house cleaner & we live different. she is non complaint with me about everything. i have my own health issues and i literally feel like i’m losing my mind. steph: many women are in the same boat as you are. that’s why we had our writer do this very honest story. can you please find a support group near you or online that you can share your issues with? honestly, accepting help is part of getting through this. you should not have to carry this by yourself. thanks for this. all situations are different but the similarities are there. i feel like i am dragging two large boulders around all the time (mom and dad). i never wanted this role and am angry and resentful. also depressed and hopeless and sometime hateful. my mom has been self centered her whole life, loving us kids a lot but much more concerned for herself and her needs. she wanted to be close friends and use me as a support starting when i was about 10. when she tries to draw close, i want to run. now her friends are dead and she is a mass of complaints, resentments and loneliness. every conversation throws me into a tailspin. one of my brothers handles it better, one even worse. my father was a benign guy, very passive, and in that passivity, also not there for us kids. loving, yes, but not supportive. he now needs a full time caregiver and total management of everything and thank goodness for one of my brothers who shares it and for some cash that makes the full time caregiver possible for now. i wish both my parents would lie down one night soon and die peacefully. my father (92) knows his life is at it’s end and he may be ready, but each emergency intervention takes a toll on him and on the rest of us. my mother (86) is a major annoyance. she is more capable than my father but is slipping (they are divorced and have been since i was small). my father’s complaints have faded. but my mother’s complaints are loud. thanks for listening. some of the suggestions are good! everything you have said i am experiencing, i will have such guilt when my mother leaves this earth… but while she is here she makes me so angry.. she is so needy and the more help she has the more she wants. she is attention seeking and i’m at my wits end know what steps i can take. to read that someone feels the same and to see others are going through similar situations makes me feel that my feelings and emotions are not that alien. thank you so much ❤️ thank you, thank you, thank you  my biggest fear is that i will turn into (or perhaps i already have ) unappreciative, complaining, anger inducing mother. i’m sorry but oh so grateful to know i’m not alone in my feelings towards my mother. she is handicapped (can’t walk) so requires 24/7 help which we have someone we can barely afford and is getting beaten down by my moms constant demands (my mom doesn’t ask  she demands as “her parents did to their children   they were told what to do not asked politely. can’t i just have a nice mom who is kind and pleasant to people  she accuses everyone of subterfuge. i was about to post another page of complaints about my mom (that answers the above question) when all i meant to say was thank you for your post and well needed companionship. my mother lives with me and my husband. we are in our 70s. she is in her 90s. she treats us like servants. if i’d known how long she’d live i’d never have taken her in. will i be 80 before i’m free of her silliness, her demands and her total lack of understanding. she never, ever thinks what it’s like for us. together my husband and i created a lovely home from a wreck and we both now hate it. she has had her life and we should have what’s left of ours. i have told my children i will never do this to them and i mean it. i am so resentful. i should have had an inheritance by now and will probably get nothing. not that i even care any more. not one person has commented on those many mums/parents that are the total opposite of what you are all describing. i have one daughter who wanted for nothing when growing up and she fully admits it, and is proud tof tell all about her great loving upbringing when her only worry was to be doing what she should be for her age. she is now in early forties and has her own 5 kids, my 1st born granddaughter is 30wks pregnant with a baby boy..needless to say that i absolutely doted on these children.. i was never without them, they were my life. i worked hard so they also could ask nanna for anything and was there for them no matter what! …however, my health was taking its toll, and i got triple negative breast cancer at age 42 and have battled it for 19yrs..due to aggressive treatments i’ve got heart and lung disease, arterial disease, top to toe arthritis and the list goes on and on.. i now have multiple myeloma and have suffered greatly for the past 6yrs as it’s a 1% rare type.. now here’s the good bit.. i downsized to a smaller house, bigger garden as my mobility got worse in 2015..this was just after i had spent my 1st christmas alone. the kids popped in for 5 mins to pick up gifts and borrow some veg and gravy maker, my poor health wasn’t their fault, if i couldn’t get ready and go for dinner that was my problem. that was just the beginning, i have since been left “to bat on with it”they (and rightly so) have their own lives to live and they’re not being put out of they’re way for anyone! not even nanna who gave her life up for them.. except when they want money, i am graced with a request by text and them picking it up was classed as a visit! how lucky i am you must be thinking, but don’t be to envious. i have been a sociable, love life kind of person all my days. i have been dumped and left on my own now almost all of the last 6yrs.. they live 10 mins walk from here and they don’t even ask if i need a pint of milk bringing over while they’re out shopping.. i dread each day i wake up! i sit alone 24hrs a day 7 days a week 365 days a year! i only get out to appointments and it takes me almost a week to get ready. i don’t see my parents or sisters as i don’t dare let them see how i look or how bad my home looks.. i have lied to them every which way so they don’t see the way i’m being treated by my daughter and her family..each and every chence i get, when i can look better (not often) i visit my mum and dad and meet the girls there, while they suspiciously look at me but are to polite to ask what i am hiding from them, they would never dream that im going through this nightmare.. i sob uncontrollably , making for an embaressing drive home with my uber cab driver every time i have to leave my lovely mum who misses me like hell, and who pretends to understand, but she doesn’t…one of my sisters has recently found out a bit of it all but i have begged her to say nothing and sworn her to secrecy. she recognised some of my jewellery that someone had bought cheaply and came to see me so fast , she must have met herself on the way back, but that’s another story.. i’m on treatment now with a kinder chemo but my bones are on their last legs (being plasma cell bone marrow cancer) and other organs are involved now. you must be wondering why they would do this to a good mum and grandma?.. one word ” money”!! they want it now and if i don’t give it they’re going to take it!! so this artitle and comments broke my heart, it’s me in reverse! please don’t hate your mum’s, they’re likely terrified that they will become me?! after all, if they never gave anything, they did at least give you life.. :)xxx .. i had to do a double take because it was as if i wrote the article. and then all the comments, wow, so many people feel the exact same way i do. my friends tell me i’m so lucky i still have my mom. most of my friends lost their moms fairly young, in their 50’s and 60′. my mom is 87, physically very healthy but has dementia. my sis and i take turns taking care of her in our homes but i can’t stand it anymore. i want my house back. i want my privacy with my husband back. i want to go out and enjoy my life while i still can. i’m 52. everything about her bothers me. she stares at us when we eat. she asks the same questions 25 times a day. she farts. she hangs her panties on the window for all to see. she stares at my neighbors through the window, so many other annoyances. i just don’t enjoy her company one bit. i don’t enjoy talking to her. she never drank, smoked, and always ate healthy so her body is healthy which means she has a lot more years left and guess who’s stuck with her for a lot more years? what good is it to be healthy and live a long life if you get dementia and can’t take care of yourself? everyone says life is short but people are living really long lives nowadays and daughters are usuallt the ones getting stuck with their moms and resenting every second of it. i’m lucky my sis helps a lot but i’m ready to place mom in a nursing home. i already told my son i don’t want him taking care of me if i make it to 87. i told him to go enjoy his life and be adventurous and have fun. i’ll check myself into a nursing home and play bingo and square dance 🙂 you do have the power to say no and you don’t have to feel guilty. you are not responsible for your mother. i’m convinced most women have children just so they have someone to take care of them one day so if that is what she thought she was getting out of the deal, that’s on her. you, as an embryo, never agreed to it. say no. block her calls. block her messages. block threats of suicide and homelessness and live your own life no matter what happens to her. if you decide to help her and feel angry for it, that is on you. thank you to the person who wrote this. beyond just offering perspective (my relationship with my parents is nowhere near the vicinity of yours), it helped me to revisit my anger and frustration with a calmer analysis. my parents were attentive in my raising, though both working so very busy. so much so that under their guidance i was brought up to be very self reliant and independent. they were supportive of me and my siblings, even well into adulthood, to the point of having very little for themselves when they retired. i cant stress how selfless tgey have been. and now that they are in their twilight, i knew it was my turn to give back, be the good son. because i love them so much, and they’ve never asked for anything. in fact i insisted. i built a suite for them on our home, set them up, had them involved in the decisions  etc. and for about 5 years everything was great. but once our children left the nest it started to change. slowly at first. but building over time  a horrid, secret resentment. and its grown so that now and then it spews out as audible sighs or short response over trivial interactions. they talk just to fill the silence, or do things that make more work for me than i or my wife already have. but i know this  it isn’t them  its all me. i believe the bulk of my anger stems from their inability to be self reliant, and the frustration that they raised me to be so why cant they walk their own walk? and i know im being petty and unreasonable. which only compounds the anger further. i feel like such a shit sometimes, and it keeps me awake at night. because even though i know this isn’t the real me, im afraid that this is the new me. and that makes me think i am a horrible son. anyhow, thank you for sharing. reading the above doesn’t sound like it, but it really helped. this last post is unfortunately how i feel. i would just like to walk away from the pain that is my life. by life i mean my early years. it is very hard to care for someone who caused you so much pain. the one person that was supposed to be there for you left you to fend for yourself because she couldn’t even take care of herself. so self absorbed that she couldn’t even care for her 3 children myself being the youngest. i was almost hit by a semi truck at the age of three because my mother wasn’t watching me and i got out of the house and on the road. really?!!!! what mother lets their 3 year old out of there sight for a second?!!! she was so self absorbed that she didn’t even know that i wasn’t in her sight. she was so consumed with my cheating father that she could think of nothing else but her own pain. i’m sorry but if i can put my crap aside and give my all to my 2 daughters and put them ahead of myself then she could have done the same. i came through such horrible abuse but still managed to put my daughters first as it should be. they didn’t ask to be born so you should have the utmost respect and treat them right. this is why i just want to through my hands up and walk away. the verbal abuse just continued into my adulthood and i am so sick of hurting. i am worth more than that. i am important too. thank you all…today was one of those days with my mother. she 76 and loves to gamble, talk shit about family members and wonders why no one visits her. she’s done some awful shit through out her life and if she’s ever helped you she throws it in you face whenever possible. everyone steals from her and everyone is out to get her. growing up i could never remember a time we shopped together or visited a salon she only chased the mighty dollar and her own happiness. thank you all for your honesty we are never alone in life!!! omg!!! for a minute, i thought i wrote this! thank you, thank you, thank you for this article. aging is a torture for all humans. but these people, without any passion in life, these superficial people who only know complaining, comparing others, cheating, lying  are the real tortures. i am being slowly killed by my mother too. i wish i wasn’t born  hi bella: i understand the overwhelming state of your affairs with your mom. find someone to talk to about this. it is a problem many people face: you are not alone. a good counselor will give you ways to handle her better. my mom just turned 49 and for 5 years now complains about people not helping. but goes out and does things she wants to do with no problem. she got hurt on the job but claims she’s unfit to do anything else. she also has bad spending habits with the little money she does get and the money people give her sometimes goes to the wrong thing. i just want to finish college so i can really help and not get stuck living with her and a dead end job taking care of yourself is a way to help your mother. get going in that direction and you will find it beneficial to you both. this is very helpful to read all this. i’m glad i’m not alone. that is important to not feel alone. my father died suddenly in 2016. he wasn’t supposed to be the one to go first. my mother is the one who had open heart surgery, dementia, thyroid issues, parkinson’s, incontinence issues, and acid reflux. we all thought my father would outlive my mother but that’s not what happened. my mother is incapable of everything. she has been living with me for 4 years straight. 24/7. i’m resentful and extremely sad this is how my life turned out. it’s not rewarding nor is it happy. from the onset, my family deserted me. i don’t get along with them and personally hope they all end up in hell where they belong. not a call to ask if she needs anything or a visit. because they hate me, they are rotten to my mother. i pray every day for this to end. it’s a prison sentence and hell for one person to do this. this article and comments are raw, honest, and so very, very human. as you can see, they aren’t uncommon, just unspoken. we’ve been conditioned to be “nice,” and not share thoughts or emotions that don’t match that exterior. i work with family caregivers, having been one myself. i get how hard it can be at so many levels. you become angry, depleted, and fearful about how you will lash out. sometimes we do. but, it leaves us feeling worse than before. covey club has a caregiver room and i moderate the space. i would invite you to join us using the app to share your concerns, feelings, and needs. in turn, you will not be judged. it’s a safe space to share. i find caregivers to be relentlessly supportive of one another and share their best solutions without forcing them upon anyone. i’m game to build a community that can move us beyond the essay and creates full ness for caregivers. here is one resource that might be helpful. this is a free caregiver study designed to utilize mindfulness techniques to help reduce caregiver stress and distress. it begins in april 2021. please take a look. i will be posting more ideas here or in the caregiver collective in the covey club app. https://zencaregiving.org/caregiver study/ all your stories have something of mine. my mother couldn’t take care of herself either, and i was her emotional crutch from my early teens. always made to feel that my needs took second place to hers. unable to cope with behavior contradictory to her assumptions. in my twenties i felt forty, and needed to be out of her suffocating orbit to be myself. but, i did make a life for myself although made to feel guilty about it in the passive aggressive way she was a master in. funny, as many of you also say, she was critical about the way i took care of my children, allowing them the space to be children. not heaping the wrong kind of responsibilities on them. they have turned out to be loving and caring. they also give my husband and me the impression that they actually enjoy our company. this is something that never fails to surprise me, as i just absolutely hate being around my mother. she’s 96 now and suffers from the onset of dementia. she’s always been lonely so filled her life with friends, now they’re all dead and gone or unable to visit. now she wants to move in with me, but i’m not going to do that because i don’t want to be miserable. i visit regularly and pay caregivers (much, much more than i can afford) but i’d rather do without than sacrifice my sanity. she put herself first when i was young and at her mercy, and actually did something terrible to me when i was too young to protect myself. these are the kind of women who are obsessed by their ‘weak’ health but are in fact strong and healthy and living long past their sell by dates. they’re sad and frightened to die because they know they wasted their lives. it took me a very long time to get where i’m now, but at 69 i wait for the day she’ll no longer be around. i no longer feel guilty for this wish either. thank you for your comment, serene. i’m sorry your mom was not more self aware. this was the case for many women in her generation. this wonderful raw and honest article….and the list of subsequent replies has hit bullseye after bullseye with me. i live with my elderly mother who since i moved in with her.. has simply taken a back seat on life… i now cook, clean, shop garden and have become an unpaid and mainly unappreciated live in maid. although like tonight when my anger erupts and i tackle the more than sticky subject of why she does ‘’nothing” apart from watch tv and contributes zero to the daily tasks she replies “i never asked you to do anything’’ and totally refuses to see my frustration or sadness. your article made me see realise i wasn’t alone and the only person who can change the situation is me. however guilty and selfish …we only get one life and why should i let my mother suffocate and diminish mine. i have no idea how to alter the mess i’ve found myself in. any help would be appreciated. thank you. hi karen: i’m sorry you find yourself in this situation which afflicts so many of our generation. here is a starter guide to self help. follow their lead and look for support groups near you. you deserve that: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/parenting family/family caregiving.htm i am so grateful to have found this site. i’m going through such a tough time with my mother and reading all of these stories has made me feel so not alone in this. the last several weekends my sister and i have been by my mothers place cleaning, doing laundry. buying groceries etc. mom is 89 and in denial about needing help. it is just too much to deal with. i’ve somewhat convinced her to give home care a try because i lied and told her the neighbors called adult services because they were concerned about an elderly woman that couldn’t care for herself. i told her it was either home care or she would have to go into a nursing home. her house wreaks of urine, she refuses to let us wash her or at least assist. she’s developed a real incontinence problem where i find myself mopping urine from the floor. in addition, she threw out her dentures, it took me five appointments with her to get those dentures and i’ll be damned if i’m going through that again. she also had a pot of rotten food on the stove, with more rotten food in the fridge. it appears she has been taking things out of the freezer to prepare and then forgets all about it. i work full time, going to work early and getting home late. i don’t have time to get to her home during the week. my brother, the cocksucker, excuse me, simply couldn’t “deal” and doesn’t do anything for her. sure, ignore it and it will just go away. i hope his hell is waiting for him. i’m so stressed all the time and feel so angry with her when she tries to argue that she’s managing. no you’re not! listen to me you old bag!! i’ve often had thoughts of wishing she would just die already. it would be such a relief. i’m dreading seeing her this weekend as i know i will be entering her urine scented apartment with her bags of laundry just waiting for me. i’ve arranged for a laundry service today. to hell with that. it’s too time consuming. my time! i’m doing what i can but don’t know what i will do if home care doesn’t work out. i’m at my wits end. thank you for this. i really needed to vent. hi estelle: you are not alone. this is a common problem. please look for a self care group. you need a place to vent and some local help with what to do next. check the other answers to comments here where i placed a link to a great self care guide. it sounds to me like it’s time for your mother to move to a facility where they can care for her, regardless of her own thoughts about it. thank you for commenting. i’m 87 and i live by myself and i still have interest in lots of things my health is not what it used to be and my mind is still good there’s one thing that i absolutely don’t want in life i don’t want to live with my children i don’t want to fuss i don’t want to complain all the time i just want to enjoy the time that i have left when the time comes if it does that i can’t take care of myself i’m more than willing to go in a nursing home i’m sure i’ve had faults in the past but haven’t we all i would love to have the money to go into assisted living now but i don’t so i have to make the best of what i’ve got. i just don’t want to get in the circle where my kids hate me i just don’t want them to be a caretaker all i ask is that they come and see me once in awhile and i just hope that god grants me this thank you today i yelled at my mother   she is 78 and been living with me for the past 14 years. i sat at this laptop and could not work because i felt so guilty. so i hit google and this article by “anonymous” popped up. what a relief to find that i am not the only person going through 20 million emotions in one day. i am the eldest and i have 2 sisters who in mom’s eyes can do no wrong, but me, the person who promised her that she will never go to a retirement village, has put a roof over her head and food in her mouth and loved her unconditionally, does nothing right. i work my butt off   she does not want help around the house because she trust no one so i vac, clean, mow (1000 sq meters) and do all the diy around the house. (i am constantly reminded by mom of what still has to be done).i also have a job that keeps me busy until 10:00 in the evenings. i have had murderous thoughts, i have had thoughts of self destruction   just to get myself out of this situation i find myself in. thank you!!! you have made me realise that i still love her but i need to develop a thick skin and become selectively deaf when it comes to mom being critical and cynical. most of all   you made me realise that i am not a bad person   just human. total,total nightmare,everyday i get up and take take of mother,that dear,sweet 89 year old that never gave a rats arse about me,used me as her councillor for years,complaining about my dad or my alcoholic brother,whose drinking career was financed by her,self absorbed passive aggressive narcissist,and that’s just her good points eh. apparently she prays the lord will take her in her sleep,let’s hope he does before i do,haha,i’m joking of course,if i didn’t try to cheer myself up somehow i will be hoping for the lord to take me i just typed into google “i hate my elderly mother” and i’m so glad i did because i found you all….! my mum has always lived with me apart from 7 years reprieve when i basically had a breakdown and she went to live with my aunt and i’m now 61. she wasnt supportive or kind to me when i was younger….called md a slag because i slept with my boyfriend….ran out of the house threatening to kill herself ( if only). get the picture? this morning she messed herself then walked up the stairs treading it all in…i didnt shout but cried….to which she said i was crying over my son…who has made me cry in the past but she used him to deflect from herself. i internalised the anger wasnting to hurt myself….i am s horrible person…she is 98. yes, yes, yes! i love my mom and step dad and spent six years convincing them to move closer to my family, but now i am constantly regretting that decision. we live just is half a mile apart and i now fantasize about the time when we were eight hours apart. my aging mother and stepfather expect way too much from me. i have four kids of my own and a busy family and while i try to help consistently throughout the week providing meals and cleaning and driving them to their appointments 1 around my own insane schedule for our family of six  it absolutely throws me off completely off when my mom seems to expect for me to drop everything at a moments notice requesting help to vacuum (for a third time this week) when i have not vacuumed or mopped my own house for two weeks. it’s as though it is expected and help is just assumed   without ever asking for permission. i want to be here to support her and this is why i wanted her closer during this season, but i didn’t expect her to be this reliant and dependent and insistent that my family serve them   over our own lives. often at the expense of all four of my children to satisfy their needs? that is where i start to feel the resentment and bitterness set in. she seems so disconnected or even judgmental when i remind her we are “busy” doing what kids this age do such as soccer saturdays. that is normal and i dream of space from and apart from them so i can just focus on my family without being responsible for my parents. sounds like it’s time for some boundary setting from your parents. we have done some great discussions of that at coveyclub and it’s very helpful. just because they are your parents, does not mean you don’t get to have boundaries. wow!! it’s not just me!!! my mother destroyed my childhood after taking me from grandmother when i was seven. i got away from her at 16 and managed to build a beautiful life. when i had my children she came to live in the same town as me, (but not close enough to be of any help just close enough that we had to run around after her), and i proceeded to allow her to ruin another three decades of my life. i didn’t think i had the right to deny my children a grandmother. shame she couldn’t be one and proceeded to treat my daughter in the same ways she did me. she loved my son though, as she did her own son who was a total nutcase, abusive to me and her and hasn’t had contact with her in 30 years. i tried cutting her out several times but something would always happen and i’d get a phone call saying “your mother has had a car accident (minor), health incident etc and you have to do something. i always ask myself why no one told her she had to look after me when i was young and vulnerable? seems once you have grey hair you are and always have been a saint on earth. any way i did manage to get her into aged care when her dementia got too bad for her to refuse anymore. the aged care is terrible and i hate it. i keep an eye on them and hold them to account and go through phases of visiting and then not. usually keep phone contact up very frequently except sometimes when i just can’t because my anger overwhelms me. mainly holiday times, as now, easter. i made so many allowances for her and my children’s father that i let my own life with my children fall second. holidays always had to accommodate what they both needed so there was never time left for the three of us and now i find my son slipping away with very little tradition in our own tiny family to hold him. it breaks my heart. their father and my mother i see now are so similar and even though i broke away from them both very early they still impacted us in the end. i want to feel okay about what i feel and then i’d be okay 🥲 a wonderful article. just knowing that i am not alone in having such a dislike for my negative, lazy, selfish and narcsisstic elderly mother, makes me feel less guilty. the whole point is to realize this is not just you. this is a very difficult situation that neither parents nor daughters could have imagined or wished for. this comment section and this article are incredibly validating. i have always been the default caregiver to my mother. i cannot stand it and literally dream of running away. i know that i will likely lose my wonderful boyfriend because i am too responsible for others to have ample time for him. i have worked diligently this last year to prepare to sell my home, which she lives in, and find us both other places to be for my sanity and future financial safety. i have looked into care facilities which are so expensive it’s frightening. i am looking at a 4 acre property with a 2 family and separate in law house on it just to get some distance! it won’t be enough but her 6 feet from my kitchen is killing me. when i expressed my distressed emotional situation in february, she said “you think you’re depressed? what about me?” my heart just collapsed knowing i will never get validation from a her, never a thank you that is genuine, never a true understanding of who i am or what my needs are. she doesn’t have it in her. ironically, on my father’s death bed, she said the same about him and how she wished she hadn’t waited for him to change. i wonder why i still wait. beautifully painted aj. we understand entirely. we published this piece so everyone could feel validated. this is an issue no one expected (on either side) and no one prepared for. hang in there. wonderful and timely article. i bear the brunt of most of the caregiving for my 83 year old legally blind, narcissistic mother who has borderline personality disorder. like many who have responded, she did not really parent me and words can’t say how much i hate and resent having to take care of her needs, listen to her endless complaints and do my best not to let guilt swallow me whole. to say she is difficult is putting it extremely mildly. i have one sibling who lives in a state on the opposite coast and while he calls her 1x a week he doesn’t shoulder much more than that. he will if i ask but then i feel like i am also having to manage that. last fall we gave my mother an ultimatum since her ability to live “independently” was completely dependent on my being her caregiver (we lived 25 miles apart). she had the option of moving in to a private pay assisted living facility or to remain at home but if she were to remain at home i was going to turn all of her care over to a geriatric care manager which she would have to pay for with her own savings. we explained to her that, while the option was hers, the downside of the latter is that when her $$ ran out it would be difficult to find a decent nursing home for her to move in to. she chose the assisted living facility although reminds me regularly, while she recites an endless litany of complaints about the place, that i “put her there”. i can say that most of the time i really feel like i hate her. were she not my mother i would definitely not choose to be in a relationship with her. most people don’t. at my worst i argue with her and yes i do say unkind things at times. at my best i keep my mouth shut and let her rant and rant and rant and don’t try to persuade her that life is not the shit hole she perceives it to be. i wish i could say i give her hugs or try to make her feel better or compliment her or anything like that but truth be told it is hard to do and doesn’t feel good. i am in therapy and trying to find a place of serenity amidst this. anyway, didn’t mean to go on for so long but just to say i really appreciate knowing that i am not alone and it is not shameful to say this sucks and i didn’t have to deal with it. you are definitely not alone kim. hang in there. therapy for you is a great service to lean on. wow! the freedom to let go of the guilt!! thank you! yes. you are free. no guilt. we all have the same issues and feelings. xo so glad to see that we’re starting to find the courage to step away from the pearl clutching about wanting to be free of elderly parents, so many of whom have already given us years of irreparable abuse, denigration, and terror. my mother has done her best to make my first 56 years as miserable as she could manage. the day she dies will be the greatest day of my life. i pray daily for the strength to be the best person i can be until that blessed salvation arrives. i’ve always said: just because they are your parents doesn’t mean they are good for you. i’m sorry that this is your truth. it was mine as well. as many on here, stumbled across this page when googling for advice after getting to the end of my tether. in my case, i have somehow ended up being the sole caregiver to my narcissistic stepmother, this is my worst nightmare and i don’t know how i let myself get in this situation. i feel trapped, stuck, anxious, overwhelmed, used and have to work hard on myself every day to not go crazy. i am a single mother, with 2 brothers, initially about 7 years ago, i gave up my own house as suggested by my father, i only lived down the road and moved into my fathers house with my daughter, as i already helped them a lot anyway and he said it would be better for me financially, my stepmother also came crying to me saying she couldn’t cope anymore with looking after my dad or doing housework. my natural mother died when i was 4 and dad married my stepmother when i was 12, we never got on, she emotionally, mentally and physically abused me, treated me differently from my 2 brothers and also turned my brothers and dad against me, even my nan said she used me as her slave, after an eating disorder and suicide attempt i left home at 18 and finally felt free. fast forward to today, dad was very ill, i loved him dearly and wanted to look after him, dad was similar to me and i also ended up in a narcissistic relationship which i only just got out of. dad died 1 and 1/2 years ago, he didn’t make a will and so step mum got everything, even though i’ve put so much of my own money into decorating and fixing this house. stepmother loves this power over me, my daughter now an adult and left home, younger brother takes care of step mothers finances, but doesn’t visit much or do anything round the house, just has a nice chat, eats and leaves, older brother lives far away and barely see him, i do everything for stepmother who has multiple illnesses and get no appreciation, she makes stuff up and lies, bitches behind everyone’s backs, including dads when he was still alive, she makes no sense most of the time, says she can’t do things, but then perfectly capable of doing the things she wants. i don’t know what to do anymore, covid really hasn’t helped, just given her more excuses to be more needy and always tries to make me feel sorry for her, very self centred and talks about herself constantly, not at all interested in mine or my daughters lives, my daughter said i should just leave her. i’m pretty sure stepmother has absolutely no idea how i feel and thinks our relationship is okay and normal, she never listens to me and talks about herself or gossips or people on soaps if i ever try and talk about myself or even my daughter, i don’t know how my dad put up with her for so long and realise now how dumb and useless she really is. i do still feel bad for saying all this, i have wanted and tried to have a good relationship with her, but it’s impossible, she’s so ‘nice’ in public and to other people, it’s so unfair i need to leave for the sake of my mental health, but know for a fact she can’t survive on her own and no one else would ever do for her what i do, but she doesn’t appreciate it at all just takes advantage of my kind caring nature and the fact that i have no job or place to live except here, as i gave up my house and job to look after her and dad. so good to read others experiences and vent on here, as sure my daughter and best friend are sick of my moaning, don’t feel so alone now. charlotte: you are not alone. i would suggest you look into getting some kind of counseling so you don’t feel so overwhelmed. perhaps you could get the right steps to begin speaking up to your stepmother about how you really feel. you never know what will come of it. i had a stepmother who treated me miserably and many years later confronted her with it. she was shocked and didn’t know she had done so much damage. i was able to forgive her after we had several awkward conversations later in life. i have severe issues with the same problems everyone on this page is having i love my mother but i hate her i resent her, i wasn’t taken care of and feel so guilty all the time i know god’s going to put me in hell. i lost my husband a few years ago now i’m just trying to make peace and enjoy my retirement years and i’m stuck having to take care of her and my stepfather with no help from my sibling. i hate it i do everything i can for them and all she does is complain or yell at me or try to make me feel sorry for her and i know she’s suffering all she does is repeat herself over and over again with her dementia and it’s driving me insane. i have bipolar ptsd and anxiety order since i was young and i think i’m gonna end up dying before her. i lost my husband a few years ago now i’m just trying to make peace and enjoy my retirement years and i’m stuck having to take care of her and my stepfather with no help from my sibling. i hate it i do everything i can for them and all she does is complain or yell at me or try to make me feel sorry for her and i know she’s suffering all she does is repeat herself over and over again with her dementia and it’s driving me insane. i have bipolar ptsd and anxiety order since i was young and i think i’m gonna end up dying before her. of course i don’t want her dead but i want to put in a nursing home and i can’t get her in one and they can’t afford assisted living. i got her help for medicaid. i can’t get my own housework and yardwork done in a constant worry and guilt of killing me i don’t enjoy any time with my friends anymore i’m depressed all i wanna do is stay in bed. i got her help for medicaid. i can’t get my own housework and yardwork done in a constant worry and guilt of killing me i don’t enjoy any time with my friends anymore i’m depressed all i wanna do is stay in bed how can you hate somebody that you love and they have placed their burden on you how can you hate somebody that you love and they have placed their burden on you? thank you. im only 33, but definitely nowhere near living the life i had planned as my mom’s decisions in life have impacted me negatively so much so she now lives with me, and i have to care for her at least economically. she’s 75, we get along but there is resentment on my part towards her, as i see time going by and me not being able to do what i want to do because my money goes into caring for both of us. this includes food for 2,a house with 2 rooms, etc. for the past 3 years i’ve thought about how much longer she’ll be around. like the op, i tell myself that she’ll eventually be gone so i might as well be grateful and loving, but again: time keeps going by and i’m stuck. i can’t move abroad, my rent is expensive, she’s always complaining about something, i’m never good enough, etc. and it makes me bitter. i pay for a house i can’t even bring a date to. actually dating for me is non existent because i’m ashamed to tell others that my mom lives with me! i feel like such a failure. all i dream about is everything i’d like to do once she’s gone. “i’ll finally be able to start my life!”. i’ve even started saving money so when the time comes, i can quit my job and travel (my passion in life which has been on hold for years). hell, im not even happy with my job, but it pays the goddamn bills. so thank you for posting this. i feel less alone. thank you for posting this. i feel less alone now. my story isn’t much different. i’ve taken care of my mom since i was 12. i was the oldest daughter, but #5 child behind 4 brothers. when she couldn’t find a job (complained it was age discrimination) i employed her and paid her more than the job was worth, hoping she’d plan for her later years. i still paid for her housing. her complaints never stopped and she spent all her money. she was the victim always… the world was out to get her. after the end of my marriage and the sale of our home where she lived in our guest house for 10 years i moved her with me and put a small bungalow on my new property. i knew we couldn’t live under the same roof. i thought she’d enjoy her golden years and i only needed to be sure she was safe and cared for. then 5 years ago the dementia creeped in. i’ve been chained to her since, unable to enjoy my own retirement the way i want and making my day be around all her needs and schedule. she’s not an awful person to be around, she is pretty sweet in her dementia, but the demands and sacrifice are without relief. after taking care of her for over 50 years, i just want to be free of the responsibility and sacrifices. i just want my life to be mine… my children are grown and i am otherwise unencumbered by a spouse and have just retired. am i not entitled to my own life? nope. not as long as mom, without her mind but with a healthy body, is no more… like many, i googled “i dislike my mother”, though i expected not to find anything of much use. surprise!!! i am so delighted to know i am not alone and it is okay for me to have these feelings. growing up in so much dysfunction i felt neither nurtured nor loved by any member of my household (mother, father, sister) nor by many members of the immediate family. mother was too busy attending to the needs of my womanizing, alcoholic, gambling father and my sister (who was later in adulthood diagnosed bipolar, schizophrenic, paranoid). during therapy, i realized my mother was grooming me, from an early age, to be her “best friend” and the “go to” person to accommodate her needs as she saw fit. i always had to “fix” what was going wrong in her life, especially where my sister was involved. i was always the emotional support though i never got the support i needed. mother was such an enabler to my sister’s erratic behavior, she could never do any wrong. ohhh, the stories i could tell. i never knew how to love myself and looked for love outside (naturally, all the wrong places). too busy trying to please my mother to get the approval/attention she gave to my sister. during therapy it was brought out that my mother didn’t like me … heck, she probably didn’t like herself. i left the state putting approximately 1400 miles between us. little did i realize until years later, i needed more than physical distance, i needed emotional/mental distance. my son was responsible for bringing mother for a “visit” and she ended up staying/living with him. after some time she had reasons for wanting live with me, much to my dismay. my fault, i should have said “hell no!!!” while working full time and taking care of her and the all the housework, she did nothing except watch tv and go through my things while i was at work. quite contrary to her behavior with my sister, who by the way committed suicide   that’s another story. her attitude at times was so nasty i gave up on the kisses/hugs (especially after one cheek kiss she remarked to me “judas was betrayed by a kiss”. then when she called me a bitch … i had had it ~ i was done. i had a recurrence of breast cancer in 2019, she was unsupportive, didn’t call weeks before my nor the day of to wish me luck on my surgery … nothing. complained to my son i wasn’t speaking to her. wow! now, due to her lack of self care) she needs 24 hour care. i am not the one!!! i am working on forgiving her, not for her but for me. i prefer to have peace for whatever time i have left on this earth. my son ( since he saw fit to bring her here) will have to work it out as she is too stressful for me to deal with. i love my son dearly and will assist him in whatever way that allows me to remain at peace. when i hear people speak of how great their mothers were, i am happy for them, smile and am silent. if you read this, thank you for allowing me to vent. this article came at the right time for me, just had another arguement with my almost 100 yr old father because i had to cancel my visit today for someone to come and fix my roof. my needs do not exist in his world. i feel like i am hanging on to sanity by a thread and have given up hope of ever getting my life back after 26 years of caring for first my mother, then my father. i am 66 and still waiting to have my life. i cannot believe how much they have taken from me or how much i have sacrificed to try to be a good daughter. it is like a black hole..i have been swallowed up. thank you so much for sharing your feelings…i was feeling like such a bad person but now realise i am not alone. this is wrong though surely…and notice that it is all women in this position😔 oh thank you for this! my mom just came back from surgery. she will recover assuming she doesn’t over martyr herself. i lost my temper with her because she apparently assumed that her husband got fed by god and his and her clothes magically got washed and her plants magically stayed alive and ‘don’t you feel how dirty the floor is?’ after i have been pulling 16 hour days while fighting insomnia. that was her only comment to me. no thank yous or anything. well. granted i know i will never live up to her expectations. i could literally be her slave and i still would not be a good enough daughter. that’s because she has told me how wonderful daughters of othrr people are. how happy they make their mothers. unlike me. but i know she needs me now. and its not like we want her to end back up in hospital. so i shall do my duty. because i love her even if she doesn’t love me. and i accept that. wrestling with the belief that she does is only gonna undo any strength i hve found these past years to be my own person. to the op. thanks for this. its calming to know i am not the only one. can i be your 11th friend? my expressions are similar to most others. i’m angry, lonely and at my breaking point. thank you for saying what we all find so hard to say and then feel guilty for saying. i’m so happy to find this article and these comments that don’t make me feel like a terrible person for feeling like i do. my mother is 81 and suffers from ipf. she has an oxygen concentrator 24/7. if we leave the house for appointments etc., we are always scared the portable will fail and she’ll die. she demands that i come over her house (she’s a hoarder, and has dogs in the house), wants me to clean the dog poop and pee from the floors, do laundry, vacuum, dishes, empty trash, etc. she sits on the couch and watches shopping shows. when i finally sit down to take a rest, she notices a rubber band across the room on the floor and demands that i get up and pick it up now. she has cats and a very large yard which requires attention, she thinks i’m a man who can pull all of those weeds and trim trees. she’s too cheap to hire people to help. she talks terribly about family members. i have a son who is disabled and needs me too, and she tells me “he can figure out his own meal, you’re helping me now!” she pretends she can’t do things, i do it for her, then i find out she was capable. manipulation is her game. at first i asked her several times to come and live with me, she refused and now i’m so happy she refused, the offer will not be put on the table again. i love my husband and my home and i’m not willing to sacrifice it for her. she has money saved and won’t part with a penny, so let’s see what happens. my older sister was always her favorite and now, not even she wants her. if anything else, this whole reading experience has opened my eyes about what not to do do to my children when i get old. thanks. i am the mid 60s baby boomer who is now in a nursing home. i know it is best to be here and not living with my daughter. we tried that when i was still working and didn’t have vascular dementia. i don’t know if the parents being talked about can see any of their annoying behavior. my daughter told me her feelings and i didn’t know what to say. i found this site and sent it to her. she said it was helpful. i would feel like many of these people if i had to care for my mid80s mom. i am grateful to have sibs who live near her and are helping her. she lives alone and functions more like someone my age! bottom line… thank you for telling your truth. i’m not sure how to respond to my daughter’s resentments but having read this i have a better idea about myself and her. we are both normal. betty davis said, “growing old ain’t for sissies!” if you don’t mind, i would like to add one thought to your article. it is very real & helpful. everything you express resonates with me. but i see one area i feel is left out. to me one of the most important words in this situation is forgiveness. forgiving both your mother and yourself. forgiveness is not something you do for your mother (or whoever you find yourself resenting); it is for you yourself, to free yourself from holding on to anger & resentment. after all i at least find holding on to it really doesn’t accomplish anything anyway. it just builds higher walls. it is a choice. and by the way forgiveness is not a one time event. if whatever trigger causes the feelings to come back, you can choose forgiveness again..& again…& again…until that trigger loses its power over you & your reactions. i hope this might be helpful to you or to a reader. it certainly has been for me. i found this article upsetting. my parents both fought cancer during the same time. yes, it was the hardest thing i ever have gone through. it was heart breaking. at times i was exhausted, flustered etc. i felt like i couldn’t do enough for them. i wanted them to have the comforts of staying in their home etc. they had always been there for me, no matter what. this article lacks compassion and information. ex: elderly always complaining (salty food as you grow older you’d taste buds change, you get absent minded, you aren’t able to do the things you use to) take care of yourself before “resenting/being ugly to the people that loved you unconditionally. my mother has lived and been dependent on me since my dad passed 40 years ago. she speaks to me everyday like im a child, i am now 63. she is constantly dont do this, don’t do that, should have done this, should have done that. bosses around my husband and grown children, ruined 2 of my marriages, i feel like i have wasted my life on her. i hate her, but love her. have 4 brothers who do nothing for her. im so disgusted with myself, i really dont know what to do so true. my father seems to go on and on with demanding care needs and no help from siblings. i am getting close to the age my mother was when she died and feel i will never have my freedom. there is a good chance that he will outlive me. i have long stopped having any sort of holiday as my dad’s demands are constant. i have avoided his calls to live with him and have a 3 hour round trip drive each time. he never thanks me and complains about everything in his life. i love him but do not like him. this month alone, i have supervised a new bathroom build   to a disabled access room, done his gardening, spent a fortune on petrol back and forth, now he has ‘had an accident’ and dropped poo all over the living room and wants me to hire a carpet cleaner and clean all his carpets, then do his tax return from boxes of receipts…this will take a week (he refuses to use an accountant). he has a live in carer but that is only for daily washing and feeding. i am exhausted but then i feel guilty for wanting it all to be over … i’m very thankful to all of you sharing. my 99 year old mother has lived with me and my for the past two years. before that she lived alone in her 4 bedroom house that sat on an acre of land. she had lived alone there since my father died in 1995. she thankfully quit driving many years ago. my husband took care of her house and our house for all those years. it was exhausting. she is physically very healthy. she is losing her eyesight and hearing, so that upsets her greatly. having her here has been good since we only have one house to take care of. she has been very helpful to us financially in the past. i don’t feel as grateful for that as i should. she was very strict, severe and seemed to feel the world revolved around her when i was growing up. one of the worst things now is her constant crying. she’s always been a crier. she’s pretty much turned every holiday and occasion into an all day crying session. i finally got her on some ‘anxiety medicine’. it has helped some, but not enough. i am diagnosed with major depressive disorder that i inherited from her. i take her to all appointments doctoe, hair, etc. i don’t mind. i worked from home full time. i’ve had to use all vacation time to take care of her needs and wants. i feel like i don’t entertain her enough or provide for all that she would like. nothing is ever good enough. i love her, but i am exhausted and i know i would be considered a very bad person for that. my mother and i argued last night about her not being honest with me about her health. she is disabled and lives alone and manages quite well and has made it clear she will not accept care aides or go to a nursing home. i’m in the middle of an 11 year marriage and divorce, my nerves are frayed to say the least. i’m the oldest and my sister bailed 3 years ago and moved out of state far away. so it’s all on me. yet so many of my family members say, “you know, you don’t have to do this, you choose too!” oh, like that is supposed to help. funk me! she calls me back last night, i was napping to get my balance back, i hadn’t eaten all day from my nerves and my husband moving out some of his belongings. he was overwhelmed truly and now he wants to talk!? really!? the last 3 years, including covid have been hell and finally i named the elephant in the living room that we have been walking around! so she calls me and say, ” i don’t want to be a burden to you or anyone, ok i love you” i hung up the phone and went back to sleep. is she letting me go? if so, why can’t i let go? guilt, shame and other similar feeling flood my head and heart. gotta sit on this one for a while…. then this morning i sat in the bathroom with my tablet and thought, fuck it, i’m going to google “i don’t want to take care of my aging mother” and this page caught my eye. as i began to read, i said, “wow, wow, wow! and proceeded to cry while still sitting on the thrown. toilet paper conveniently nearby while my tears and snot out of the way. as i read more, i took a deep breath. see, i’ve always been aware that i have a unique mother situation. she was born with cerebral palsy, a difficult birth and the use of forceps to turn her around in a breech birth. she’s lucky to be alive. she’s smart, manipulative beyond imagination, independent and a fucking psychologist too! yes mother was able to work and socialize in high society despite the constant discrimination. that’s another long story and very real for the disabled. she caused much drama in our lives, 2 divorces. one from an alcoholic abuser and one from a man who sexually abused me. yeah, when she caught him in my bedroom she asked if i was ” trying to ruin her marriage!” i will never forget, never! i left home at age 16 and was emancipated by the courts. i never told the judge what happened, just that i was ready to go out on my own. my mother of course said i was a difficult teenager. you bet i was, i couldn’t find my voice! oh the issues continued as i reconnected with her later in life. many complications and outrageous experiences with a mother who also was mentally ill but denied it fervently. well, my sister and i have ptsd, anxiety and depression. so severe that neither of us are able to work and maintain friendships etc. it’s a total nightmare. yes, we have time on our hands so i tell myself i must take care of her as no one else will. move aside jesus i need the cross to crucify myself! i even feel guilty writing all this. it’s really too much for me to bare i can’t function. yes, i call her and visit her and try to be the “good daughter” because i must. at least i keep telling myself that. what will people think of me? it’s a love hate lationship for sure and her psychological abuse and manipulation are all over the narcissistic scale. i wasn’t ready for this in any way shape or form. i’m glad to see people are talking about this online. i have never chatted online or even dared to make such an inquiry as this. glad to know i’m not alone. aka jasminiqua jones i felt so ashamed when i (in pure desperation) started googling “why do i resent my mother?”. i quite honestly did not think other women experienced the same type of thing and i expected to find results confirming that i am indeed a horrible daughter. thank you for this article. although it won’t neccisarily “fix” anything it is good to know its “not just me”. this article upset me greatly! it was cold and callous! i am 68 years old and my husband is 76. to think that we may have children that may feel the way this person felt that wrote this essay is absolutely horrifying to think about! people don’t like to get old. they don’t enjoy losing their independence or having such horrific aches and pains that they can barely get out of bed in the morning. they didn’t bring on any of that to themselves. their demise will probably not be at the convenience of their obligated children who just find it a nuisance to deal with them. you know, karma is a bitch and these younger generation people will one day be wondering (in their old age) if anybody gives two shits about their fucking mother! good luck! what goes around comes around! i found this article when i googled “taking care of elderly parents who were unkind”. what a relief to read it and the comments. most people seem to have such warm, fuzzy feelings about their mothers   i do not. i have been so angry… my mom was cruel and critical of me when i was growing up, told me no one would ever marry me, that i’d never have friends, that i was a bad daughter and a bad person. she made it clear to me that, in her eyes, i had no value. when i was grown, i moved away and although i visited her regularly out of a sense of duty, i never moved back. i have a great job and a beautiful family now, 1000 miles from where i grew up. for the last five years, though, my mother has needed increasing help, and assumed i’d give up my life to move back and take care of her. my brother (who lives 20 minutes from her) of course is not expected to do anything. i’ve done everything i can: taken months off from work, away from my family, taken care of her after her falls, flown back and forth literally fifteen times in a year, all while she criticizes me and tells me that i’m never doing enough. it’s been very hard for me to find the compassion and patience to care for her when she was so mean to me when i was young and vulnerable. i’ve been dutiful, but my heart isn’t in it. i’ll be relieved when she is gone and this is over. so glad to have came across this article. my mom has been living with me for about five years. she has been depressed for years and has anxiety from hell and she barely leaves the house. but, she can totally fend for herself. her health besides the anxiety and depression is not too bad. she can still live a great life. she is 73. but she chooses just to slowly waste away and every day i get to see her wasting away and not doing a damn thing about it. i have tried everything possible to get her to get better. drs, counselors, family meetings. nothing makes this woman want to live life. i cannot take it anymore. watching her waste away is killing me. i am 48 and single and dating and i would love to meet someone and have a life with them but having to take care of my mom when she really can take care of herself is giving me anxiety that i have never have. and her negativity is beyond insane. cant talk to her more than five minutes before i am so angry i have to walk away. she doesnt have much money to get her own place so trying to get her into senior living. i have finally said screw this, i have got to do what i need to do for myself. my health is starting to deteriorate because of the stress of dealing with her. and i love her so damn much. we used to be the best of friends. and i miss the person she used to be. i want my mom back but she doesnt want to fight for her life back and it makes me angry cause that makes me feel she doesnt want to fight for a longer healthier life with me and her grandchildren and her son. they dont see the stress we have on the care giving end of it. i am glad i am not alone on this and i truly feel for all of you. this was beautifully written and timely found   my 79 year old mother is living with me now. she & my dad (parkinson’s) moved in with me a couple of years ago because no one wanted to cope with dad. he passed away last year d/t kidney failure, but without him to keep her focused, she’s been driving me nuts. my brothers have had her for visits   bless them!   but my sister moved to a different country several years ago so that she could live her own life. the thing that touched me about this article most closely is the articulation of that fear: my parents basically relied on me to fill their spots while they worked, so i didn’t get time when i was younger to have a social life or date. from the time i turned about 16 until i was in my 40s and 50s, dad used to advertise in church for anyone with sons, nephews, grandsons, etc…. so, now that i’m the maiden aunt, it’s on me to care for my mom, and i can see it as clearly as the reflection in my mirror that if/when my turn comes, i will be on my own because i won’t have anyone left. i love my mom, and i am so glad that she is here with me, but there are days when i wish that she had stayed closer to one or the other of my brothers. then they would know what it’s really like. i am not alone in this, so many thoughts and emotions were put into words by these courageous people. i wish i could be on the opposite end and say it is easy but it is not. i gave up my life now just when i became an empty nester with my husband. i am told to keep my emotions in tow but the outbursts of comments made sends me spiraling. my heart too is not in it anymore. i am saddened by this. taking care of an elder parent i thought would be different. i just cannot take it anymore. i cannot even cry if i wanted too (which i try.) as per above comment “maybe you have always been longing to be cared for fully by her, and now that she is on the tail end of life, it is inescapably clear that she will never care for you the way you wanted her to.” this is exactly true in my case. hoping it gets better. michelle: yes, realizing she can not care for you the way you always wanted is part of the healing process. hang in there. ditto for every emotion expressed here. my mother undermined and controlled me my entire life. i was also an only child and a daughter and after 20 years as a single parent of 4 , now handcuffed to my nearly 95 year old mother. my mother did a 180 at 93, suddenly telling me how wonderful i am and how much she loves me after abusing me to such a degree it set a blueprint for unhealthy relationships for life. she lives an hour away in her own home, a request written in the estate plan , and my life has been hell trying to fulfill her wishes. three round the clock caregivers drive me insane and are draining the trust set up for me and eventually my four children . there is no end to the maintenance of her home and estate. i have finally set some boundaries and plan to be away a good portion of this summer. she has dementia , is in diapers and at 65 i am running out of time to live my own life. no one should be burdened like this. we hear you. the generation of our parents didn’t expect to live this long and so there was no planning on their part or ours. what we can do is make sure we plan ahead for our children so they don’t have to be burdened like this with us. thank you for your insights. this article certanly resonated with me! my mom was an awful parent. she had 6 kids she neither had the sense nor the money to care for. she played favorites and i was her least favorite daughter. there were no hugs in my dysfunctional family. i left home in my early teens and made a good, stable life for myself. she is now 93 and has a caregiver which i did all the paperwork to get, including paying an attorney to get her qualified. i care for mother one day a week, manage her financial and medical bills and issues. she lies about expenditures and hides things from me which frustrates me because it couod impact her in home healthcare qualification. one of my sisters cares for her one day a week, too, but she’s constantly trying to squeeze money out of her. my mother thinks the sun shines out of her and gives her money without telling me then complains she can’t have new carpet, etc. she makes me give her receipts when i have to buy things for her but casually hands her atm card over to my sister, however, only wants me to manage her needs. she spends 4 hours a day praying and reading the bible but lies compulsively (she always has) and hides things from me like i’m her enemy. if it weren’t for me, she’d be in some old folks home instead of her own comfy home yet she treats me like i’m her nemesis, never calls unless she needs something and acts like she can’t stand me. i do not like her, i’m sorry, what is there to like?? signed   used and tired wow, i feel you wrote this article to scream what has been in my heart for years. you helped me to understand why i resent not only my mother but also my selfish siblings for leaving me all alone in this. as a child, i was her least favorite and now that she is helpless, i’m the one who has to stick around and provide care for her so my sibling can enjoy their freedom. i raised my daughter as a single mother and now i have to raise my parents, not to mention the old scare of childhood! thank you for your beautiful and educating article. just reading it brought so much peace to my exhausted soul. i was so angry and desperate for more than two weeks, that i tried google to find answers and am so glad i found this page. like several of the experiences here, i have, by sheer default, ended up as a caregiver for my mother. i am fifty five today and she moved in to my home when i was 41. i have not had any chance to live my life at all and have taken the entire brunt of my parents failed marriage. she moved in after she separated from my father. she and my father have always had a bitter and battle filled relationship and there has been physical abuse/ domestic violence from his side and emotional abuse from her side. they lived in a perpetual marriage of trying to control one another and finally separated around 14 years ago. their personalities are identical   both are manipulative, emotionally dishonest and have no accountability for their emotional abuse towards themselves or their kids. growing up there was a clear sign of favouritism towards the son, he grew up with entitlement which continues even today. and this has not changed in adult years too. at the time that she was seeking to move out, all the three siblings (we are three) agreed to equally act as the caregivers. however, with time, and the fact that i was the single daughter   while the other two siblings were married with their respective families, it became this sham   where i have been doing all the care giving and my siblings are happily living their own lives. nobody has made any sacrifices or compromises in their lives and conveniently this has literally been dumped on me. my mother is toxic   it took me years of pain and hurt to finally come to the conclusion that both my parents are toxic parents and in their separation i have ended up as the scapegoat to be emotionally abused. whatever i have done has not been enough for either of my parents   my father has a pension and doesn’t contribute a penny towards my mother. my sister is not working and we come from a culture that is highly patriarchal and so there is no effort on her part whatsoever to pull her weight in the care giving, even though she can. my brother conveniently lives abroad and makes tall claims of helping out but has never really done so. she took a brief respite and stayed with him for a while but now for the last 8 years has not left my home. it is not so much the care giving, but the demands and frustration she hurls at me. where i have forcefully established boundaries, she is not hesitant to keep on violating them; to the point where i lose my temper and end up screaming. initially i used to feel guilty but now i don’t because i am pushed to that corner by a highly manipulative and toxic parent. as i enforced boundaries i also saw the envy come to the forefront because i was no longer playing the game she was controlling. the worst is the undermining and belittling that is always happening   its like a psychological battle for control in every aspect. it took me years to realize that i was being emotionally, physically (care giving is a physical task too) and financially used, manipulated and controlled to serve her needs and ends and being the sensitive one among the three of us, i took the brunt silently, leading to deep conflict within myself. there have been cases of outright envy from each and every member of the family towards me and somehow those are merely shrugged away if i have spoken up about it. i have even been told i am over sensitive and reactive. everytime i say that i will drop her off to one of my siblings there is absolutely no pro active response from them   no one will say “hey do that, you need a break too”! it will be about why their homes may not be as comfy as mine is for her? the only reason why mine is comfy is that i am single! for my mother any mention of her leaving my home for a while leads to guilt tripping with claims that she is caring for me and cooking in my home. the only reasons she cooks is to keep herself active   more often than not she cooks what she likes and eats whatever she wants and then turns it around as if she is doing me a favour. all her financial expenses are mine. finally after 13 years i told her to use money from my brother’s account which they jointly share for her medical expenses when all her living expenses are mine still. that also created a huge battle initially but i stuck to my stand firmly and established that she will use her son’s money too. as of that is not bad enough she resents me having friends, a life of my own   and is highly insecure that i may actually find a partner and marry! i have given 14 years of my life and they have not given even a few months. i am so utterly fed up that i just can’t wait for this to be over! i must agree with the last comment, that was definitly a scream. i don’t know how to scream any more. i can’t stand to be with my mom any more. i am 35, and yes i never lived alone. yesterday i fould a kitten on the highway and i decided to bring it home and i needed her promission. i felt so small, smaller then the kitten in my arms. i had always been responsible one. i worked while i was on highschool which is not tipical where i live. but i didn’t work for my self. everything i worked for went inside the house. my mom never worked. sure she kept the house clean, but that hasn’t been happening for past 20 years. my dad pasted away more then 10 years ago. and only i see my mom is turning in to a monster that is trying to drag me not to go outside, not to have friends, lovers, pets, hobbies. nothing. at the moment i am watching her smoke 10 cigarette of the day in our super small apartmant that she doesn’t use asshtray, and trowing a paper in garbage that was missed my a lot. she use to cook, but for last 20 years, i am eating crap. most of the time she is pushing me to order burgers and then saying how i don’t save much. everytime my brother comes over we end up talking how we should move out, or i should where she say that she is fine but then she switches in to guit mode saying that she always thought i would take care of her. once my bother stood up to her about me being guit in and she laughed at him. saying that she raised me in to thing she wanted me to be and nothing can change that. i feel so empty and numb for the past 6/7 years. i went to a therapist couple of times. the first, she had a conversation with, like i am a baby or suffering from extream mental illnes. the second one, she went trough my papers and found a note of the doctor. she was crying and pissed at my that i shamed her infront of my doctor. i stoped going to therapy. latley i don’t know what to do. my mom is only focused on me working more and more, and less from home, but not participating in eating lunch with my coworkers or anything cause that is a waste of money and she wants to rebuild the house her mother left her. i just can’t. every shirt i buy is a rebelion i regret. so why should i even bother. i can’t wate for the day i will die. she can live 10/20 years more. and after that i would not have a life. i would be a skin with a dead body inside, the same thing i am today. so many posts resonate with me. my mum is 75, has terminal breast cancer and jumps from emotional days regulation outbursts to another. i didn’t realise until i’m now into my 40s how all my life i’ve had to be my mums keeper, carer, emotional punchbag. she puts on smiles for others and can swing into rages with both me and my son. the constant criticism of others, family, people on tv has been too much to bear. her cancer has only made it worse, she takes everything out on me, blaming me for her cancer, stating in the past that she hopes i suffer. i can’t even go anywhere with my son without jealous rages, so we never go on holiday, despite working so hard at work and looking after my son. both my son and i needed a rest from her and had a day at the seaside recently, whilst she was visited by her other grand daughter. we had 5 hours away from her and were unable to tell her as she goes into a full blown rage. however she fkund a parking ti jet in our car and manipulated my son into telling her we had bed away fir the day, then raged again saying i am sneaky and always havebeen. i’m the only person who has stayed around long enough to care for her but it’s so unbelievabley horrible. i hame no life, she wants me as an extention of her. my sister dies t get any of this and is just as horrible as my mum. i’m not perfect but i try. i’m bit sure how much more i can take, it’s getting me down the constant abuse and it’s only getting worse i’m 25 and my grandmother is 80. she’s taken care of me since i was 8 months. i know i’m blessed to have her, because my life would be totally different if i didn’t. i graduated high school, college, and live with her as i find my path (like i should be doing as a 20 year old). but lately as time has passed it’s just gotten harder. she’s always been dependent on other to do things for her, even when she was fully able to do them on her own. but after my grandfather died when i was 10, it got worse. she became really dependent, yelled at mw, cussed me out, became very critical, yet oblivious to who i was as an evolving person. just angry, so she always lashed out on me because she can’t treat anybody else that way. at 14, i was responsible for paying her bills online and doing chores because “she payed the cost to be the boss”. i remember i cut my hair one time and she called me ugly. throughout college i still had to pay bills on top of her controlling demeanor when i came home for summers. she’s kicked me out twice but allowed me to return. once for being “disrespectful”…she wanted to argue but i ignored her so she kicked me out. the second time because i didn’t get food from her friends house, she blatantly told me she couldn’t eat anyway. all because i said no. she had a fall 1 month and a half ago because she wouldn’t go to sleep when i suggested her to and fell to the floor while sleep at the dining room table. everyday she had me or one of my aunts come to the hospital, go to the grocery store, bring her food, toothpaste, gowns, blankets, serving her because she needs the attention and wants to feel loved (though she won’t say it out loud). now she’s back home and it’s even harder. she’s meaner, doesn’t ask me how i am or how my day was ever. complains all the time. we only talk when she asks me to do something or when she’s complaining. we don’t have a relationship at all. i don’t make a lot of money, but she never even asked me if i needed has or how i was getting back and fourth from the hospital. knowing i suffer from anxiety and depression she hasn’t even asked me if i’m okay. not once. she’s mad at me all the time for not providing her needs. cleaning her bedroom, cleaning the bathroom, washing her clothes, getting food, going to the grocery store two days back to back because she only thinks of food for that day. washing her hair, cleaning any spot she sits cause she’s extremely messy. all for her to tell me i’m not compassionate, mean, and i’m not doing enough. mind you i live in a household of 4 other adults. i’m struggling. i’m upset. i’m sad. i feel like i’ve been taking care of her my whole life. i’ve never gotten to live my life. it’s always been in servitude of her, from the very beginning. when do i get my freedom? i’m never going to get these years back. i feel imprisoned. and guilty for not wanting to be her everything. i haven’t had kids. i don’t even have a boyfriend. i’m too traumatized. as i write this i realize she just wanted someone to take care of her all along, but i’m just one person. with my own needs i neglect. and a life i haven’t gotten a chance to live yet. and my aunts and uncles are barely any help. starting tasks that i have to finish. they don’t live with her, they have it easy. i’m frustrated and tired of feeling unworthy and selfish when i know i’m deserving and doing my best. taking care of my mom makes me not want children. will they be this needy? will a husband treat me this way? idk. i’m tired. and alone. jesus! no one makes any of you take care of your mother. how would you like it if she would’ve said the same thing when you were a child. and daughters especially are difficult to raise. please don’t tell me that double standard about parents should put up with everything the kids do and then say gosh why should you have to help with your older parents. you will be there someday and you will be the same unless you’re lucky. my grandparents and grandparents before them lived in the non internet age with less social support. it was natural for grandparents in the past to live with their children/cousins, etc. and die in those homes. there was no social or financial support or home to stick people in during those times. but they learned to pull together and that is what the human race should do. they were better people for it my grandparents and great grandparents said. it was hard but the whole family and i mean cousins and everything would be in on it, because they knew they all would be there sunday and it was an obligation and a thank you for taking care of them. it seems to me like today’s generation has the internet to pitch on so much, that they feel they’re giving away a part of their life that they wouldn’t have if not for the very people they are griping about. i feel sorry for you guys if you are so unhappy because if i was your mom i wouldn’t want you around me. it would be better to take that much cruelty and insensitivity from someone you don’t know. if you feel guilty that is your problem. grow up. because in your mind you’re already abandoned your parent by saying they drive you nuts. and if i wasn’t a christian woman i would say i wish you could experience exactly how lonely they feel and how sad it is to have your body betray you, but i won’t. you will pay your karma however it happens. you’re being hypocritical by taking care of someone and feeling so horrible and talking to other people like you do. you have absolutely no idea of what it’s like for your parent to feel like they do when they can’t even understand themselves. educate yourself for god sake read an effing book on aging, alzheimer’s, post menopausal behavior, etc. or better yet be honest as a human being and just take a step back. no one is making you do this in caring for an aging parent(s). you want to be looked at as somebody who’s doing a good thing and all you’re telling me is that you’re an embarrassment yourself. i’m so disappointed in what i’ve read on this page that i can’t hardly stand it. what if your parents had treated you like this when you were a kid don’t tell me that kids don’t have problems that can go beyond the normal. it’s not two different things. gosh sorry i just have to quit because this is so depressing from you guys, not a word of thanks or love for these parents. just a of course i love them which is as good as saying you really don’t care. here’s my best advice if you can’t feel compassionate and learn how to balance your life, and yes it’s hard i know because i’ve done it, i’ve worked in elderly care and i love the elderly because they have a lot to share. life is hard duh, but we can’t deal with that and go on and enjoy the happy moments and pleasures that we can experience . the latest generations of americans are an embarrassment to the past americans of this country as far as their attitudes towards the elderly and disabled. to those who are understanding without patting themselves on the back kudos, but none of you fit that and i’m sorry for you. thank you for listening to my opinion, god bless you and your parents whoever you’re taking care of at this time. i’m so sorry, but ever since you became an adult, your resentment and misery is 100% your responsibility, even if there was trauma in your childhood. it is your responsibility to set boundaries with your mother. faced with homelessness, your mother would have been forced to either grow up and take care of herself or die if you had said no to her from the beginning. i will never, ever allow my mother to live with me, ruin my life, or impact my marriage like this. i will never take care of her at my expense. she will have to figure it out for herself if i am to enjoy my own life. for leona. looking after an elderly person in your home can be very challenging   even if you relationship with them has been good. it can go on for months if not years and if you also have a family to look after, a full time job, it can be completely exhausting. you say that you have worked in elderly care but when you work in elderly care you go home at the end of the day and you have a break from it, when you look after an elderly relative in your home you never have a break, from morning until the end of the day and even during the night you are at that person’s beck and call. their behaviour isn’t always reasonable, it can be downright difficult   a toddler except 5 times the size. and if you had a bad relationship, just because it is your parent doesn’t mean you necessarily have to love them unconditionally, not all parents are good parents, they can be cruel, narcissistic, negligent   you don’t have to be grateful for bad parents just because they are your parents. if you choose to take the responsibility for looking after them when they need you, you are a true hero, you need support not judgement so that you can carry on without breaking down. many people on here from what i’ve read are looking after their parents because they feel it’s their duty, they struggle on a daily basis, from exhaustion, depression, demoralisation. maybe they could find alternatives, maybe there aren’t any   certainly for me there aren’t. they struggle daily with guilt over how they feel   and feelings don’t make you a good or bad person, they make you human. if you feel angry, you feel angry and if you feel sad, you feel sad. what i see here is people who have bottled these feelings up for so long being able to express how they feel without being judged and to know that there are others who are also struggling. have some empathy, the saying that you “can’t understand somebody until you have walked a mile in their shoes”is very true. what i find depressing is not people finally being able to express their desperation with their situation but people judging those who they don’t know and whose situations and relationships they have never experienced. proves what i have come to believe 100%: women should stop having children. “leona” is a goddess. the rest   schmucks. “leona” states: :i feel sorry for you guys if you are so unhappy because if i was your mom i wouldn’t want you around me. it would be better to take that much cruelty and insensitivity from someone you don’t know. if you feel guilty that is your problem. grow up. because in your mind you’re already abandoned your parent by saying they drive you nuts.” i agree. i don’t want my offspring around me, knowing how “hard” it is. i’d rather die on the floor eaten by termites. i knew a woman very well whose mother had placed herself in a long term care facility well before she needed it. she paid every outrageous cent for it. her very successful daughter complained about “having” to see her   a 20 minute car ride, too   even a couple times a month, and this same woman writes about how wonderful her mother was, on the internet and elsewhere. her mother could not have made it easier for her. so   “anonymous”   you getting any life insurance when your mother dies? there may still be time to get a policy   you know, to make your trials and tribulations all worthwhile. just do her a favor if she is still alive   leave her alone. my parents made sure i had no love interest so that i could stay this family’s golden cage doing all i have to do so that they can live while i am dying . people who say they are religious, or act like they are a family while suffocating me with their issues . dont people say that ” we should take care of ourselves first before caring for others”, isnt there a saying “all lives matter” ..they know exactly what they have done by not asking others to help, by not helping themselves when they could, they knew what they were doing to pick me as the family free labourer , caregiver ( they hate the latter word) i want to die first so that my family sees how it was all dumped on me. it is not about the money to me, it is about a life. i watch my parents pay strangers to do what i do for them for free. i dont hate them for that, it is up to god to make others pay their dues. i have more than paid my dues. my siblings want to act like i do nothing, same as my parents, for they will fear that they will have to pay me the way they pay others. 3 hours dont go by where i dont have to do something for them . to ensure that i am not taken for granted, i take pictures &record . i dont want money, for money will never give me my decades back, money will never “thank you for helping us”.. if i was offered money and took it, my siblings or parents would say “see you want money” .. there is different levels of caregivers, those that have a life, those that have sacrificed it all . i could never have someone help me to the point that they have no more dreams left. i mostly help my mother, but that is the same thing as helping my father and siblings. because i have to do work that my siblings or father will not do for my mother . why is one life more important than another. there is elder abuse..but there is also elders who abuse . these type of elders dont want to go to a home , they dont want to spend their own money, they also know what will happen in a home, because they can not abuse a nurse the way elders are allowed to abuse their own blood i would really like to know what percentage of family caregivers are the daughters and how many are the sons . my parents never took care of their parents, heck they dont take care of each other and have used me my whole life…they like they love me to lure me to the home base, then they basically do whatever they have to do to use me . what i wanted for my life, i can’t have anymore, all i want is to die. let me fall on the sword so that it is known that i have been driven to the end of the cliff. people watch but do not care, they sit with wives and kids, while i was manipulated into this position. then there is the black sheep syndrome . if you have been treated poorly , or unloved, unwanted, it mentally puts you in a position of wanting to “keep trying to get the love from that parent”. so some of us stay and help because we think “i can be loved if i do this and that”, but it just leads to more pain. the more you are around doing things the more you will be used. my parents dont want to bother the other siblings , they dont want to look like a burden, so they use one and then gaslight me to make it look like im crazy, when i am basically doing 20 different jobs a day i have zero life..this writer has 10 friends, i have had to get rid of all of my friends because i didn’t want people to see what was going on, i have friends who told me that i am being abused, that i have no respect for my own life me and my siblings, there is no compassion, there is no splitting of services i weigh 30 lbs less than all my siblings, men and i do the heavy work when we argue because i am physically pushed beyond a human level. my father all the sudden cares for his wife when he didn’t care for her for 60+ years. he never cared to care for her until now when he sees that she might go first and he wants to disperse money in the end based on who he likes, not who helped i have been hit by my siblings, my father, and my mother creates so much chaos if i dont do what she wants and how, she basically orders a “hit on me” the one that is around do all the work, or most of the work is the one that gets the hate . my parents never think “what my daughter is doing for us, no one will do for her” i never got a chance to have my own life. everytime i had a potential life partner my parents would start to see that i would get pulled away from being their servant and they would have to find someone else to help them. i just dont see a life for myself anymore, congratulations, i was born , i lived so that i could take care of 2 people. even though i care for 1 parent, the other parent profits by never caring for his wife and he has all his time as a bachelor. i ended up becoming my mothers husband, doing all the things he vowed to do for her only reason im writing this, is because one day someone in my family will find this , i will leave my legacy written or told, that i was born to sacrifice my life to care for others i dont hate my parents, if i did i would of abandoned them, i hate the fact that all these people in the family and they sit back and watch that i had a life until my 30’s , i hate the way they think it is ok to dump all on me. they come and eat, they come to be entertained and pretend that this is a family, but im basically cinderella on my hands and knees talking to the mice in their house, while the siblings go out dancing and laughing at me i do not hate the people, i hate being used what am i supposed to do, just go along my merry way and get calls cus she got hit, or get a call cus they are in the hospital cus they burnt down a house or fell down and broke bones or a neck i hate how people act like they are a god fearing, united family while they watch one person sacrifice , suffer and want to die isnt there a saying “all lives matter” ….why doesn’t my life matter echoing mariandavis and julie who were upset by the callousness expressed in a self indulgent rant by a daughter who is “good” in her own mind an anonymous coward, free to embellish her mother’s failings, reducing her to a cartoon. too bad you can’t just euthanize the old bag like you can a pet, yeah, anon? i’ve been on both sides of the mom problem: daughter to an alcoholic mom who was diagnosed at 35 with a rare genetic disorder that greatly contributed to destroying her physical and emotional health, and as a mom (widowed) on the receiving end of my only child’s indifference and cruelty. not a day goes by that i don’t think of my mom, and wish i’d understood what it’s like to inhabit a diseased body, struggling to get out of bed each day, in constant pain 24/7. alone. i sure understand now because my body is failing, and i’m all alone. i would give anything if i could tell my mom, “i’m sorry my hedonist brother abandoned you; i’m sorry i wasn’t around more for you; for not understanding the hell you endured. i’m sorry for my impatience and frustration that i did little to hide. i’m sorry for making you feel you were a burden. i’m sorry for becoming frustrated when you could no longer go to restaurants because the food would pass right through you. more than anything else, i’m sorry for accusing you of lying about being too ill to come to the mother’s day brunch i’d planned for you three months before you died. throughout your life, you often used ill health excuses to bow out of social events. you weren’t lying that time. a disc had disintegrated in your back. you never walked again. i imagine you despised me very much at that point. and rightly so. you could still speak, but had no words for me.” my daughter told me last night i was a burden; a pain in the ass. yes, julie, karma is a thing. to all of you applauding miss anon here: you’ll get old sooner than you ever thought possible. good luck with your kids especially those on ssris long term. my daughter’s been on that empathy killer for 20 years. our relationship is a gas. bless you for writing this desperately needed article. 😇🙏 and thankyou to all the brave & honest caregivers who responded with their own stories.🤗☺ i’ve gained some invaluable insights from the reader’s comments as well as from the main article & its just what i need at this point in time   currently at a critical stage with my 82yr old abusive, mentally ill, hoarder aunty   i’m the only person left in the family who will speak to her, noone else will have anything to do with her so i’m burdened with it all. i signed her up with a local senior citizens & she has a whole team of people helping her…but she won’t help herself 🤯😵 multiple house cleaners have quit because of her ongoing hoarding & filthy living habits. even professional “squalor cleaners” stopped returning our calls after a few jobs   its too much for even professionals to handle. 🤮🤢 i understand hoarding is a complex mental health condition but i can’t help feeling seething resentful at how she undermines everybody’s hard work. 🤬😤 i give so much of my time & energy & free labour but it all feel like a fruitless waste of time. 😭 having read everybody’s comments, i feel my situation would only worsen if i were to go ahead with previous plans to move in with her   i’d only end up being more angry & resentful than ever & that’d be bad for us both. 🥵 i feel she steals enough of my time & energy already, i don’t think i could cope with any more than the 2 3days per week she takes from me already. i’ve got a family of my own + my own parents are both aged & ill & they could use my help rather than this ungrateful aunty who is not even a blood relative, just aunt by marriage. thank you so much, i felt so alone and disgusted with myself for the terrible feels of anger and resentment i have towards my 94 year old mother who has been living with us for the past 5 years. as a child my mother was never home, she did not work, but was going to school and hanging out with her friends (she was in her 40’s)not sure what she did with her time. i would come home to an empty house, i was molested by family member for years and she had no idea. i’m tired, my husband and i have raised our children and were looking forward to it just being the two of us, but i think she will outlive use both…….. thank you so much for this article! i felt so identified with all that i could have written this myself (but in spanish which is my mother language). the most difficult part of all this is the mixed feelings of anger, sadness, and guilt. i used to admire my mother so much and now we have so few things in common. it’s an effort for me to be with her and it’s very difficult for me to even hug her. of course, feelings of shame flooded into me. it’s so good to see that i’m not alone (even as i am in the other part of the world, argentina), that these feelings are so human. hi gabriela: this is exactly why we wrote this piece. we all feel ashamed and yet these feelings are natural. this is not an easy thing to do. you are a wonderful daughter for even trying. i wish i had my mother back to take care of. i never expected her to be anything other than who she was, even after the strokes that left her more distant and meaner. i’m no saint, and my childhood was far from perfect, but i loved her for all of her imperfectness. i pray i never made her feel like a burden, because even though life can be a burden, she never was. i feel honored to have been a part of guiding her through her old age and eventual death as lovingly as i could, doing what i could to bring a little happiness and comfort into her life. getting old is terrifying. not being able to take care of yourself anymore is terrifying. relying on others for survival is terrifying. the loneliness of old age is dark and smothering, and having death looming over your shoulder, knowing your life is coming to an end, that you won’t “be” anymore, be anything ever again, what a horrifying thing to have to live with. although i understand the feelings expressed in the article and the comments, i can’t help but wish i could take all of these precious mommas and care for them myself. i know one day when she finally dies, i will feel remorse for saying i really really dislike my domineering, bossy, cold fish, unloving, unappreciative hag of a mother. i may even feel guilty at her funeral that i ever even thought these things. probably cry even, and all that. but i also know i will breathe a huge sigh of relief. the hugest sigh imaginable. because i’ll finally be free of her. i laughed at the comments adminishing those people likecme who can’t stand their mothers, hate caring for them, etc., saying “one day you’ll get old and no one will care for you!” wrong. i have made provisions for my old age. i have planned financially for it. i will never ever need to depend on my children for anything. my horrid mother never had a thought for anyone but herselg, made stupid choices with her money and her husband , my abusive alcoholic dad. spare me the weeping violins and admonitions. i don’t owe her a thing. having just returned home (over 500 miles round trip) from dealing with the practicalities of my mother’s life, i took to my bed for 24 hours. she is a 90 year old with dementia who only wants/ has, me. i have a brother, bless, who is ‘loving’ but never ever visits. he lives 20 miles away and has a family of females taking care of his needs. i have raised 2 sons (5 grandchildren) singly, on a poor income, but have managed well through skill, personal strength and practice. being 70 now, all my strengths are weakened and have recently, upon a friends advice, have realised a life of tumbling through has been driven by lack of executive function. so my question is   is the reason why some of us struggle with the role of caring for a demanding, controlling and angry mother is not only because we are stuck with a continuing role but more difficult because of the way we are hardwired   nothing we can hope to change. hi annie: i think we can always change. no matter what age you are. you are doing an incredibly hard job. a job no one prepared us for. i do believe some of us are hardwired to care more than others. you might find some help by checking in with a local caregiving group or socialworker. you could get some ideas on how to handle this so you can feel better yourself. thanks for leaving a comment. i cant say how comforting it has been to read these comments and the blog. i just cant say right now…. awesome. this is a hard road. we understand. take care i can’t stand my mother. after the death of my father 2 years ago this bat crazy shit stain doesn’t remember anything from after she married my father. she blocked out the death of my brother and now blocked out the death of my father and it seems my entire existence. due to life i recently moved in with her. she doesn’t have dementia or alzheimer’s. she lives in her repressed memory bubble in her own world. so fucking annoying but i’ve decided if she’s not gonna remember me i’m changing my name in her presence and i’ll pretend i’m not related. it’s working out great for me. hi lorna. i’m sorry to hear all this. but changing your name is great idea. these are difficult times. good thing mom didn’t feel that way about raising you, and gave you away. this is what you are doing to your mom in your head. wishing she was gone forever. to much trouble. parents mean nothing to their children any more. a bunch of spoiled brats, that think they should have everything you have got, and now. so die so they can get it. parents are your burden unless you already moved out of town, so you aren’t bothered by them. may god forgive you. selfish children. my mother turned 82. she got old. she was fine and active until a year ago and then my father died. she pretended she had it all together and then once he was gone her emotional needs could never be met. she was privileged and was kept the entire 60 years they were together. now she can’t even function without him. she shovels shit into her mouth on a daily basis using food as a form of comfort…meanwhile her cognitive decline speeds up, she becomes more unhealthy, angry, bitter, and neurotic. she wonders why everyone has stopped calling her and visiting her. my siblings and i are doing everything we can to satiate her emotional needs but i’ve begrudgingly come to the conclusion that its a bottomless pit. i came across this site in an effort to learn how to best serve her as well as learn to detach from her toxic negativity. i never thought much about women’s empowerment before but now i get it. it’s horrifically sad to be submissive to a man and then once he’s gone you don’t even know who you are. then you’re angry and pissed off about your emptiness but you got too old and its too late. i love my mom alot but wow, its pathetically sad to watch what she’s become and rapidly turning into. hi rick: yes. one of the issues with women being constantly dependent on another human being and not being totally formed or independent on their own is what happens when that support disappears. this is why we at coveyclub want all women to take their financial and emotional support in hand and own it in their 40s,50s,60s and beyond so this doesn’t happen. your kids should not have to fill the gap for this old fashioned dependency type of relationship. the patriarchy was great for the men but left many women infantalized. thanks for acknowledging your new point of view. i have a bad deal or worse, my stepmom moved in with me because her sight is getting bad, and my siblings disowned her when my dad passed 23 years ago. well, she says she can’t get her meds, she can’t get her stuff to drink, she can’t put her plates in the sink, she sits in the living room with only a depend on, she’ll go to the bathroom on the floor, but she’ll go to a bar and play slot machines for 10 hours or more. i told her after she was in here over 10 hours and straight lied to me i was never bringing her again. she’s trying to play guilt trip on me but i’m too mad for it to work. she is and always has been very selfish and self centered. what do i do? hi franziska: we would suggest you find a group near by or online where you can discuss this problem. sounds like your stepmother is not respecting all you do for her. you should seek professional guidance on how to handle this situation. we’re sorry this is so difficult. i’m wore out, i lost my husband of 19 years 3 years ago, my step mom moved in with me, every time i talk about him she tell me to stop thinking about him and get on with my life, she tells me she forgot about my dad after he passed, i flat out told her there was a big difference between her and me, i have a big caring heart where hers is cold and selfish. that may be mean but totally true. my health isnt good. i’m losing my hair from stress, i get about 2 hours sleep a night because she’ll wake me up about midnight to feed her for the 10 time, and when i get woke up i can’t go back to sleep. i just don’t know what to do. any large hearted people out there have any ideas. thanks for listening fran you think your 92 year old mother has the capacity to control her behavior all the time? you think this won’t happen to you? karma, baby. what a strain on love. you know, if you said you needed more support, i’d have understood. it’s too much for one person. but, the fact you loved your mother when you were young but now, let’s face it, hate her at 92? i don’t care if she is demanding. you are an adult and just do what you can. i can’t image what it feels like to raise a daughter, think you have love between each other, grow old then elderly, and have that daughter you loved, and who once said she loved you, hate her. you’re going to allow her die thinking you hate her, and it is probably very confusing for her. you see you in the future when you look at her. it’s so sad to die knowing the love you thought you once had from your own child is gone because the child cannot grow up. thank you for this article and all of your comments. all of you have saved me this morning as i am typing this in tears, recognizing that i am not a terrible person for the recognition that i need to set boundaries. i am in the early stages of taking care of my mother, whose husband of 35 years passed 6 months ago. she is suffering from vertigo (can’t find the cause) and has deep depression, anxiety, and panic attacks since i was a young girl. i have spent the past week immersed in this and it is breaking me. i’ve had to clean her up and dress her. she cries and panics constantly. her fears consume her, especially if she is ill. three years ago i thought i was finally embarking on a time in my life when i could focus on me  taking hikes, hobbies, etc  as i am still working full time in a very demanding job. covid hit and my husband got very ill. i assumed the caretaker role. my college aged children were having a tough time and i was focused on their well being. then, my almost senior in hs suffered a bout of depression and we have now arrived at a really good place. then this hit. i just don’t know if i can do it. reading all of your comments helps immensely. i have spent my whole like wishing my mother would have been strong enough to take care of me. she is not. she is not the anchor of the family. i am. and i resent it. i resent having to take on that role because my mother was weak. that is the word i’ve been searching for. it is such a simple concept that i really didn’t think about until i read it today. i resent caring for her because she never cared for me the way i needed to be cared for and loved. she did the best she could but i’ve have never been able to say to anyone  it wasn’t enough! spot on with what i am feeling as i struggle with going over to see her today or taking a walk. i think i need to take the walk, but the guilt and worry consumes me. glad this very honest assessment of what we go through was helpful. a walk will definitely help. this was so helpful, thank you! my mom is only 78 but has not lived alone in 8 years. thankfully, she is able to afford to live in an independent living community which is a lifesaver, but she still pretty much controls my life. i’m good at boundaries but when she falls and has to go to the er or spend weeks in rehab, then all balance is destroyed. my mom had a career that moved her away to a different city and she came home on the weekends. obviously, that wasn’t going to end well so my parents divorced and she spent the next 20 years pretty much focused on herself. i didn’t want to be anything like her so i got my education and career but walked away from it when we had kids. i poured my life into my children for 15 years before going back to work part time. now i am 58 with grandchildren (#5 on the way) and a horse hobby, in addition to a part time job that i love….. but my mom’s needs still dictate my life. she has memory issues and can’t keep up with her health appointments, medication, finances, etc. i have resented her so much for being so incredibly needy (getting calls about everything from “i’m constipated and you need to do something about it” to “i have diarrhea and you need to do something about it”, to “i’ve fallen and i can’t get up”). i have ptsd every time she calls at an unusual time. my mom did not help when her mother was going through this stage because she was too busy chasing her career on the other side of the state while her younger sister did all the heavy lifting with my grandmother. now, it all just makes me sick. i’ve made progress with my attitude because i choose not to live a miserable life, but sometimes the grief, anger, resentment, sadness, etc. come along suddenly and it’s so hard. your article made me laugh and it reminded me that i’m not alone. thank you for the encouragement and validation. i too have been the child who had been groomed to take care of my mom. she was always self absorbed when i was a child. as an example, she actually asked me to stop talking on occasion while she was scanning the restaurant for a man who might be noticing her. she was always a beauty. she said my sister was the beauty and i was “beautiful on the inside” with a chuckle. i could go on and on with examples. interesting that as she is aging she has been very complimentary about my looks. either feeling guilty or just getting close because of the position she has groomed me for. always said she “prayed for me” before she got pregnant and i was her gift from god. i see now it’s because she actually believes i was born to take care of her. so now i’m almost 70 and she is almost 100. my sibs see her rarely and mom depends on me exclusively. why am i feeling guilty for not wanting this to continue. i get angry at her and myself, and tell her rarely that the family needs to talk about getting someone to take her to appointments and shopping etc. which is met with silence from all…and punishment from mom (she refuses to answer my calls or texts etc.) as a martyr mother maneuver (grew up with that). so…finding this site and reading every post was just the thing i needed. i do realize that aging isn’t fun but guess what…we all are going there which makes each day a gift to make the most of. being kind and compassionate doesn’t obligate you to a life of feeling manipulated by anyone…even your parent. i have a lot to be thankful for…and yes having her living so long has given us an opportunity to know each other as adults. it’s my option how much time and energy i spend with mom and resentment and guilt are my issues, not hers. so today i will remember the good things i do for mom and not dwell on how i disappoint her for not doing more. pursuing my goals and love life and only doing things for mom that are out of love and not guilt. tougher than it sounds apparently! thanks for your honest thoughts both pro and con about this emotional issue…it helped me a lot! carpe diem going through this awfulness with my husband’s parents. neither of them were caregivers to their parents; they both had siblings who took on those responsibilities. they never had a clue what it is to make a burden of oneself on their children. instead, they made no effort to care for themselves, becoming increasingly helpless. they lived like children, squandering their money on any junk they felt like buying, having no savings or investments on which to retire. they eat nothing but junk food, they do nothing but sit in front of the tv, every home they lived in for the last 20 years became increasingly filthy as they gave up on even the most basic efforts to pick up after themselves. they also smell bad, having abandoned normal hygiene. they’re not senile, though they’ve let their minds grow dull and unlively. they expected my husband and me to take care of them. while we were willing to shuffle them to various appointments (and oh how they just love to see doctors as often as they can!), do their grocery shopping, and do things like change lightbulbs, install grab bars, and the more usual things adult children do for their aging parents, neither of us was willing to clean up after them, or act like their servants. finally too physically infirm to live independently, it was time to pack them off to a nursing home. while they indicated we should’ve been willing to modify our home to allow them to move in, we were not going to allow dirty, smelly, lazy, ungrateful, combative, irresponsible parents to make ruin of our home and our lives. the nursing home options available to them are bleak; we found the best possible option we could. it’s not how my husband or i would want to end up in our old age, but then, that’s why we take care of ourselves fiscally, physically, nutritionally, intellectually, and socially. we are planning for as healthy and wealthy and active an old age as we can. we want to be blessings to our children and future grandchildren, and to be remembered with love and affection, not revulsion and resentment. i consider our fiduciary responsibilities to help them to be fully discharged. we did what we could to help two people who refused to help themselves. after reading the article and the comments, it is a relief to know that i am not alone with feeling frustrated, sad, depleted, tired, and guilty. my mom moved in with us over three years ago and some days i wish she hadn’t. i feel like i am the “good daughter” while my sibling does nothing to help in any way. as she ages, i find it difficult to hear the same stories and complaints over and over. as her memory fades, it makes me sad. i struggle with taking care of her and feeling like my life is on hold and then feeling guilty for wanting to be free when she passes. it’s a difficult journey and it is not a burden i want my children to carry when it’s my turn. so often, money dictates the care that one gets, a sobering reality. hi jackie: we hear you loud and clear. no one wants to feel this way. our parents didn’t want this either. no one had a plan. we need to plan for our kids. exactly the point. man i feel you on resentment and anger. my mom is quite capable of doing almost anything she wants to do. ie: she cant get herself a drink, but the other night despite it causing extreme pain in her shoulders, she toddled to the kitchen with her walker and fixed herself cheesecake. it’s a constant battle to get her to move for herself. she is early stages of dementia so short term memory is shot. which is not an issue. but she’s very impulse driven and always has been. so despite being asked not to do, eat, take something if she wants it, she’s doing, eating or taking it. end of story. i’ve been caring for her and my dad, until her died last year, for four years. i have a sister but she doesn’t split any financial support and she helps occasionally but gets to use the excuse of kids to be “busy” a lot. i’m beyond burned out. like to the point i feel like an empty husk of a person. i’ve got nothing left for anyone not even myself. the house is constantly a mess. i have more urine soaked laundry and trash and chores than i can count. and all i ever hear from my sister is “every adult has chores” but it’s more than that. my mom is oxygen dependent too. she also habitually just puts her oxygen on her chin, head, around her neck. she also, despite my reminding her for four years about it, never watches her oxygen cord. so i spend every waking hour checking constantly if she’s wearing her oxygen, monitor her when she’s walking, changing her bed, cleaning up whatever she’s dropped, smeared, or dripped from her body, hands, walker tray. and there is no end. it feels like she’s sucking the life from me and somehow improving her health somewhat but still has no interest in doing for herself. it’s all just so exhausting. and there is no escape. pretty sure she’s gonna kill me way before she ever dies. anyhow bottom line is i feel ya lol. caregiving is not for the faint of heart, my grama used to say that about getting old. both pretty much suck! 😂 as a son, i hate seeing my parents age, become fragile and lose independence. it hurts to see this happening in these ones i so very much love. how do i overcome pride issues of seeing my elderly mother naked to bathe her.. i mean i know she feels shame and while i love her dearly i don’t want to see her naked. its just something i have to get past. im just venting. wonderful to have you vent. yes, that could be uncomfortable. you might want to check in with a local social worker and ask how to handle the bathing issue. lovely that you are there for your mother. the title of this article is all wrong. it should be ” rotten daughters” who are very disrespectful to good mothers” may life and your ending be the same. my biggest worry is that my own adult children will feel this way towards me when i am 80 not 60! i love them dearly. but i wasn’t a perfect mother. i think i tried to be friends with my daughter. as my husband was emotionally unavailable to me. i’ve done my best to become her cheerleader instead of a burden as i’ve slowly understood the damaging dynamics in our relationship. will my natural decline as i age infuriate her like my mother ignites my anger. my question after reading this is, is there another way? does it have to be like this? we think talking about these issues early on with your children is a good start. talk about your fears and that you know you were not perfect. make sure you have some arrangements so you are somewhat able to care for yourself if you can. but it starts with talking now. my mom is 87. i lived with her all my life im now 60. me and her i thought had always been close. always thought friends till she got old past two years and she just basically sat in a chair and never wanted to do another thing. ever. she admited to me she bought me things so i would take care of her when she got old. like a payment. i never knew that things i thought she did cause she wanted to was just for a payment later on in taking care of her. i cook for her i clean i wash her cloths. i shake my head as she refuses to eat half the food i cook or when she does eat it has theatrics about how it made her sick, how it makes her throw up or had she just wont eat it. she likes to ask for the hardest foods to cook like fried chicken, turkey dinners and fried fish all i found out she hated but would ask me to cook it for her cause she knew it was hard to cook and time consuming. the joke was on her though cause i wouldnt cook nuffin else and she either ate that or at nuffin. i now promptly freeze stuff like that and when she starts with the i want some fish or something i just microwave it and give it to her and then go eat something i want. my doc told me when she does that she just dont have to eat. other thing is she talkes. she litereally will talk 24 hours of the day. she will sing, complain, talk, complain about me, complain about her imaginary kids, cats, dogs, and whatever else she thinks of. she insists me and my brother are married and that she has more kids then she does. she calls her imaginary daughter my name and then told me to change my name. i know might sound funny but its very hurtful to me. and thats the other thing she dont care she hurts me, and she delibertly tries to make me cry. she has said she knows she does this on purpose she dont know why an then no apology nuffin. she pretends she cant hear me so i have to speak up when i speak up she says im yelling at her i try to explain to her im not yelling at her but she cant seem to hear me and she says what you saying so i talk louder and she starts critizing me, whats wrong with you why you doing that im not deaf you know. so after a few episodes of that i try to avoid her which is sad cause its the last thing i want to do but she makes it impossible. she throws me out about once every few months tells me to leave get out and i remind her if i did she would end up in a nursing home for sure. that makes her doubly mad at me and then she tells me ill end up in one and i said i probably will someday as i have no other family that would really want to help me in anyway. people die of covid but i feel like im dying of my mother. she makes me feel horrible guilty and she has told me if she dies its going to be my fault. i have tried to laugh about it and sometimes that works but when she goes for the personal hurt the personal attack the personal put down just cause she thinks she has the right to……sometimes i think maybe i will just walk out that door and never look back. i love her but when is love not enough and its hard to live with her knowing she actually really hates me. i do have two brothers on says im married and me and my wife cant be involved so good luck to you and the other one just works all the time says he has to to pay the bills in the house. so its just me and mom and we probably both very unhappy and probably will be till she dies. in pain: we hear you. you are not alone. we are sorry for your situation. you have no idea how much this article made me feel not so alone. thank you!!!! exactly the point. thanks julia for reading. thank you so kuchen for taking the time to write this. i felt like this was almost written for me personally. it has been so helpful to understand the reason for my resentment and anger. as you suggested i am going to try to allow my vulnerabilities surface rather than the anger and i am setting boundaries for myself. i have realised that my mother manipulates me at times. i am lucky that my own home with husband and children is like my sanctuary to where i can escape and switch off. wishing everyone well with their own personal challenges. i’m sorry to say but your story angered me, this is your creator you’re slagging off here, the only person on this planet that has loved you unconditionally from the moment your eyes opened until the moment she passes, and when that moment comes you will regret posting this, all carers know precisely what you’re going through, and most i would say even more so. you are struggling to cope we get it, we all are, but we know why we do what we do and we know that it’s the right thing to do, yes, it sucks, it’s mental torture at times, but it’s not her fault. you do whatever you have to do to get your own life in order so that you are able to cope better with the situation you are in, but you never, under any circumstances whatsoever bad mouth your mother again, that line you should never cross! learn to cope, and if you are unable to handle it, do what’s right for her, not you or anybody else. learn to breathe when she triggers you, learn ways to change her mindset, things that make her happier, music, good memories, etc, let her know everything is fine, great even, make her happy! you still work so i consider you a part time carer at best, if your job is too much to handle alongside caring, speak to your boss, maybe its time to go part time and try to learn to enjoy your mother whilst she is still here, yes, you probably have bills to pay or have a million other excuses like my sister had not to help, you can get help to get through this period if you look hard enough, it’s miserable being a carer and other carers will always support you, just stop cussing your mother out that’s your first step to becoming a better person! when you next see her tell her how amazing she is and tell her why! i’m sorry but you deserved this. i totally hear your point, as i am facing the exact situation you describe in the article. a mother who never worked has no idea what is like to be busy in life. i am helping care for my mother but thank god i travel a lot. otherwise i could not do it. my mother is bossy, needy, demanding and self absorbed. i am the happiest when i travel away from her. mothers and fathers are not perfect. they are human beings like any other. so do not make them out to be gods that we should be joyful to care for. i had no children of my own and if i did i would not subject them to the amount of needy manipulation some elderly parents subject their children too. we have a life to life and they already lived theirs. my mother for example depends on everyone that surrounds her so she can have the same life she had 20 years ago. no maids make it past 6 months working for her because she is needy as heck. who the hell enjoys filling requests every single minute of the day for someone who acts helpless unless her personal interest is stake. come on. let’s be real. being a parent does not make you a perfect human being. just because you put “good” in the title doesn’t mean you are. seems like you’re trying to convince yourself. reassuring self assessment maybe. loser. wow. yet another opportunity to bash a whole generation of baby boomers! kudos! way to go! at least serial killers put their victims out of their misery. parents torture you from day one, then kill you in the end! it’s time to take euthanasia seriously! we are an overpopulated, invasive species, we are all miserable, treat each other like crap & if we don’t want to be here, that should be our choice! it’s my body! & most parents have been emotionally or physically abusive. boomers are awful! older generation even worse! we put pets out their misery & it’s time to stop putting the worst species on earth, on a pedestal! we spend to have procedures to stay alive longer, drugs to prolong life & all it does is create zombies! religion is an evil cult, every single one, it exists to make excuses for this stupid race and it’s time to eliminate it! legalize euthanasia & stop with the doctors! thank you for your honesty. it is so refreshing. don’t listen to the negative comments. you are allowed to feel how you feel. and you are still a good person even though you feel that way. thank you for being brave enough to do so. i will admit i’m a bad daughter. but i know that i am giving back what i have been given. i know that if my mother were a better person i would also be a better daughter. and i also know that i am a good person, and because i see what my mother has been, i am a good mother. i have learned to not be what she is. i will never be what she is and maybe that is the best gift she has given me. i see and know mothers that i wish i could’ve had. we all don’t get to have those. for those of you that are skeptical, i’ll just say my mother tried to kill herself several times when my sister and i were young. she blamed us for everything. we would be the butt of her jokes. she never took us to get our nails done or taught us to do our makeup. she would just tell us how she didn’t want to be a mother and tell us we didn’t want her to be happy. now that lady lives with me. and she does nothing. doesn’t even try to have a relationship with her own grandchildren who are funny, smart, cute and the best humans i’ve ever met. thank god for my wonderful kids. it’s been 7 years since she moved in and half the time i’m scared she’s going to kill us in our sleep. at least now she isn’t strong enough to. but when i’m rushing to take my kids to school in the morning and she is yelling at me to get her water i have such anger and resentment i am overwhelmed. i can’t. obviously a lot of people feel as we do, with all of the comments here so please keep it up and i hope you find peace, as i am struggling to find it with my mother as well. thank you for your honesty. it is so refreshing. don’t listen to the negative comments. you are allowed to feel how you feel. and you are still a good person even though you feel that way. thank you for being brave enough to do so. you are helping others. i will admit i’m a bad daughter. but i know that i am giving back what i have been given. i know that if my mother were a better person i would also be a better daughter. and i also know that i am still a good person, and because i see what my mother has been, i am a good mother. i have learned to not be what she is. i will never be what she is and maybe that is the best gift she has given me. i see and know mothers that i wish i could’ve had. we all don’t get to have those. for those of you that are skeptical, i’ll just say my mother tried to kill herself several times when my sister and i were young. she blamed us for everything. we would be the butt of her jokes. she never took us to get our nails done or taught us to do our makeup. she would just tell us how she didn’t want to be a mother and tell us we didn’t want her to be happy. now that lady lives with me. and she does nothing. doesn’t even try to have a relationship with her own grandchildren who are funny, smart, cute and the best humans i’ve ever met. thank god for my wonderful kids. it’s been 7 years since she moved in and half the time i’m scared she’s going to kill us in our sleep. at least now she isn’t strong enough to. but when i’m rushing to take my kids to school in the morning and she is yelling at me to get her water i have such anger and resentment i am overwhelmed. i can’t. to “live in carer”   you probably have been lucky to have had a wonderful mother. that’s why you can’t understand it. and i’m sure you are a saint. anyone that does what you do probably is. but there are mothers out there that are serial killers, even mothers that have killed their own children. woo! i just made myself feel better about my mother. lol. i needed that! so all mothers are not absolved and all daughters don’t need to be in debted to those mothers. obviously a lot of people feel as we do, with all of the comments here so please keep it up and i hope you find peace, as i am struggling to find it with my mother as well. thank you, thank you, thank you, and amen. i can see how scary it is aging for my mother, however she has made it near impossible to empathize. she has become so selfish that when i explained that she hurts me with her hours of negative, toxic talk, she flat out said she didn’t care because she needs to talk. she is abusive to almost everyone and only sees herself. (except for her favorite child, of course… whom she is completely different with) then the guilt hits, thinking of friends who have lost a parents already. but i envy them. they lost “good” parents. not ones who are soul sucking, self centered assholes. parents they miss dearly and that didn’t try to suck the life out of their children. so, yeah… i share all the feelings of the author. and i pray that when it’s my time, i go like the “good” parents. early enough that i don’t turn into a soul sucking asshole. she’s nearly 95 and still here and still pressing my buttons. today i thought was a good day. we went for lunch. my brother and his wife came too so at least there was conversation with them. i then took her to hairdresser and when she was looking in her purse for her disabled badge to put on the windshield, she yet again couldn’t find it and i found it for her in the usual place. she then accused me of hating her. she said that three times. i said what a silly and unkind thing to say and made light of it. i’m sure she said it as she was frustrated by her forgetfulness but it pissed me off. no i don’t want to be looking after her, with her smell because she refuses to wash. but i do it anyway coz that’s what you do. even before she became so frail she was never interested in anything i did or my life at all. perhaps i reminded her of all the missed opportunities she experienced but that was of her own making. i googled her words today and this article came up and i am grateful to know there are others who feel similar. my youngest kid is about to leave home for uni and i want my freedom, not be tethered to this infirm person who makes me feel bad. do i hate her? no but i just feel indifferent and maybe she’s picking up on that. i was trying to be kind and find something quickly so she didn’t miss her appointment as well as do other tasks for her, whilst she smells. thanks mum. you’ve made it all about you again. reading this article and all the comments has helped me to feel not so alone. first of all i would like to address live in carer   you wrote “the only person on this planet that has loved you unconditionally from the moment your eyes opened until the moment she passes … ” you are sadly mistaken if you think every mother loves her children unconditionally. my mother would lash out at me and pull her so called love away if i did not measure up to her idea of what she wanted me to be, how to act, say, etc. i was expected to be an extension of her, so that i could anticipate every need of hers. she brags that us (my brother and i) would know when she wasn’t feeling well and that started when we were toddlers. she neglected any of my emotions and needs that didn’t correlate with her mindset. have you heard of adverse childhood experiences? if not, look it up, it should be eye opening for you (hopefull). anyway, back to the posts that have had ace. my heart goes out to each and every one of us. my mom is 96 and i want her to pass. she is languishing, bedridden and says she’s not ready “to go”. i have spent 1 day a week for the past 8 years, since my dad died, with her (actually started with about 2 3 days and then cut back to 1. keep in mind i work full time so this left me 1 day for myself). why do i still work? i married an alcoholic, womanizing sex addict   divorced for 20 years. she had told me repeatedly when i was younger that i was selfish, self centered, i would have no friends or boyfriends and then she would laugh and say a man would want me for one thing (sex). back to now, she was able to live on her own with a person coming in a couple of times a week until this past march (2023) when she went into eldercare because she had no strength to move on her own. she has never changed. she still has nasty comments towards me and idolizes my brother and his wife. she had told me once that she had wanted 5 boys. too bad she had a girl. she says my brothers first wife should not have had a girl and used her as a maid. then she adds that this girl (my niece) was lucky to have had all boys. i was her nurse maid when i was 7 and she had bursitis, i was even sad and depressed then. i told her the other day that i miss her. what i meant was i miss the mother i wish i had, the mother that my friends had. i pray every day for her to pass, it will be such sweet relief. i have been the primary carer of my mother who is now 80. i am in my fourties, with no family of my own, and have been living to a house next to my mother’s. she is constantly needy, not in the obvious way   because she is quite active and can take care of herself, but on an emotional level. she is very judgemental, she has an opinion about everything, she always wants to know about everything, and she is very critical of how i do things all the time. i spend hours with her daily, and i don’t want to leave her by herself (she is widowed), but i am becoming tired of the constant bickering. don’t get me wrong…. i love her deeply and i like spending time with her. but i am becoming tired of how this time of us together makes me feel… i know she wants the company too, and i don’t want to be leaving her alone. but i do not know how to handle her difficult and controlling character. and i also feel bad because if i lose my patience and answer back, she acts like the victim, shutting down and not talking to me. this behaviour makes me feel not only sad, but also guilty. i try to be calm and compassionate when i am there with her, but most of the times she will be hurtful. i do not know how to communicate to you this level of neediness… since she is both mentally and physically ok… however over the years she is becoming more and more controlling and with an opinion on everything. it is like an emotional control, which makes me feel trapped… and when i am not there, she is constantly checking on the phone, to see what i am doing, where i have been, what time i will be back home. i do not know how i can handle this…. hi gigi: many people here reveal the same feelings and issues. if you can afford it, perhaps try and find a caregiver to come and sit with your mother for a few hours a day to give you a break. care.com is a good starting resource. i was stunned to find that so many people out there are experiencing the same fragile emotions of caring for an elderly parent. i was just as stunned to read some of the harsh, judgmental comments admonishing the “feelings” this article as well as others conveyed. feelings come and go like the wind. the point is that those caring for an elderly parent are doing just that…caring for them despite the feelings they have. love is an action. if you “feel” loving while you care for a person, it will no doubt make the task a bit easier, but for those who “feel” anger and resentment, your actions of loving and caring for them are still valid. there is no guilt in that. my situation is that the anger and resentment i have is toward my 81 year old mother in law who moved in a year ago. i’m angry at not just her, but her daughter who should have taken her in because she was living alone in a much larger home. i feel resentment toward my husband who suggested it, then seemed to be just fine in letting me be the main care provider claiming he’s too busy with other things. i understand his avoidance of his mother. she nags and criticizes him as if he were a child. it’s unsettling to see how dysfunctional their relationship is…how it probably was for all 58 years of his life. i, however, never liked my mother in law and yet here i am caring for her…loving her…but hating every second of it. from the beginning, we failed to set boundaries, and are now faced with the consequences of that and will have to sit down and have a tough conversation for our own sanity. i’m not looking forward to that, but it has to be done even though i know there will be tears…lots and lots of manipulative tears. number one on the list of boundaries to discuss will be making it clear to her that our plans are not necessarily her plans. she is not a guest in this house and it is not our job to entertain her. everyday she asks, “what are “our” plans for the day..” recently, i answered, “i don’t have any plans, what are your plans?” that statement didn’t go over very well. setting boundaries is hard, and may seem mean, but it has to be done. another boundary is setting up a safe, private space that will not be entered by her unless she is having an emergency. it will most likely be our bedroom which she enters whenever she has a whim. it is so so weird to be in bed with my husband and she enters without knocking and walks over and sits down in the chair in our room to talk to us about something trivial. it totally freaks me out. the first time it happened my husband said, “what are you doing in here?” she didn’t answer, but just smiled and began to chat. that’s happened a few times, and regardless if she cries, it will not happen again. i’ve already moved the chair out of my room so she has no where to sit. she has, however, sat on my bed. i’m bracing myself for the conversation that she is not to enter my room for any reason. i could go on and on about how incredibly hard it has been to have her living with us, but because of frequent falls, living alone was not an option for her. we moved her in because of love, our actions are loving, the boundaries we set are loving ourselves, but yes, i hate this so much and know that when it’s over there will be much needed relief. because of it, i have already been having conversations with my children about how to handle things should i need to move in with them. i hope my memory of this time with my husband’s mother will not be forgotten, but rather i’d like to hold on to it so i can better understand how my children will “feel” should i need to move in with them some day. you are doing a wonderful job rj and you are right: feelings are feelings and that is why we wanted to allow them out here on a page instead of being pent up inside of everyone doing this very hard job. reading this, i wonder if we need a piece for those parents who have moved in about respecting their child’s right to have a life as well. i have heard this transgressive story over and over again and the fact that the son is not doing his part is just part of the research as well. i am still adapting to my mother’s constant talking. i can’t drive us anywhere without her telling me which lane to drive in, red light, green light, turn here, park here, bla, bla, bla, coming and going. talking while i’m trying to watch a show, always asking me what i want for dinner, reminding me the garbage needs to go out. i fucking know when the garbage goes out. i pay all the bills, while paying down my credit cards that she was supposed to pay half of for the new roof, ac unit, ect that she insisted on when we bought a house together after my peice of shit father left her after 50 years of marriage for a whore. i work all week and then i have to do her bidding on my days off and spend time with her. she is also very self absorbed, selfish and instantly catches an attitude if she is put out or inconvenienced by anything or if i go to my room for some alone time. i feel like im expected to know how to fix everything. she tries to tell me how to spend my money, but she can spend her money on whatever she wants. if i do anything she doesnt like, i hear about it. i still get told to go to sleep because i have work tomorrow! i hear about all her aches and pains daily, on top of that she is going blind! she was driving aboout 5 hours away to my brothers house for a vist, but now that her vision is going, she wont be going there anymore and my peice of shit brother can’t be bothered to come and get her. oh, i forgot, my brother is a saint! his life and endeavors are so important he can’t be bothered for anything. i just hope i die soon. how did this happen? what makes you assume your mother would feel like or ever feel like a failure? you will inevitably be in your mothers shoes someday! god forbid someone cares for you with such hidden contempt! whether she worked or not and you did is irreverent, as she was raised in an era when most women do not work. to be angry with her over something like that just shows your judgement as the ugliness it truly is. my god correct and bting to light uour selfish soul. i think these complaints about the burden of caring for aged parents are the products of an entitled, selfish mentality. these are not just any aged people but the ones who sacrificed many years of their lives to raise you, when you were an imperfect, tiresome, dependant, needy child. i just spent every moment of the last five years helping my bedridden, deaf and mute father through vascular dementia. i only regret that i did not recognise his needs earlier. to care for loved ones in their hour of need is a blessing and a privilege. i don’t consider these odious comments to be a sign of great honesty but of shameless selfishness. may you all live long enough to find that out for yourselves. thank you so much for sharing your story. i am a daughter going through a similar situation and your words helped my heart. usha you can piss right off you know you’re the demanding elder. stop it, i’ve been taking care of my mother since i was a child. i’ll be dead before she is and i’m done this wasn’t what i was searching for but this is what i needed to read! thank you. i don’t feel so alone and confused now. i’m still raising my kids and my partner runs a business and my mother expects me to leave them and travel to her across state to care for her for months. not only that, i’m trying to restart my career and have a life. it’s just impossible. she needs to move closer or accept professional carers, which she can afford. she pushed me to move away and go to university and now expects me to ditch my life and become her carer now she’s ill. i know it’s hard and simply awful for her. it’s also an impossible situation for me… and the endless negative talk is real! she also never asks about my life when we talk, it’s all about her and her grandkids or even my partner. i just exist as an outlet to hear her complaints… which is fine up to a point, but life is already exhausting and i’m out of energy at this point. she expects me not to work because she didn’t and she can’t relate   fine (putting aside encouraging me into going to college/have a career)   but i have kids at home who need care, a partner who needs support, a million other things to do, too. i have a life i can’t abandon. i’m not doing nothing! i don’t want her to be alone but i can’t do anything about it at this point and she won’t move… but i think she’s starting to listen and figure it out… i hope… there are no easy answers, clearly. life is complex. when people decide to have children and become caregivers themselves, that doesn’t mean their children can be expected to want to be caregivers when those parents reach old age   this is the real entitlement issue! it’s not 1850, there’s many better options for all parties most of the time. we don’t all live together and on top of each other anymore   if we’re privileged to have better living conditions and lifestyles, why shouldn’t we live better? and differently? why shouldn’t our children live better, freer lives than we did, too? if our children want to be elderly caregivers, fine, but expecting it, demanding it   that is selfish. not being on call to be your parent’s nurse doesn’t mean you don’t care or help out! not everyone wants to, or has the skills, or is in the same situation to be able to properly and effectively help. the martyrdom dripping off some comments reeks of entitlement and personal fears of ageing. who would want to dump that baggage on their kids? the world has changed   for the better   and demanding others conform to antiquated notions of less desirable, less effective elderly care is not going to undo the changes. where there are better options for fewer burdens, we should be grateful, not clingy and needy. and maybe you aren’t the best carer for your own elderly parents either   you should want the best care you can get for them. and in a lot of cases, it’s probably not you. amazing so many people applaud this way of dealing with a parent’s end of life. suck it up. stop denying them the pain of their end, however shitty they were, and grow up. divide responsibilities with your sibs. i am disgusted by this modern trend to over emphasize our personal pain, while we mete out punishment to others in the name of living true to ourselves what a narrow view of life. bad karma too. often the debris of these “boundaries” puts on others the very kind of behavior this “clear” daughter so reviles from her mother and life. hi, i related to your article so much. for the past two years been caring for my elderly 92 year old mum. my one sibling is dead, so just me left to do it. the hospital admission of 8 weeks was the worst, due to pathetic hospitals in uk currently. i was there daily and she was left on corridors in an and e so many times, then caring for her at home. then endless problems and moaning over carers and friends i got to assist her. i went through every range of emotions too. and my life and independence was suddenly non existent, and hardly saw friends from that moment on. i had to journal daily and meditate to get through the worst bits. things have got easier since she moved into assisted living. she neglected me of love and support growing up, so i too found it hard when roles were reversed. but i’ve learnt to pick my arguments with her now, tried to drop all the judgement and resentment and we have kind of come to a peaceful enjoyable stage now. prob because i have a lot of help from the carers in her home. so gives me a lot of relief. i don’t believe you can be totally honest with them, as this would hurt the feelings so much, and cause more stress. so just learn to let things go ( learnt in meditation) and yoga. and take of yourself in the process. we are not quite at the death stage just at the moment, that is yet to come. so i’m sure there will be even more rocky patches ahead. but as far as caring is concerned it certainly isn’t for me either. it’s knackering playing so many roles, and trying to support them. advocate, lady in waiting, waitress, chauffeur, carer for hospital appts, financier, and all the other long list of duties. god help the poor people that have to endure this for many years or who have a disabled child or relative. my heart goes out to them.it does make you a more compassionate person though through it all. i wish you all the best and hope things improve. quit denying and ignoring the pain and utter anguish which comes from a slow painful death. quit focusing on yourself. be a loving caregiver. if you can’t be a loving caregiver to your own parents, newsflash, you’re a probably a terrible, selfish person. lol hillarious there are so many comments though… my situation is not exactly the same of course but i have been looking after, supporting and saving my negative, self absorbed mother from herself since i was 27 with the help, thank goodness, of my brother. now she is old she is a concentrated version of herself. thank you for your honesty makes me feel less guily for my frustration and despair. she has had very little ill health in her life but has never learned to be able to deal with the ups and downs of life herself or even acknowledge that she wants everyone to make her happy. she rarely has been i think. i have never been able to share any problems i have with her as she would turn it into a reason to be miserable and sorry for herself because she ‘ worries about me’ eg when i had cancer she did not know many years ago. she is well cared for with carers, visitors, a wellbeing coach, medication to match her needs, caring doctors, neighbours visit , i stay with her for long periods altho my home is a long way away and my brother comes in 2 3 times a day. i am tired, frustrated and despairing. i love her very much……… please do not berate those who share feeling like this   i have been told so many times i should feel privileged to care for her or that i should stop it and look after myself. i think these comments make me the most miserable. please listen to those who are honestly sharing and do not judge. we do not want you to fix us or her   we know you cant and yes, we know we will mourn deeply in the end. i have been and am on both sides of this. my mom passed at 94 about two years ago and i was always working to get whatever little item/help would make her life easier. you sound like your mom was not independent enough in her 90’s? and even compared her with like others? i would never want my daughter, or son, to have hidden (or not) contempt for me. i have an honest relationship with them both. we laught at what is to come and hope for the best. and we will work out the best solution for everyone one day. i hope you can forgive yourself for this attitude because as the very true saying goes, “if i knew then what i know now”. it. will. hurt. but we know when we know. i would do some things over, but i was very honest with my mom and i am so grateful for our relationship of my whole 68 years until her wonderful age of 94. comment δdocument.getelementbyid( "ak_js_1" ).setattribute( "value", ( new date() ).gettime() ); share reinvention by lesley jane seymour 6 min read book lists by harriet riley 7 min read your community by lesley jane seymour 4 min read copyright © coveyclub 2025 site by six

people with autism have a lot to offer the world. it’s time to re evaluate and challenge what we know to be true about autism. this is the only way we’ll confront the many misconceptions about the disorder while also helping people with autism become functional members of society. in the article below, we explore basic facts about autistic tendencies and how they show that people with this condition have certain high level functions. with these qualities in mind, we put together a list of the top 10 most overlooked traits of people with autism. it’s our hope that, by focusing on these strengths, people will learn to see autism as something other than a disability. are autistic people smart? research suggests that low functioning people with autism may be gifted, and in some ways, even more intelligent than people without autism. this is mainly because of how their brains process data, which makes them better at understanding numbers and patterns. other studies have found that, because people with autism tend to excel at visual processing, they are up to 40% faster at problem solving than other people. autistic traits vary widely, as autism is a spectrum disorder, with each individual exhibiting unique characteristics. the most common traits include: these differences do not reflect a lack of intelligence, but rather a distinct way of processing and expressing thoughts. understanding these traits involves recognizing the unique perspectives and abilities that autistic individuals contribute, highlighting the importance of diversity in thought and experience. it’s important to appreciate this diversity, as it shows the need for tailored support and the celebration of differences within the autistic community. at the heart of many autism based talents is an outstanding skill for recognizing patterns, sequences, and details that might be overlooked by others. this cognitive trait is a key aspect of how some autistic individuals perceive and interact with their environment. it involves a heightened awareness and analysis of sensory and conceptual patterns, ranging from visual and auditory stimuli to complex systems and abstract concepts. this unique skill set is particularly evident in areas requiring systematic thinking, such as mathematics, music, art, and computer programming. some autistic individuals can quickly discern mathematical patterns or have an acute ability to remember and reproduce complex musical compositions. their detailed focus allows them to excel in tasks that require the identification of intricate patterns, anomalies, or repetitions. there is so much about autism that people don’t understand. while it’s easy to focus on how the condition makes daily life and social interaction challenging, people with autism also have many unique skills and abilities that get overlooked. in some ways, the traits that are seen as “problematic” can instead be seen as advantages. individuals with autism tend to have exceptional long term memory. while they may struggle to recall things that happened a few minutes ago, they’re often able to remember events that took place years ago with vivid detail. in addition, most people with autism have an impressive ability to rote learn. the ability of someone with autism to recall facts is so unique it may, at times, seem like they have an encyclopedic memory. research indicates that people with autism excel at auditory and visual tasks. in fact, many with autism outperform others at tasks that require these skills. this explains why individuals with autism do better on nonverbal intelligence tests. one study found that those with autism completed tests that required visual thinking and pattern recognition 40% faster than people without autism. creative thinking may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of autism, but there are studies that suggest that people with autism may excel at creativity. in one study, the participants were asked to think of as many non obvious uses for a brick and paper clip. interestingly, while the participants with autism didn’t come up with as many solutions as the other participants, theirs were highly creative. it’s also significant to note that the individuals with autism jumped straight to the innovation solutions, while the other participants started with the obvious uses first. it’s not uncommon for those with autism to excel at math. their impressive mathematical ability and problem solving skills are tied to a unique pattern of brain organization. in one study, it was found that high functioning children with autism far outperformed their peers when it came to standardized math tests. they also used sophisticated problem solving strategies that didn’t rely on rote learning or counting on their fingers. the study’s lead researcher explained: “our study supports the idea that the atypical brain development in autism can lead, not just to deficits, but also to some remarkable cognitive strengths.” people with autism feel most comfortable with routine and predictability. they don’t thrive well in stressful environments where there is lots of change. as a result, individuals with autism tend to excel at repetitive tasks that require deep focus on one thing. more and more technology companies including microsoft, vodafone and hp are hiring individuals with autism for their unique ability to thrive at repetitive tasks. “we find them [individuals with autism] good for software testing and quality assurance; they can concentrate a long time on a repetitive task and spot mistakes better,” said anka wittenberg, sap’s head of diversity. many researchers believe that it’s because of autism’s impact on the brain that people with the condition have the ability to remain focused, and notice even the tiniest of details. individuals with autism tend to enjoy detail oriented work and are able to work persistently without getting distracted. while individuals with autism have the ability to deceive and to tell simple, white lies, research suggests that they’re less likely to cover up their initial lie. this means that they’re often unable to maintain consistency between the initial lie and subsequent statements. it’s also believed that lie telling in people with autism is learned behavior rather than an intentional act of deception. because individuals with autism have a literal perception of the world, they tend to take things at face value without judging or interpreting them. this has led some researchers to conclude that people with autism perceive the world as it actually is as they don’t allow their brain to shape how they see things. according to research conducted by the national autistic society, many common traits of autism in adults lead them to be conscientious and very committed to their work. the research also found that autism traits in women and men who are employees result in their being punctual, honest, and reliable. levels of absenteeism are often lower among these workers. one study found that individuals with autism perceive simple movements twice as fast as those without autism. in addition, there is also research that indicates that those with autism have the ability to perceive patterns and simple line drawings more quickly than those without the condition. intelligent autism, often associated with the traits of high functioning autism or asperger’s syndrome, is characterized by significant cognitive abilities as mentioned above, coupled with the challenges typical of the autism spectrum. identifying the signs of intelligent autism involves recognizing both the intellectual strengths and the social communication difficulties that these individuals often experience. individuals with intelligent autism typically exhibit above average intellectual abilities. they often have a rich vocabulary, an exceptional memory, and an intense interest in specific subjects. their focus on areas of interest can lead to a deep, comprehensive understanding of those subjects, sometimes surpassing even that of experts. they are often analytical and possess a unique perspective that can lead to innovative solutions. however, alongside these intellectual strengths, there are challenges. social interaction can be difficult due to struggles with understanding social cues, body language, and the subtleties of conversation. these individuals might find it hard to engage in small talk, interpret sarcasm, or understand the emotional nuances in social interactions. additionally, they might have specific sensory sensitivities and a preference for routines and predictability. angelsense has a mission to protect those with autism who need additional safety measures. many people with autism have a tendency to wander or elope. this can cause parents and caregivers great stress and worry. some are also non verbal or lack an understanding of danger. angelsense was designed to address these and other safety and well being concerns to help give parents and caregivers peace of mind. get peace of mind from angelsense, the groundbreaking ai based assistive technology designed to enhance safety and peace of mind for individuals with special needs and their families. our solution ensures you stay connected with your loved ones, empowering a higher level of independence while maintaining safety. learn more about how angelsense can make a difference for your family. you may also like: my grandson is 12 and awful at math but right on with everything else. angel sense has written very important information for parents and grandparents of autistic children. i’m trying to convince my daughter to get the gps tracking system for my grandson who loves to wander away from us in public areas. i fear taking him in public alone because he runs away hiding between clothes or running down isles in a store. my biggest fear is that he will walk away from my daughters apartment due to her being a hard sleeper. she said getting the gps tracker is like having another bill that she can’t afford. my grandson is five. guess i need to stay on her to get angel sense in her budget before something drastic happens to him. there’s only so far that loyalty can be pushed however, my job has pushed me to the point where the only reason i’m sticking around is financial requirements, and that’s coming from an autistic. my son is also awful with math but so dead on in other aspects and as he matures he has grown in so many ways, people forget that talking with them about reasons or what they think a conversation may men to them is also key with my son !! looking back i can see several traits in me and still see some at 61. back then my parents showed me how to overcome many problems and accept the ones i couldn’t solve at that time. the doctors didn’t have a clue about autism. they have come a long way. my son is 5 and can hear an album on cd once and know what number each song is, he’ll say “mom i want to listen to aftermath it’s number 11, and he only listened 1 time to that cd. i was so impressed i went through each number and he knew them all. he can also mimic people’s expressions perfect, if he gets through his speech delay and shyness he would make a great stand up comedian. my son is five and remembers when he fell in the snow with his father at age 1 step by step. his memory amazes me! my son is now 22, i have been fighting to get him tested and diagnosed since he was 3 yrs old. i got told by every counselor, he is just too smart to have autism/asberger’s. he saw a few psychologists and i just kept getting from them, he is too smart! he would have breakdowns, and he and i would just sit him in my lap we rocked back and forth. this could be all the time, or just a few. he did not and still doesn’t like to talk except his with friend’s (he has about 5 friends). if he was given a diagnosis at 3 yrs old, we would have known what we could do in school to help him. he has a lot of social anxiety and i never thought he wold have a job, is buying a car and got his license this year. but, he really wants to be diagnosed. i wish they would ask about the positives that make “someone you know” with autism special, instead of “your child with autism”. autism is a lifelong neurological disorder. you’re born and die with it. therefore, unless every autistic individual automatically passes away at age 18 (and we know this to be an absurd assumption), there are plenty of autistic adults out there, who should also be taken into account. here’s my two cents, as an autistic adult, because i have a passion for bringing hope to the parents and grandparents out there…. i was good at math at a time when common core was not a thing. then i struggled greatly at understanding algebra, because it was such an abstract concept. by the end of high school, however, i was doing great at calculus. my point is, your child may be better at math than you think, and it may depend on the way in which it is being taught. 😉 my 20 yr old son with aspergers is very empathetic and compassionate. of his own initiative, he volunteers at feed my starving children, volunteers at a nursing home and regularly donates blood, despite his fear of needles. he is devoted to making the world a better place. i am very proud of him. the creativity, honesty, and loyalty are especially true of my love. i would add that she has always excelled at conceptual thinking. she is gifted and horrible at rote memorization , but i have always been amazed at her grasp of concepts well beyond her age level. when i was young i sucked at math, but later in life i was teaching it in college. just because they may not seem to retain something now, it is being filed away for later use. remember the long term memory works in many different ways. as i tell my youngest son, we are the next phase in the evolution of mankind. the rest have to strive to catch up to us. extremely empathetic! when i tell someone that i’m autistic or have asperger’s   the neurologist didn’t differentiate between them   they’ll often come back with “oh! you think in pictures!” that’s not actually the case for me, but since i think in what might be called kinetic reasoning   muscle memory   i find it easier to just tell them it’s not actually quite how things work for me, and only get into detail if the discussion allows. i suspect that many of these common traits aren’t shared by the majority of those with high functioning autism or asperger’s syndrome, but that they are on the list because they are quite common in the population as a whole. and at age 72, i’ve grown up enough that oliver sacks’ “anthropologist on mars” may finally have learned enough to defend his phd thesis about the natives. please don’t pigeonhole any of us. there are as many different ways to think as there are people who think, neurotypical or not. i thought my son was awful at math, too. when he reached adulthood, i had him retested and it turned out he 2as solving equations so quickly without normal intermediate steps that he only appeared to.e struggling. we wasted a lot of years. he just finished his accounting degree. he is a wiz. i have two wonderful autistic grown sons, so i know all of the joys and burdens and price tags faced by the parents or parent. grandma i expect is right that it would be a great benefit to her grandson. here’s my thought grandma, instead of pushing your daughter to find room in her budget, find some room in your budget, and help both of them. it was very lovely to hear about all the wonderful way our autistic children can be amazing (even if it is, obviously, quite individual at the same time). not enough of that. my daughter, too   terrible at math, just awful at it. but amazing with music. i’ll be honest though, part of me cringed a little at the person first language. i know everyone has their own views on this, but i just thought i’d share an opposing viewpoint on the idea of saying our ‘children with autism’ vs. our ‘autistic children.’ http://autisticadvocacy.org/home/about asan/identity first language/ thanks for the feedback   we actually wrote something recently about this   take a look: https://www.angelsense.com/blog/a child with autism or an autistic child and what would you say about a person who exhibits every one of these traits but isn’t diagnosed as autistic? i have to agree with most of them! my 18 year old does not sit down and “do math”…he hates it! but he helps out in the school store and is able to figure out what the change should be before he rings the item up. folks at the school call it a “sliver skill”. music! he loves the rhythm playing the drums, trumpet and piano. so proud of my child… my son ( age 25) can tell you the day of the week for any date you give him & go back 10 years, & he remembers everything. this is my son and husband to a t!! my husband is a cpa. my son is on the high end of the spectrum. he was always great at putting together puzzles. he would just start putting pieces together before doing the edge. overall, he thinks outside the box when problem solving. my son is 27 & had gone years undiagnosed with high functioning autism. was told early on he had adhd with multiple learning disabilities. it wasn’t until he aged out of school & i searched to find someone to diagnose him. he lost many years of help because of this. my son (12yo) is awful at math and has trouble staying focused but definitely has all of the other traits described in article. he is diagnosed with autism, severe adhd, tourette’s. my daughter has asperger, she is also deaf, she also has dyscalculia and is awful at maths, but can remember long numbers, great at patterns etc. she has excellent visual memory, she can just look at a book case or a pile of dvd etc and she knows what is there. great when you can’t remember whether you’ve got a particular book or dvd! she is also fantastic with words, she love words and language, writes the most powerful poems. i can see why so many children who actually have fetal alcohol syndrome disorders are commonly mis diagnosed with autism. problem is that the interventions are not the same. my son has all of them my mom showed this to me, it’s true! i can see things that normal people can’t see the little things. like in a picture, looking at an open field, a house i know my job i’m very loyal to it never miss a day . i notice things my boss doesn’t see cathy calloway, he may not be awful at math but going at it in an unconventional way that is not being recognized as successful. my son was great at math until they brought the common core into the school! now he struggles. but is outstanding in all the above and more. i find that they become experts at something that the find interesting or love. with us it’s halloween! he can put together animatronics, fix them also. he can tell you the real and stage name of any actor in almost any horror/sci fi movie. makes trivia night a breeze! this was so nice to read. my almost 7 yr old has autism and this just made me feel so much better because he is good at math, great and fast at problem solving, loves to paint and is artistic and creative, he does well with repetition. etc.and fell into the categories described. thank you for putting this together. it is appreciated. this is to the woman about the worrying about the child wandering from apartment, i had my son wander out on porch one time, this was way previous to becoming aware of he being autistic where the possibility of wandering is higher than the average child. i went out and bought a latch and hook type of door lock a chain for back door and had them put at top of doors, bought window locks too. a good idea would be to print out some helpful ideas regarding home safety with special needs children for your daughter and go over them with her. i learned you can almost never be too safe with autistic children… you never know when they may get curious enough to wander, etc… our daughter has dyscalculia along with her autism, adhd, ocd, and other issues. most of this article fits her except for the math part. my son has extreme strength……he is 29 yrs old, weighs 195 and has deadlifted 500 in powerlifting competition at state competition. yep   it’s me pretty much. my math and problem solving skills are beyond exceptional. i have no idea how i do it, but i always have a clear line of sight to the path to follow to solve problems. i remember by 1st year calculus exam. it was a 3.5 hour exam. i was done in 45 minutes, and scored 100%. i sat at my desk for another 15 minutes and decided i wasn’t going to wait any longer… same thing with modern symbolic logic. my professor was blown away at what i was able to do. he suggested i should change majors. we have a 9 year old granddaughter she is very smart speaks 3 languages, and she sings some times in french it’s wild…. she laughs, will tell you a joke she heard also she also loves to laugh. and her sister said laugh fake an she did it, oh she’s a handful nodoubt but she also makes us very proud!!!! most of the characteristics of asperger’s syndrome, and likely classic autism as well, revolve around the expectations of the giving and receiving of honesty. naivete, bluntness, literal thinking, rigid thinking, gullibility, and others i can’t remember at the moment. betrayal is devastating. confrontation is terrifying. just wondering if you posters had a speech delay and when you started speaking. repetitive tasks hmmm. i worked with a woman who had severe autism. non verbal often aggressive. we got her a job at a pizza place. just a couple hours a day 5 days a week. she folded take out pizza boxes & put flyers on the boxes. she was amazing to watch in action. her hands flew. i used to try to keep up with her for fun. no contest she beat me hands down. at 7 years old my daughter had a sight word vocabulary of more than 1000. she had a hard time reading phonetically but would replace words she couldn’t comprehend with an interchangeable word. sounds like it would be helpful. i am mimi of a 12 year old grand daughter who has aspergers syndrome. i am 72 and trying to be her learning coach for k12 online school. she has been on medd for years & adding more. both parents work and i have had her since birth. i have scheduled her to see a psycologists to get an iep & hopefully then put her in a school. i am not up to having her & trying to be teacher too. 2 of my sons have exceptional hearing and their senses are enhanced. my youngest has to wear noise canceling headphones because he hears everything. we live on the first floor apartment and he hears the 2nd and 3rd floor conversations and everything else…they are both very detail oriented. my 11 year old son has a breakdown everyday in math but he can do the work. he’s always been good at math but thinks he isn’t. don’t know if it’s the common core curriculum or the teacher. something about the class gives him excessive anxiety and i don’t know how to help him. i email the guidance counselor today and it told her, we needed to come up with a solution to this problem. i hate to think he is melting down everyday when he is capable of the the work i’m very suspicious of the common core. i have two boys that are also autistic. they are both so special. one has this kind heart, emotional driven, very detailed. he tells me if im coloring a picture wrong. my other son sings in french and sings pretty much all the time. he studies dvds very intensely. he loves his tablet. he memorizes everything. to me i believe each child is born with a gift. its a matter of finding their strength and seizing it. my one son will be strong in art and the other music. austic kids take everything to heart. they see the world as it is but both of my kids have the softest hearts. i know by teaching snd showing them they will do great things. speaking as a child of 13 with high functioning autism i can most definitely say that these facts are not only true but not dealt with by teachers,parents or students knowing the symptoms is a start but maybe actually saying how to cope/deal with them and adapt teaching,parenting and cohabitation to these abilities as i struggle with these things ps i am not directly saying these exact symptoms on the page but the whole spectrum. hi kelly, did you try a different angelsense device or cancel the service? sometimes it’s just a matter of having the wrong sim card for the area where you live. if you want to try a different device/sim, you can always order again (we are currently having a big sale) and try it for 30 days. if you have questions, please use our live chat on our website during office hours. my son honor is a blessing to me!! he always thrives to make mom happy and always tells me he will take care of me, as i have him. he amazes me daily with all the special abilities he has. his most prominent action is immitating sounds. he loves star wars and can immitate the sounds of the swords, sword fights, pod racers and any shop on that movie. he can immitate almost any soynd, it amazes me. maybe he would make a great sound effects person as an adult. who really knows, as parents of awesome kids like these the sky isn’t the limit when they are concerned!! love my boys and look forward to what all of our children are going to bring to the future!! my son is now 12 and just been diagnosed finally. i’ve known his whole life though that he thinks differently and in patterns. i was told early on that he couldn’t read well and was well below his grade level because he couldn’t read off 5 columns of words within a certain time frame, yet i was sitting with him at night with him reading me chapter books. i finally had the teacher put the words in paragraph form and he wound up 2 grade leves above. it was the columns. he explained all he saw was letters and not whole words, but put into paragraph form the letters formed words. also he struggled in basic math until a teacher of his figured out he could use a clock face to add and subtract. he would use the patterns to get answers such as the specific line pattern formed by going from 2 to 7 to 10 to 5 represented 24. i was blown away by that. afterwards we used dominoes too to help him in math. now he visualizes problems in his head and solves them without “showing his work”. kudos to his math teacher this year…she’s very patient and forgiving about him not showing his work every time 🙂 i have audio processing disorder whick is linked to asbergers and have a very hard time with eye contact am misunderstood almost every other day cause of it i have a hard time inviting myself into large group conversations takes longer to process audio info but still here it but get words mizes up like free might sou d like three ifnheard to fast and tone makes a huge difference also my nephew is 6 and he has this habit of watching movies or shows on repeat until he learns every word and action done and said by the actors or animations. then he acts them all out in sync with the movie. it’s quite incredible how he is able to do that. he knows countless lines for a bunch of movies and shows. he never forgets them, even if he hasn’t heard or said them in months. he’s also very creative and energetic. he’ll spend hours jumping around the house pretending to be spider man, samurai or one of the star wars characters. he truly is a joy! i don’t see autism as problem or a disease. it’s not a “condition” that needs a cure. autistic individuals simply need to be understood and accepted. they are different in the form that they think and see the world differently. to be honest, i am convinced that autistic individuals will be the ones to make the greatest changes the world will ever see. i am an autistic adult. my 9 yo son, is just like me. i am almost incapable of telling a lie, to the point that no one likes me much. i cannot be devious, and i don’t try to get back at others who do me wrong. i have a difficult time looking straight at people. i use “big” words regular people have to lookup in dictionary. my son is same way. he loves physics, space planets and ww1 and 2. extremely good long term memory. thanks!!! my child is too smart for her own good. that being said; she excels in everything verbally. not so much the written aspect. she can look at a math problem and solve it without working it out on paper. if she breaks it down into a process it gets confusing for her. it’s like not knowing why blue is your favorite color, but it is. my son has an unreal conception of knowing how to say things to people when they are in real stress…i cant believe the words are actually coming out of his mouth….other than that, he repeats himself everyday with stories from school, never leaving out a detail. i let him go on, and make believe he is telling me the story for the first time…he is now 42. i hope they really expand things for the kids coming up because every therapist could not chip away at his changing ways…..i never understood it until five years ago…. my son is a high functioning autistic he was always under estimated at school, and is all a’s, except for math (he does have some damage to his math center), he can’t get a high school diploma only because he didn’t pass the math mcas. there isn’t any college that will talk to him because the school gave him a certificate of attainment instead of a diploma. what a terrible waste of a good mind! he is so awesome with history that he wanted to be a history teacher for children with the same disability, how can they just crush his dreams. sounds like my son except he is awful at math my daughter has excelled in her finance and accounting major in college and has been nominated by her professors to serve as a student intern in china’s financial markets because, “she is fearless and not easily intimidated by her competition even though she is younger than her male counterparts.” so her lack of ability to read the social cues has helped her to excel in a traditionally male dominated field. my grandson only 6, seems to be very good with numbers, but he also read, knows colors, shapes, seems to sound out the words. memory is remarkable. he is also very sweet, and seems to have very good balance. he is physically very strong. my son fits this to a t. when he was diagnosed 11 years ago, doctors told me he’d probably never walk, never talk, and never go to school. now he’s 13 and taking college courses in math and science and will talk your ear off if you let him. my mother talked to him today about the election and he did just that. thank you for this. i wish more people would see that my son is not a “weirdo” and is actually gifted in many ways. he’s not the typical teen, and he’s special because of it. my son never liked math and it wasn’t good at it but the rest of the list is right on. my son remembers every car we had and everything about it. my son is 36 and he loves taking things apart. he takes motors and things apart to sell for scrap. he will go out as soon as it’s light till dark. he loves it. my husband has brought so many wonderful gifts to our relationship. his intelligence and humulity is what first attracted me to him. now i’m blessed with his dedication to our children and his daily integrity to do things right. as i read this article, i just kept checking off the things that my autistic son was good at   memory (just amazing), visual (he could tell you when a house, not in close neighborhood, had been painted even), math (yep, could do amazing things in his head), repetitive skills, detail oriented (he was always the first to notice when i got my hair cut), non judgmental and yes he was also savant when it came to mapping skills. we had friends that would call and ask james how to get somewhere. james would say how he hated being autistic, but we would remind him of the amazing things he could do that the rest of the family couldn’t. i miss him dearly since he passed away six years ago. never underestimate what anyone can do! thank you for sharing kathleen. my grandson, age 25 now, was diagnosed w/asperger’s syndrome when he was a senior in high school (why it wasn’t noticed before that, i don’t know) but almost all of the above 10 traits have since been noticed. it is a social problem in that he doesn’t just go up to someone and start talking, he has only a couple of friends, he seems to relate to older people rather than those of his own age group. he went on to college and managed to be on the president’s list …got his bs degree. oh, he also made straight a’s throughout grade and high schools and he has a memory like an elephant….every tiny detail it seems. he has a driver’s license…but says he doesn’t like to drive….the people are crazy he says. he is employed part time al the while looking for a permanent job. because of his lack of being an extrovert socially, he is having a very difficult time with interviews. if only people were aware of the attributes of this syndrome they would have the perfect employee…always on time, never lollygagging, finishes the job to perfection (due to ocd) never crosses the line and does what he’s told. so sad…….. hi everybody in my daughter i see she s vry clever very simple. she s non verbal . but can copy and remembers each and every of her rhymes tones. her favourite cartoons names and character names even though she cant say the word. but she give me response when i ask her by name wht would she like to watch . thanks for sharing momina! my daughter is incredibly musically gifted. she is synisthetic and can pick up any instrument and learn to play it. she’s a little ahead of other kids at math, even though she absolutely hates it, and she’s incredible at writing and grammar. she sometimes has a very bad temper, but otherwise i know she’ll grow up to do incredible things. my brother is four years old and he has autism. it is very hard to keep up with him. i love him so much ❤️🤓 as an autistic myself, i agree with these, except for a few. i wonder if autism is associated with an enlarged hippocampus. because i’ve had that since i was a baby, my right hippocampus has always been bigger. that is associated with my epilepsy, but i wonder, since it is a key part of memory, if it also is part of autism. extreme long term memory   check, i definitely have this trait. i also have very good short term memory as well. auditory and visual skills   check, if somebody blindfolded me and played a note, i could tell the note letter, octave, and with the exception of violin vs viola, the instrument as well. creativity   check, i do this all the time. i compose my own music, a very creative skill. math skills   check, i was able to take the derivative of a function in 9th grade. repetition   check, i’m good at doing something repetitive detail oriented   check, i do have an eye for detail, even my speech tends to be detailed when i do speak. non deceptive   check, i am so honest in fact that i get an internal anger even from a white lie non judgemental   check, i take things literally, sometimes too literally reliability and loyalty   i haven’t really been in a situation that requires this so i can’t really say enhanced motion perception   in games, absolutely. in real life, slow reaction time, so no. my sister has autism.she has a very good long term memory and is very creative.she likes to listen to audio books.she is very loyal and truthful.she is just very misunderstood. my granddaughter is autistic. she speaks, but does not always answer when call. she likes to hide or wander off. i have been after her parents, who are separated, to get a tracker for her; however they do not feel it is necessary. they are both in the low income category. nice i never knew i had such things. it kinda makes me feel better now. į recently got diagnosed with autism and i had an existencial crisis of my own. but its good to remember that there are good things too. curently i am looking for some help to help me learn about my self more so i could have a good quality life. if you guys know anything in london that could help i would be very great full. try angelsense risk free free device your session has changed. please close this tab.

we all periodically face the haunting question: “am i really living the way i want to live?” for executives, this question often arises at the apex of their careers when aging parents or milestone birthdays remind them of their mortality. at these times, many people experience a creeping sensation that something is wrong. exploring this question is usually painful and messy. but it’s essential for renewing your energy, creativity, and commitment and your ability to inspire others. how to begin? recognize signals that it’s time to take stock. then, make minor adjustments or larger life changes that take you in new directions. the idea in practice these feelings may signal it’s time to take stock: watch for quiet signals especially. their impact is so incremental, you may miss them. to interpret vital signals and revive your energy for work, use one or more of these approaches: example: bfgoodrich president john lauer decided he’d had enough of corporate leadership and left to help refugees. but during a seminar, he realized he loved leading under certain circumstances. reenergized, he became ceo at raw materials giant oglebay norton, proving so effective the firm was featured in several business publications. example: when unilever asked niall fitzgerald to take a leadership position in south africa, he accepted but felt conflicted about working in an apartheid ruled country. to live his values, he changed what he could, by building non racially segregated bathrooms in a new plant. as a result, the government quietly changed the law. last september, as millions of people around the globe stared in disbelief at television screens, watching the world trade center towers crumble to the ground, many of us realized that accompanying the shock and sorrow was another sensation the impulse to take stock. the fragile nature of human life, exposed with such unbearable clarity, compelled people to ask a haunting question: “am i really living the way i want to live?”

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the great career laura loves what she does. to many people, myself included (i’ve known her for the past five years), she represents the platonic ideal of a great career. laura is a database whiz. companies hire her to wrangle their most gnarly data into streamlined structures. if you’re lucky enough to engage laura, she’ll assemble a handpicked team of programmers and descend on your office for up to six months. she’ll then take your generous check back to her charming jamaica plain bungalow and set about finding novel ways to spend it. she allows months to pass between projects   the paydays being ample enough to buy her as much downtime as she wants. she has used this time, among other pursuits, to earn a pilots license, learn to scuba dive, and travel through asia. in several earlier posts, i argued that mastering a rare and valuable skill is the key to generating a remarkable life   much more important than following your “passions” or matching your career (or academic major) to your personality. it occurred to me, however, that to continue this discussion, we need to better understand our goal; that is, we need to figure out what exactly makes a remarkable life remarkable. in this post, i’m going to tackle this question, using laura as our running example of someone who has achieved the end result we have in mind… the introspection principle if you want to quickly assess how americans think about the search for the “right” job, spend a few minutes browsing the career guide bestseller list at amazon.com. for example, when i last checked… sense a pattern? these bestsellers are founded on the belief that matching your work to personality traits and interests is the key to finding a job you love. i call this the introspection principle because it elevates the act of self reflection to be the important for making big life decisions. this principle extends beyond career issues. it’s also at the core of popular advice for new college students. for example: the introspection principle is so ingrained that we forget to think of it as a hypothesis that needs to be tested. if you’ll indulge my heretical side, however, i think it’s worth taking this idea out for a spin. my question is simple: when we study people like laura who love what they do, is an introspection driven match between their work and their personality the explanation for their happiness? and if it’s not, what is? to answer this question, we can turn to 30 years of cutting edge scientific research… the surprising science of human motivation as dan pink recounts in the introduction to drive, his new book about workplace motivation, our understanding of what compels people to action was upended in the late 1940s. before this point, conventional wisdom said that we’re motivated by rewards (think b.f. skinner and his rats). the more we are rewarded, the more fired up we get about our work. then harry harlow, a professor at the university of wisconsin, began giving puzzles to the rhesus monkeys in his primate laboratory. he noticed a curious effect: when he rewarded the monkeys for solving the puzzle, they became slower at the task. twenty years later, edward deci, then a graduate student at carnegie mellon, tested this effect in humans, and found a similar result: the presence of cash made them worse at solving creative puzzles. this kicked off three decades of intense research into the sources of human motivation. eventually, deci, working with his longtime collaborator richard ryan, corralled the diversity of (sometimes contradictory) research on the topic into a single, over arching model called self determination theory (sdt). this model has been extensively validated and summarizes, to the best of our current understanding, what can make someone love what they do. (see this 2000 paper by ryan and deci, from the journal psychological inquiry, for a good overview). at a high level, sdt makes a simple claim: to be happy, your work must fulfill three universal psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. in more detail… sdt explains why laura’s career resonates with us. she clearly has autonomy (she handpicks projects and runs them on her own schedule) and competence (she’s highly regarded and compensated for her expert ability). she also has relatedness, both from her close knit teams and her ability to build a schedule that dedicates extended amounts of time to friends and family. falsifying the introspection principle sdt answers our original question: is the introspection principle correct? they key feature of the three sdt need are their universality   they span both differing career fields and cultures. put another way: three decades of research has shown that the traits that make us happy with our work have little to do with our personality or so called “passions.” similar conclusions apply to related decisions, such as choosing your college major. forget trying to divine some perfect match, and instead choose a major for your own reasons   not pressure from your parents or a misguided view on what’s “practical”   and then strive to become excellent at it. as i argued before, your love of the subject will grow with your sense of autonomy and competence. for those who sweat this style of decision, this research should provide relief. there’s no reason to lose sleep over whether you’re “passionate” about your major, or if your job is what you really want to be doing with your life. working right trumps finding the right work. it’s to this new goal, “working right,” that we turn our attention next… working right research reveals that autonomy, competence, and relatedness are the key to loving what you do. so how do you get them? there are different answers to this question, but the strategy that i keep emphasizing on study hacks has two clear steps: the world doesn’t owe you happiness. your boss has no reason to let you choose your own projects, or spend one week out of every four writing a novel at your beach house. these rewards are valuable. to earn them, you must accumulate your own career capital by mastering a skill that’s equally rare and valuable. it’s important, however, that you cash in this capital, once accumulated, for the right rewards. the word “right,” in this context, is defined by the traits of sdt. in other words, once you have something valuable to offer, use it to gain as much autonomy, competence, and relatedness as you can possibly cram into your life. this explains, for example, why there are so many ceos in the world who are excellent at what they do, but also stressed, anxious, and unhappy. they generated career capital by becoming excellent at management, but instead of cashing it in to satisfy the needs that we know would make them happy, they instead bartered for increased prestige and income. the strict demands of the job sap their felling of autonomy, while their sense of relatedness dissipates with the late night work binges. when we return to laura, we see that she’s a perfect example of the study hacks system in action. in the 1990s, she started working for a major technology company. she noticed that the giant databases at the core of the company’s business were increasingly crucial to its success. she focused on mastering these systems. as the technology boom continued, her skill became increasingly rare and valuable. instead of cashing in the capital this generated to become an overworked vp, she instead exchanged it for her freelance venture   an approach designed to maximize the autonomy, competence, and relatedness in her life. back to the grandmasters now that we’ve established how a rare and valuable skill can be used to generate a remarkable life, we can return, in the next articles in this series, to the topic promised at the end of my recent post on deliberate practice: the details of building this mastery. stay tuned… (photo by dio5) cal, great post and look forward to further insight. dan pink is great and so his talk at the ted conference about the “science of motivation.” thanks, ryan this is one of your best posts. i just find the application of deliberate practice so difficult outside of very focused fields (like math, computer science, sports). it seems like something that is hard to do in moderation: for example, if you are looking for a job, you have to practice different aspects of interviewing repeatedly, whatever skill is required repeatedly, etc. brilliant post, cal. would be interesting to hear your take on how these “rare and valuable” skills will be affected by certain macroeconomic factors such as the rise of china/india, outsourcing, etc. how durable is a skill like database management when considering india’s well educated, inexpensive, hungry workforce? i suppose that the hedge against all of these is, as you say, to be so good that they can’t ignore you, but, these days, a “monopoly” on a certain skill definitely doesn’t leave one with immunity; the marketplace moves too fast, and saturation or redundancy soon make themselves present. cal, great post. i’d argue that the best way to build competence is to do something that interests you. it’s not a necessary component of sdt, but it helps to love what you’re trying to become competent at. laura’s lifestyle reminds me of a fantasy future i used to imagine to make myself feel better. on the way to my early morning construction job i would imagine a lifestyle that was opposite of all the things that i didn’t like about my lifestyle. i would work six hours a day for a computer company. when i would arrive at work i’d spend the bulk of my time solving problems that my colleges were stuck on. i would sleep 9 hours a night and drive a porsche 911. i owned a small, but nice, house with my own little work out room. i’d have a pool table and a few close friends and a growing relationship with a girlfriend. just thinking about this would cheer me up, even if i had no real plan on getting there. i like where i’m going now (some six years later) but maybe i should have taken that fantasy more seriously to make it happen, who knows. great post! though feeling of connectedness is important, the innate “passion” for the profession is not. it’s funny how every career counselors and advice books preach the opposite. could you please elaborate on finding a “rare skill?” what makes a skill rare and valuable? for example, how would you stand out as a rare and valuable person in a popular field such as computer graphics? is specializing in a narrow topic the answer? but what happens to the importance of being a “well rounded” person? yes, pirsig argues in ‘zen and the art of motorcyle maintenance’ that when one becomes fixated on external rewards, such as grades, then natural inquisitiveness shuts down. what matters most is the act of discovery, the sheer joy that you experience when you study, or do something that stimulates you: the more you look at and explore something the more you see. indeed, it’s something you touched on in your earlier posts about making yourself so good that they can’t ignore you   when you truly focus on something with a desire to discover, rather than to gain some external award, then you find yourself on the path to mastery. you didn’t mention that the first book on the amazon career list also requires significant chunks of introspection? (that parachute color isn’t going to figure itself out, after all.) like laura, i also love my job. it ranks high on the competence and relatedness scales and mid high on the autonomy scale. but for me it’s also that i deliberately picked a lifestyle that would generate energy/happiness which i could then give back into my job which means i did some significant introspection. for example: i like room in my life for contemplation and i like to be outside, so i deliberately looked for apartments about 2 miles away from my office so that i could walk back and forth to work. and i made that choice by thinking “when in my life have i been the happiest?” and all the times i was the happiest about what i was doing was when i was able to spend significant time every day outdoors, walking and thinking. but since no one’s going to pay me to walk around (that’s neither rare nor valuable) i found another way to work it in to my life, and being able to walk every day makes me even happier to be able to do my job. just throwing that in as a small vote for a bit of introspection when considering how to structure a career. 🙂 the introspection principle feels very american, western philosophy. the “working right” principle seems very asian. just my personal observation. i think the three psychological needs are missing a couple points. gladwell describes meaningful work as having autonomy, complexity, and a direct correlation between effort and reward. in addition to the needs claimed by sdt, i think complexity and a direct correlation between effort and reward are necessary for one to be happy in his/her work for any sustained period of time. the focus on introspection is, i think, closely tied to the third factor of relatedness. i guess this is one of the focuses of the parachute book. for me, a field you are interested in is important because you are more likely to like the people you work with if you share values and interests with them   which is a good reason for having values and interests drive part of your career decisions. i feel this post caters more to technical majors/people. you can’t necessarily be competent in something that’s not a skill. how can you achieve competence when you’re a, say, latin major? cal, i think that you are underestimating the importance about liking a particular subject. for instance, here is a tidbit from paul graham’s essay: “a friend of mine who is a quite successful doctor complains constantly about her job. when people applying to medical school ask her for advice, she wants to shake them and yell “don’t do it!” (but she never does.) how did she get into this fix? in high school she already wanted to be a doctor. and she is so ambitious and determined that she overcame every obstacle along the way including, unfortunately, not liking it. now she has a life chosen for her by a high school kid.” we can say that paul graham’s friend self determined her course in life but she still made a mistake. great new topic cal! in response to nazim: master a skill that is valuable. ie: what will people pay you money for? writing learn latin study guides? translate ancient fragile relics? consult for a movie where a character speaks ancient latin? teaching children about latin and english connections? you tell us where your brainstorming leads. great post, cal. we should all make time for something we are passionate about even if it starts off as just a few hours at weekends. who are we to hold back from the world what we’re so good at? cal, thanks for this insightful post. you have to look deep within your own self and find out what works for you and what does not work for you. there is an element of truth to finding your passion. i know of one sportsperson who has become a multi millionaire at very young age, but failed at everything else. he was a mediocre student and failed as a businessman. the only thing he was world class at was sports and he achieved excellent in it. that was his love and he pursued it with undiminished zeal. this is true for many other people too. also, laura should consider herself lucky that she managed to find a financially valuable skill that she could use as a freelancer/consultant instead of joining the ranks of management. for every laura out there, there are many others who are struggling in this economy. the job market is volatile and dynamic: it keeps on changing. the skills that are valued today may not be valued tomorrow. even your job can be outsourced in a jiffy. you may be a genius at what you do, wealthy and successful and suddenly you can receive a pink slip. this has happened to millions of people, who’ve had to upgrade their skills. some have even changed professions. we now know of many doctors pursuing mba degrees and people with mba degrees have decided to be self employed by starting home businesses. even so, i think your ideas are useful, and i appreciate your ideas, but let us take it with a pinch of salt. the picture is more complex than you imagine it to be. great post, cal. i wonder if you would like to refine the definitions or expand the field. if we are talking about remarkable lives, what do we mean? clearly, as your examples show, people who make the sacrifices necessary to achieve rare and valuable skills can shape remarkable lives. the question is whether every remarkable life must also feature a skill that is rare and valuable. what if “skill that is rare and valuable” is not a necessary condition of “remarkable life”? wow! thanks for your insights. i have turned really annoyed with how the term “passion” is thrown around in college major and career decisions (as you have said, for most people these so called passions are only feeble and unattended interests), and after perusing your other post, i’m beginning to alter my own planning… a mastery centric view of passion says that aligning your life with passions is a good thing, but almost any superficial interest can be transformed into a passion with hard work, so there’s no reason to sweat choices such as an academic major or you first post college career. now i’m thinking of really committing to majoring in history and cogsci and going to law school. once i gain expertise in say, intellectual property, i’ll be able to cash in on sdt and replicate laura’s lifestyle. hmmm. thanks for the food for thought. @alex: i’m an intellectual property attorney. i’d strongly recommend doing some research before diving into law school. if you’re hoping to replicate laura’s lifestyle, becoming an attorney is not a good option. most lawyers and law firms haven’t even figured out that 40 hours/week isn’t a part time schedule. hey cal, if you want to see an example of someone living a truly remarkable life, check out the bio of rory stewart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rory_stewart the man is a modern day lawrence of arabia. he was soldier briefly, then he became a diplomat, then he walked across south asia, then founded an ngo in afghanistan. he was also a governor of an iraqi province while under u.s. occupation. he became a professor at harvard. most recently he returned to the u.k. to run for parliament. he’s accomplished all this while still in his twenties. he’s done so much deliberate practice, that the obama administration asks him for advice on afghan policy. cal, raises *do* matter https://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/01/raises do matter my problem with this is you give one example and conveniently leave out whether she was interested in technology and/or databases and whether that fits her personality and skills. i have heard just as many stories of people happy with their jobs who do follow their “passions”, interests and purpose (in terms of what they want to do in life and such). i don’t argue that those (autonomy, competence and relatedness) are important qualities in having a career you love but rather there are so many jobs that those qualities including a rare skill that by nature introspection is required to narrow it down unless you want to leave it completely up to chance. you say choose your major for your own reasons but what reasons are they if not related to who you are? i don’t think people should spend an eternity introspecting about some perfect passion but anybody can do a basic look at themselves and see what they are good at/not good at and where their interests lie (in how they spend their time). then just pick a career path that works with one of them and follow the advice above and they’re set. being a regular reader, i’ve noticed that over the past few months you have been regulating the comments less??? you’re barely on here anymore 🙁 @jack   i used to buy into the argument that competition, particularly from india and china, would drive salaries down significantly for it. then i moved to china and realized that good it people are still well compensated (not nearly as well as they are in the us but by local standards quite well) and true experts, like laura, will always be well compensated when there is work. the trick is to maintain your expertise and not sweat the temporary dry periods. does laura love what she does for work, or loves the time off she gets? i find that it’s very hard to find your passion and in turn make a career. much easier to discover how you want to live your life and find the job that suits your needs meg, i appreciate your comment   if you see this, would you be kind enough to share with me some of your knowledge and experience in intellectual property? my e mail is alexleszczynska at gmail dot com. thank you. hey cal, i just wanted to say thank you for this post. an eye opener for me as i’d never heard of self determination theory before. it explains a lot that’s going on in my life right now, though. hi cal, two things i wanted to follow up on this post about: first, you didn’t mention whether laura enjoys managing databases. it appears to me that she doesn’t spend a lot of time doing it, and my idea of doing something you love is, you would want to spend all day doing it, not just enough time to earn you enough money to travel the world. because in that case, what you really love and pursue is traveling the world, not your work. put differently, i think the definition of loving what you do is when it becomes the end, not just the means. on a related note, i think other than the 3 basic psychological needs of sdt (or maybe as part of them   need to read my psyc papers more carefully :d), there’s also this desire to use your lifetime to effect some change in the world; in other words, to have a meaningful life. how is that possible if a person doesn’t devote her time to one cause, and is always breezing off to exotic lands as soon as she can afford it? lastly, i, like you, am heading off to an academic career. but unlike you, who studies something highly practical and desired, i’m in social psychology, which may or may not be practical and useful depending on exactly what you study. how do i wrangle a desirable skill out of it? i’d guess lots of publications and presentations would be an option, but there has been a trend recently of people who published a lot and have teaching awards in grad school and still end up adjuncting year after year, never getting a tenure position (see here). it’s my worst nightmare. how do you become highly desirable in a market like that? interestingly, i’m going to the spsp conference this week and may meet the creators of sdt in person *shudder*. if you have questions you want to ask them, you can relay them through me, though no guarantees 🙂 is laura’s motivation to work intrinsic or extrinsic? you never cease to amaze me! hey cal  remarkable article! and quite timely. i’m helping my sister think through her next career move. she has amassed a solid skill set (not jedi master level, yet) and has a good network of friends/colleagues. but she feels lacking in her current role. using sdt, i think her answer lies in autonomy. i also like the parallels of sdt with tim ferriss’s lifestyle design philosophy. he advocates one’s time/freedom as her most valuable, non renewable resource. feels like if you nail the 3 dimensions of sdt you’ll have designed one hell of an awesome lifestyle! cheers! matt great posting! i enjoyed reading your insights about creating your own life. i will be checking back for part 2! great insights here, and i’m looking forward to you developing this theme in future posts. a question you: i bet a lot of your readers already have skills that are rare and valuable, but don’t recognize them as such…the “jack of all trades, master of none” syndrome that afflicts liberal arts students, mbas, and others with broad rather than deep knowledge. tim ferriss seems to be speaking to such people when he discusses the “credibility snowball” in the four hour workweek, saying that “expertise” is subjective in most fields and that you only have to be marginally smarter than your target customers to convince them to pay for what you know. but tim’s advice is aimed primarily at entrepreneurs, and he seems more interested in helping people pull the wool over people’s eyes to make a quick buck in any case. any thoughts on how those of us who have studied a “little about a lot” can make an honest living by packaging/combining the different pieces of our education into skill sets that people will find both rare and valuable? where the hell were you when i needed you? i never figured anything out in college or graduate school. as it turned out college ruined my life. i used to think i had potential, and college was where i found out definitively that i was in actuality slow. my classes overwhelmed me. i went to tutors, i spent hours studying, tried different methods the whole deal. nothing got the material sunk into my fool head. i even tried understanding the concepts as you suggest here to no avail (of course this was way before you were even in college, this was years ago now). even changing my major from premed to social science didn’t help. my understanding was next to nil. i did well enough to graduate and get into the next level of school, where i really fell down. i got nothing out of college and grad school. i had no expertise and i retained nothing. ever since then my life has been a string of failures, my employability limited to short term work, my confidence practically extinguished and my capacity for learning set back further in the past 12 years than in the previous 17. even some of the techniques you mention here are a bit over my head. how i could have used this site (though with more concrete examples) a decade ago. how my life would have been improved by it. i hope you eventually write that book about living an extraordinary life beyond school. i would love to read it. be sure to include a chapter for adults who have to overcome a lifetime of not having the benefit of such insights. @linh, if i were you i would focus in one area and get really, really good at it. it doesn’t matter if it’s wide and semi popular like looking at political parties from a social psychology perspective, narrow but interdisciplinary like applying social psychology to language learning (if it is, please contact me!) or a very narrow bit of the discipline itself, if you get a reputation as the go to person for something unique then you will do well. if you just publish papers and make presentations on various topics, adding a little insight to a lot of areas, then you aren’t likely to create the kind of valuable, desirable skill that cal talks about here. dan pink is great and so his talk at the ted conference about the “science of motivation.” i agree it’s a great talk. dan knows how to make a point. i just find the application of deliberate practice so difficult outside of very focused fields my hypothesis is that dp in non traditional fields isn’t necessarily difficult to do, it’s just not obvious to identify. i’m working now to clarify my understanding of unconventional dp, and hope to be posting on it sometime soon. would be interesting to hear your take on how these “rare and valuable” skills will be affected by certain macroeconomic factors such as the rise of china/india, outsourcing, etc. how durable is a skill like database management when considering india’s well educated, inexpensive, hungry workforce? according to dan pink, globalism makes rare and valuable skills all the more crucial. as you note, however, you have to choose them well   involving cultural competence and creativity if possible   or just be so damned good that expense is no object   as in laura’s case. i’d argue that the best way to build competence is to do something that interests you. it’s not a necessary component of sdt, but it helps to love what you’re trying to become competent at. the research shows that intrinsic motivation is crucial to maintain dp (i.e., a feeling like the choice is entirely yours), and being interested in something can certainly give you this feeling of control. the idea, however, that most people have something that they “love” or are “passionate” about, is just not supported, and can lead people to perpetual unhappiness as each new endeavor does not generate the immediate joy they imagine a passion should yield could you please elaborate on finding a “rare skill?” what makes a skill rare and valuable? i’m in hot pursuit of this topic…stay tuned. (any insights or examples from people’s own experience would be appreciated) for me, a field you are interested in is important because you are more likely to like the people you work with if you share values and interests with them   which is a good reason for having values and interests drive part of your career decisions. true enough. though i’m interested in two ideas: (1) most people don’t have these a priori values and interests; and (2) such things often develop out of a career that you get good at. we can say that paul graham’s friend self determined her course in life but she still made a mistake. of read his essay. it assumes that we have innate likes that can lead us to jobs we’ll enjoy. sdt research, however, says that his doctor friend is unhappy because she doesn’t have enough autonomy, competence, or relatedness in her working life. if you understand the theory, even a doctor can build a valuable skill and cash it in for these traits. hey cal, if you want to see an example of someone living a truly remarkable life, check out the bio of rory stewar i read the places in between, brilliant book. we should all make time for something we are passionate about even if it starts off as just a few hours at weekends. this sort of misses the point. i’m downplaying the importance of so called passions, and turning your attention, instead, toward the universal traits we know make people happy. much easier to discover how you want to live your life and find the job that suits your needs i agree with this idea (see my post on lifestyle centric career planning), sdt theory, however, might supercede it to a large degree. that is, most people’s answers to the question of “what type of life do i want” will include, indirectly, lots of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. so if you’re focusing on maximizing those traits, you’re going to be pretty fulfilled. the only thing he was world class at was sports and he achieved excellent in it. that was his love and he pursued it with undiminished zeal there’s a chicken and an egg argument here: did his love grow with his ability, or did it pre exist his involvement in some innate natural state. the study of virtuosos, for example, (based on bloom’s massive survey), reveals that for most it wasn’t until many years had passed before the skill   be it violin, swimming, or mathematics   became an important part of their identity. i also like the parallels of sdt with tim ferriss’s lifestyle design philosophy. he advocates one’s time/freedom as her most valuable, non renewable resource. feels like if you nail the 3 dimensions of sdt you’ll have designed one hell of an awesome lifestyle! a lot of tim’s experience based insights on work life are a nice match to the research literature. there’s also this desire to use your lifetime to effect some change in the world; in other words, to have a meaningful life. it’s interesting, dan pink emphasizes this in drive, but ryan and deci don’t push it so hard in their research. i think it falls under the category of relatedness, but i find the differences in emphasis fascinating. is laura’s motivation to work intrinsic or extrinsic? this is a crucial question. sdt theory was developed to fix many of the misunderstandings and flaws of the more simplistic intrinsic vs/ extrinsic dichotomy that dominates popular imagination. what ryan and deci show, in essence, is that when people say “instrinsic motivation” is important, they’re really capturing the idea that the task supports autonomy. with this in mind, laura is quite intrinsically motivated   she does what she wants on her own terms. i hope you eventually write that book about living an extraordinary life beyond school. i would love to read it. be sure to include a chapter for adults who have to overcome a lifetime of not having the benefit of such insights. thank you for sharing your story. i hope to write that book too (indeed, there may even be rumblings toward this direction in the works…but you didn’t hear that from me.) hey cal, can you quickly give your argument for why money, as a motivating force, cannot bring happiness? is it possible that someone enjoys financial success so much that s/he is “happy”? can you quickly give your argument for why money, as a motivating force, cannot bring happiness? is it possible that someone enjoys financial success so much that s/he is “happy”? my understanding of the literature is that there’s nothing intrinsically good or bad about money. it’s autonomy, competence, and relatedness that matter. for many, large paychecks can be good feedback on your competence. the trap to avoid, however, is to sacrifice autonomy for this reward, because then you’ll just balance the good with a bad. this is possibly my favorite post on your site!!!! thank you so much! i have to agree with those that brought up the point as to whether laura was passionate/interested in the technology that she became an expert on. i think it’s really important to note that by discovering your passions, skills, interests & work values to see what you want to be an expert on. i mean, i can be an expert on, i don’t know, how to train babies to not cry, but if i hate working with babies, is that going to have me live a remarkable life? maybe when i’m not doing baby work, but that doesn’t sound so remarkable to me…. i disagree with your idea that it doesn’t matter so what you study, but how you study. the idea is if a person works hard at a subject , they’ll eventually master it and love it because they have mastered it. what about deep procrastination? yes, it is hard work to get any degree and some students confuse the pain of hard work with lacking passion for a subject. but more fundamentally, can you either find or create a job from your major that gives you that autonomy, competence, and relatedness that you talk about in self determination theory? i believe that various kinds of people need varying amounts of these things. for one person, connecting with people at home and talking to coworkers every once in a while is enough of a connection. this person doesn’t mind working hours alone over a paper or in a lab as part of a job. for others, this life would feel incredibly lonely. an example of this need for people is in what should i do with my life? a student went and got a ph.d. in marine biology, but then got out to his funded, isolated research project and didn’t like it. why? he missed people. he eventually became a dentist. another important factor: what kinds of thinking are you good at and do you enjoy? do you like putting together colors, textures, and images? or do you like juggling equations and code and making it all fit together (word press founder inc quote)? do you like working your way through systematic processes? or do you like combining words in certain ways to convey meaning? or do you like to tease meaning from equations? for example, i know that i can learn anything i am determined to learn. it’s a just a matter of time. difficult things take longer than easy things. but my thoughts on these two ideas, how i relate to people and how the type of thinking i enjoy most, are leading me away from my current major choice. you address these choices in a previous article (https://calnewport.com/blog/2009/02/16/the danger of deep procratination/) where you suggest that you shouldn’t let your parents (or anyone else) influence your choice of a major or that you shouldn’t choose a major because it’s practical. i agree with you about many of these things, but sometimes, these choices are hard. it’s difficult to separate who you really are from who your parents, your significant other, and your best friend think you are. and when you find deep down that your current direction that you’ve been diligently working at it is the wrong direction, i think it’s time to make a change. it’s time to start putting in 10,000 hours in a different direction. then your passion for the subject will flourish. so your idea: “a mastery centric view of passion says that aligning your life with passions is a good thing, but almost any superficial interest can be transformed into a passion with hard work, so there’s no reason to sweat choices such as an academic major or you first post college career.” at some point, you have to decide to master that superficial skill. you are choosing to make that superficial skill your passion. this decision can have a drastic affect on your life and is an important decision. sorry for the looooong comment, but i’m making some important decisions in my life based on these thoughts that have been swirling around in my brain! i have to agree with those that brought up the point as to whether laura was passionate/interested in the technology that she became an expert on. she did not have an a priori interest in database design. she got started working for large technology company, and drifted into that area. once she started to get good at it, she realized she could leverage the ability to gain more autonomy, competence, and relatedness in her life. i disagree with your idea that it doesn’t matter so what you study, but how you study. the idea is if a person works hard at a subject , they’ll eventually master it and love it because they have mastered it. what about deep procrastination? the key to avoiding deep procrastination is autonomy: you have to feel like what you’re doing is your choice, not someone else’s choice, or the result of pressure. this certainly holds for jobs as well. in fact, with this in mind, i think it’s great to say “choose something that sounds interesting,” as this will help support your sense of autonomy. that being said, however, don’t mistake this superficial interest as some deep passionate connection between you and the job, and don’t be scared if you find yourself not loving every minute and feeling fulfilled every day at your new workplace. hi. i’m currently a college sophomore in the philippines and i never fail to catch your weekly dose of wisdom. i’m applying for an exchange program, and it required me to write my curriculum vitae. i’d like to know if you can give tips on how to write this just in time for my internship application next summer. thanks, cal. more power to your blog! 🙂 those three requirements might be necessary, but i suspect they are not sufficient for many people. introspection is an absolute requirement for those of us who want to use our time working on the world’s problems as best we can. i would feel anxious and depressed were i were not working every day on my research. (i’ve tried other professions; now in academia; i agree that the autonomy is wonderful, but it is not why i’m here.) you could potentially try to sweep introspection into the third argument, but the kind of connection i’m talking about feels qualitatively different from your description and required soul searching. consulting is not for everyone. great post! it’s so happy to read some article so inspiring in the middle of day. this is profoundly insightful. there’s been a vague pain and sense of stagnation since college. i felt the need to find what is my purpose in my life before entering grad school or face the same question after 2 years and lots of money: what to do with my life? this article suggest that i’m asking the wrong question. instead what rare and valuable skills can i acquire now for a happy life later? cal, amazing post and practical career related interpretation of sdt. i do agree with your other post that developing competence drives one’s ability to attain autonomy, but i have to admit that your example of laura is an exception to the rule in our economy, and that personal interest in one’s work beyond mastery is a key motivator that cannot be neglected. my career path from engineering to medicine is an example: i chose computer engineering in university so i could attain laura’s lifestyle… a dream i had when in high school. i joined a start up company so i could develop seniority early in my career of aspiring autonomy. however, i realized that software development for me was boring, no matter how much competence i would attain. further, all of the senior engineers 40+ years old were still living a corporate life managed by others without any such autonomy. in fact the start up was their first chance at exercising some degree of autonomy by leaving a big company like ibm. i realized that even highly specialized programming skills were not going to give me the autonomy i craved so i did a lot of research and entered a career that gives all three aspects of sdt: medicine. medicine satisfies all three criteria of sdt 1. autonomy: professional license that gives you freedom to live in almost any location with a flexible schedule, depending on specialty. job demand still outpaces supply of physicians in canada/usa. 2. competence: well defined specialized knowledge and skillset that is well compensated. this drives the autonomy aspect of sdt. 3. relatedness: helping others on a very personal level and working on interprofessional hospital teams with other usually kind individuals (if you chose a hospital specialty) hey cal   i just wrote about this exact topic (motivation 3.0, book review of drive, etc.) in the context of medical school. one of the biggest ways that medical schools fail in this regard is giving soooo little feedback   you don’t know how well you’re doing until the test rolls around. https://lukemd.net/understand the drive of a medical student hey cal, what an unbelievably great article. really, i don’t really read these types of articles on blogs often. i guess i must read the wrong blogs… again, this is exceptional content. i don’t even want to add anything to the conversation at this moment, i just want to show my appreciation for shifting my world view a little bit. thank you, cal! 🙂 sven love your blog…read two of them today. just finished drive this week too. but i’d add that part if the reason that laura & people like her, myself included, are successful & motivated in the work they’re doing is it does fit their talents. people like laura, myself, and the author of this blog are good at what they do because it fits their gifting. further, it’s hard to be creative & fully engaged in work that doesn’t truly fit your passion. so how do i find a skill which is rare !?! i find it very hard these times to find such a skill, everywhere are experts for almost anything. and if its just becoming exceptionally good at something, i could just focus on something i really love (yes, passion trap and so on) and become really good at it. i dont get it,i’d be happy to see an answer to this… of you or any other blogreaders .. thanks:) i think sdt is just an attempt from academics to create a one size fits all system to describe human motivation. there are clearly exceptions to the rules, and i’m not sure how formulating motivation will help anyone. why would you ever use only your rational mind to try to fulfill emotional needs? as for exceptions, as an example, some people are perfectly content to be recluses and do not require any “human connectivity” or whatever you call it. when you mention the “passion trap” i believe you are subconsciously trying to justify one’s decision to pick “greatness” over doing what gives you joy. there is no way to have both unless you truly enjoy doing something on an intrinsic level that ultimately also gives you “greatness”, however you choose to define it. think of it this way: nothing that we ever do will truly matter. no matter how long you are remembered after your death, or how long the effects of your actions resonate, eternity is a longer time. therefore, in the background of eternity, nothing really matters. if you think that things beyond your immediate comfort and homeostasis really do matter, it’s usually because you were do conditioned by your parents and people around whom you grew up. so you might as well do what you feel gives you joy, and then have responsibility enough to deal with the consequences. thinking of things this way will get rid of that nagging feeling that you should be doing something else in life, but have decided to go after “power” and “greatness” instead of everyday joy. just think about it. i’ve just discovered this website today. i was wondering if i should switch majors  from engineering to literature. it’s been driving me crazy for almost 4 months. i’ve been drifting around reading random articles for a few hours and you know what  this has helped me tremendously i really don’t know how to thank you enough for writing this. but thank you. hi! i think we are purpose driven. what you write about is called “´working your ass off”. i agree that it works, but not if you want a lot of other things in your life, family, hobbies, friends etc. if you start from passion you already ahve a skill, if you twist it so you add purpose into it then you have your job and a much better life i would say. take lauras example. i think she probably works 12h a day when she works. so really it’s 12months a year. and what good does she make in the world? albert you say that almost anything can be turned into a passion with hard work. so does that mean that all that is required is decision? and what about ‘natural talent’? and i suppose you explain the fact that people can not like things while being good at them by saying that they have the wrong reasons for doing them, like listening to parents’ advice when it was not what they wanted? so it’s all psychological mistakes? your email is an eye opener. it throws light on the starting point of soul searching and finding yourself. the ryan and deci article referenced above is available online for free at selfdeterminationtheory.org: thanks for the great work cal! this deliberate practice idea is a game changer. *facepalms* well that was really funny, i didn’t intend the thank you to be the link text, but it works as i did intend it as a “thank you” for your (free) work for us. cdj. fascinating. i agree the first step i took toward a life of excellence is to get practical and ruthlessly guard my time. after years spent seeking my “passion,” i discovered my inclination to simply do what i was good at   a very human one at that. nonetheless, one must figure that some human inclination, some kind of human desire, the very root of human conditioning, encouraged one to pursue a certain field. indeed, your tendency toward logical, structured mathematical thinking (as a physics major, i possess this trait) and your writing ability helped in shaping your life’s path. in addition, living a remarkable life is a bit loaded, don’t you think? part of being human is our emotional range and being happy with our lives is more like a passing emotional state than a standing love affair. i like to think while “passion” is bull, having a “purpose” that can take you forward, is more to the point. it’s that thing that leaves you raw and angry for it’s an original thought or agenda, or at least, it seems to be. it’s what happens when the question “why do i exist?/why should i bother existing?” becomes “how can i serve myself and others?” it’s damn hard to change (deliberate practice, indeed), so most of us are just using what we have to the best of our “ability.” ignore my blubbering, the article and the site are awesome. i suppose i’m saying the same thing you are   you can’t know what you haven’t tried, reality and “being” are interwoven; success happens in the real world, not in our minds. kudos. thanks for a refreshing perspective. an oversimplistic “follow your passion” advice is too commonly dispensed but it does not seem to help a whole of lot of people in making real career choices. one concept that would help clarify some points in the article and in the various comments is the clear distinction across knowledge, skills and personality traits. this is explained in marcus buckingham’s book, “now discover your strengths”. database design, latin, medicine etc. all involve a base of knowledge that can be acquired through various formal and self study methods. the word skill is best suited to describe something that can be codified into a series of proven steps to achieve an objective. skills can be acquired but need to be practised constantly. our personality traits are natural mental tendencies and preferences that are partly inherited and get fairly set in the early years. knowledge is domain  or subject specific, skills could translate across related domains whereas our traits are generic and influence all the millions of auto pilot reactions and decisions we make throughout the day. this is why it is silly to make simplistic connections between a personality profile and career avenues. look at the top performers in any profession and you will find immense variety in personality traits. sure it is easier to relate some personality traits to certain types of jobs but the exceptions are too many to make the link prescriptive. discovering our traits helps channelize them to activities that we are more easily passionate about, in almost any industry or job we are in. sadly some people fail to make this connection, especially due to the mixed way in which knowledge, skills and traits are discussed. such people often find hobbies that give play to their natural traits. achieving excellence even in one or two activities in any profession requires a combination of knowledge elements, one or more skills and some traits. it is the natural trait that fuels the discipline and repetitive practice needed to attain the higher levels of competence. yes, willpower and motivational factors can help somebody get very good in what they aim for but that final level of magical, passionate, effortless, play not work comes when there is some natural inexhaustible fuel arising from our brain patterns. finally, this means, yes, one can choose any major and get into any industry based on practical economic considerations (rare and valuable abilities, emerging industry with high growth prospects and so on) but self awareness can help them tune their career growth path to reach higher levels of competence. the major problems with the “passion” and “be yourself” approach is that they are based on romanticized and unrealistic perceptions and expectations. in reality, even romance itself isn’t “dream romance” all the time. it makes people increasingly unable to adapt to circumstances that are anything less than what’s there in their dreams. this is more like a toddler’s way of seeing the world. it’s not the way a mature adult ought to be seeing things. personally i think the passion is always within people all along, so the idea of “find your passion” is fundamentally incorrect. so long as people have the energy at physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual levels, they have the passion and the capacity to put it into action. reality is more like “what you choose to put your passion into”. also i think this “find your calling” ideas that go around are nonsense. fields aren’t living things to call you. people choose their fields for various reasons. you put your energy in music for e.g…soon you’ll find every website offering music, you could tell profiles of artists back to front, you could tell which year which album was released and what’s the tracks on them as well as the length and maybe even the liner notes. there is a serious misunderstanding between cause and effect. keep putting your energy and thoughts on making money and you’ll see all sorts of ways in which you can get it. then you start doing the right things and you become very very good at it. the initial interest can come by itself, but actually it’s the person who’s putting their interest into what they want, not the other way round. it’s just about defining what you want out of life and then becoming very good at having it. but then everything requires work, planning and support. the world’s best musicians always ask students to improve by doing what is difficult for them to do, that’s beyond their comfort zone. and eventually bring it within their comfort zone. it isn’t that we have to find our passion and love. actually i’d say that we are full of passion and love. the question is where are we choosing to put all of it and where should we be putting it? and how do we then go about doing it? i think above all the responsibility lies in people’s own hands more than they think it does. consciously or subconsciously a person is choosing to be what they want and then living that journey doing whatever it takes. finally the results they get are relevant and meaningful to what they believe in and therefore they see themselves as successful. can i simply say what a aid to seek out somebody who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. you positively know easy methods to deliver a difficulty to light and make it important. extra people have to read this and understand this facet of the story. i cant believe youre not more fashionable because you undoubtedly have the gift. hi mr. newport, you are a geek per definition, so how you dare to tell people what they have to do with their job lives? in this article, you’re even making fun of people like nicholas lore who has successfully spent his life in the career coaching field and he has even been rewarded for his execellent contribution by president clinton!! before speaking, you must eat your own dog’s food at least!! in other words, have you professionally ever coached people to do their best with their talents? the simple answer is: no!! have you ever heard “the parable of talents”? the simple answer is:no! otherwise, you wouldn’t have written a book like that!! your attitude is just the typical arrogance of an intellectual elite who lives in their “ivory tower”!! keep on staying in your “ivory tower”!! regards. fab, greetings from italy. a final note: “knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” by aristotle hence: be, do, have!!!! not: do, have !!!! it’s very different!! apart from that, for a deep learning you need energy and passion and if you aren’t passionate about a particular subject, you will not have energy!! this is the abc of cognitive psychology and even if it wasn’t, it’s just common sense like 1+1 = 2!! unless the elephants fly and so 1+1 = 3 or 4 or 5 and so on!! regards. fab the major roadblock to building a stable and meaningful future out of your passion/s is structural. how many of your friends have their college degrees in interdisciplinary fields? how many college counselors in high school, or parents, or friends suggest cross pollinating disciplines/subjects as a degree strategy? subjects are broken into module like components, are primarily expert to student driven, and are very often spoken about as if they exist in vacuums. and, this all begins in kindergarten when, for example, standardized tests are administered to children who still believe in santa clause. by the time just budding adults reach college they often find themselves “undeclared”. but this seems normal because for many it is the first time they are presented with choice and options about what to learn. the usual course of action, though, is to decide on ready made degree paths   assuming budding adults even pursue college. jobs really needn’t be found or scarce skills sought after. interests should be developed over time, nurtured and stretched. curiosity should be prized and rewarded   from an early age in and out of school. this is the road to stable and meaningful work. in adulthood, too, this can be accomplished, for example, by pursing a hobby intensely while scanning the market for gaps or dark spots that may be able to put areas of that hobby to work. one thing is for sure: finding the right job takes time. and, the more time people spend engaged in meaningful activity the more likely they are to develop the eye sight needed to spot opportunities and the grit to hang in there when times seem rough and uncertain. we don’t rely on fires for warmth through the night any longer. for this reason, in part, we should consider pursuing those activities that fill us with meaning. generally good and unique perspective from which everybody can benefit a lot. just one point: you shall not say that people who want higher position and tighter work schedules are “worse” than people who exchange it for something lighter. this is arbitrary. as long as one is contributing to the society and feeling what he does is fulfilling, then its’ good. in this sense many executives(far more than the typical stereotype might suggest) are also content with their work and feeling autonomy/competence/relatedness. bashing them all together doesn’t do them justice. i’ve been really enjoying this blog. i watched a movie last weekend “the life of walter mitty”. one of the main characters is a rough and independent adventure photographer for life magazine. i started to think about why we are drawn to people like this in the context of autonomy, mastery and purpose. now it’s pretty clear. this character has fulfilled all of these three things to a very high degree and of course we want these same things! 1) he has extreme autonomy. he chooses when, where, even what he’s working on. 2) at this point he’s a grand master photographer and only honing his skills. 3) purpose: he believes what he’s doing is important for others. he feels that he’s making a genuine contribution. finally, he “got so good at adventure photography that they couldn’t ignore him” and he used this skill to “buy” even more autonomy, mastery and purpose. i know that this is all from a movie, but here is a diverse list of real people who also have enviable lives from the viewpoint of autonomy, mastery and purpose: anthony bourdain haile gebresellasse (elite runner) beto perez (created zumba) laird hamilton (surfer) rick steves jim rohn anthony robbins richard branson bob dylan paulo coelho tom hanks tim ferriss michael palin steve martin madonna these people all really followed cal’s plan. get really good at a something and use this “career capital” to buy the “right rewards”. cal, let me start by saying i enjoy reading your blog, and your compositions are well put and clearly engaging, easy to follow. overall wonderful. however, i’m uneasy; are you saying that the job that i have, which i’ve been doing for 4 years after graduating from said major churns my guts inside out every time i sit in front of that computer screen simply because i’m not doing it well? are you saying that this career path i’ve been on for close to 9 years is actually something i could “become passionate” about if i just perfected it and did it well? are you saying i can fall in love with doing something i absolutely dislike? i might be ignorant, but i cannot bring myself to believe your theories. i really enjoyed the areas where you talk about the balance with competence, relatedness, and autonomy. i feel really strongly about how you emphasize that some people do not cash out when their needs are met. although the title of being a ceo can be great you do increase your work time and are not able to enjoy somethings. i think some people that think they know what their dream job is might not know about the stress that can come with the job. this then leading them to find out they hate their career. hi, what if i am currently in a career that i am not that interested in (electrician) and cannot see how i could obtain rare and valuable skills? i just don’t see any feasible way to clime the career ladder from this position as well. like, if you’re an electrician… that’s it that’s what you do. there is no way to go up from there compared to say office jobs where you have all the potential to work your way up. do i need to start over in a new career? i’m 26 living in australia, cheers in advance. hey guys, i’ve been reading cal’s book for the second time and i’m doing some much deeper reading and contemplation of it this time. i’ve recently come across munger’s 25 cognitive biases too and he speaks about rewards and incentives being very powerful; cal touched on them here saying the opposite is true in some regards. https://25cognitivebiases.com/bias 1 reward and punishment super response tendency/ how can we add some nuance to both munger and cal’s philosophies to reconcile these two seemingly conflicting ideas on the power of reward and punishment? it has clearly resulted in some slimy sales success for munger yet seems to result in a loss of some substance of passion in terms of human work…. comment save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time i comment. academic communication[email protected] media inquires[email protected] all other requestssee contact page
what to watch supported by critic’s notebook in a three decade career, he’s developed an impressive range without forgetting how to have fun. by beatrice loayza russell crowe is going through a religious phase. in 2023, “the pope’s exorcist” showcased the actor as   you guessed it   the vatican’s official exorcist. in “the exorcism,” released friday, he’s at it again, this time playing a washed up movie star cast in the role of an exorcist. the set is cursed and crowe’s tony, an emotionally tormented single father and recovering addict, is ripe for demonic possession. aside from the obvious, the two unrelated movies couldn’t be more different. “the pope’s exorcist” leans into schlock, with crowe sporting a delightfully hammy italian accent. “the exorcism” is a relatively somber affair, generating thrills by relying on crowe’s explosive, fevered performance. in both cases, he fits seamlessly into the world of satanic menace, which, per the genre’s blueprint, trades in questions of faith and repentance, and sees imperfect yet noble souls waging spiritual warfare against supernatural forces of evil. why is crowe so suited to these ungodly movies? one might ask why crowe is starring in these b movies in the first place. in the 2000s, crowe was nominated for a best actor oscar three years in a row, but at the height of his fame he was associated with the kind of midbudget adult dramas that have become endangered in today’s theatrical landscape. he is getting older, too. at 60, he’s not the strapping it boy who rallied the roman masses in “gladiator” (2000), or the same hunk who made headlines for his on set romance with meg ryan, his “proof of life” (2000) co star. like many actors of his generation, he’s now playing showbiz with a different set of cards in an industry that looks radically different than when he started out. crowe’s exorcism themed movies may seem like lesser gigs. in both “the pope’s exorcist” and “the exorcism,” he’s convincingly loony, playing it straight within the films’ unrealistic conceits while also, somehow, never losing sight of the ridiculousness that makes a good horror movie fun. at the same time, this pocket of horror makes surprisingly inventive use of his dramatic powers and the range he’s developed over the past 30 plus years. crowe’s hollywood breakout role, as bud white, a gruff policeman with his own moral code in “l.a. confidential” (1997), established him as a dramatic heavyweight; a quintessentially masculine leading man who infused real angst and vulnerability into brutish characters. just look at the concentration in crowe’s eyes when white raids a rapist’s home and shoots him dead, planting a gun in his hand to make it look like self defense.

kudos to beatrice loayza who figured out a way to wrap what seemed like some random internet joke   that russell crowe recently starred in not one, but two movies about exorcism, with the word in each title, even though the movies are in no way related   into a column about the actor.