I've seen and heard this from so many people. And my own life experience certainly bears it out.

It seems like a lot of people start out life with a set of rather lofty goals. When you're 21, you want the big job, the huge house, the nice cars, all the toys, fancy vacations, and all the rest. So you start climbing that mountain, and to one degree or another you get there. Then, at some point you realize that you aren't on a mountain, you are on a treadmill. You're spinning your wheels as fast as you can to pay for that huge house, the nice cars and all the rest that your 21 year old self thought he wanted, only to discover that none of those things really make you happy. Problem is, that treadmill is running fast and there's no obvious way to step off. So you keep going because you can't figure a way out.

I consider myself extremely fortunate. All through the 90's, I was making money hand over fist. Technology was exploding, companies were spending like crazy (everyone was desperate to cash in on the internet) and I had a knack for managing large projects and getting them done on time.

(In truth, what I had a knack for was convincing CEO's that the unrealistic expectations they had weren't really what they wanted, and that what could reasonably get done with the available time and budget would still be amazing.)

Then the 2000 DotCom/NASDAQ bubble burst, and all that came to a crashing halt.

Which seemed like a bad thing at the time. In 2000, I was CIO at a venture-funded startup that was in the process of closing it's third round of financing. Things had been going great, but when the bubble burst, all the VC money dried up. We had a horrifying burn rate, and only lasted a few more months.

Turns out all that was a blessing in disguise. I was able to take a few months off while my wife was pregnant with our youngest daughter, and really considered my options. I ended up downsizing quite a bit (sold my bikes, sold the boat, turned in my leased car and bought a beater, $2k Cherokee, etc, etc). I ended up deciding to start a new business, completely unrelated to technology. Took five years before it started making money. Things got pretty lean over that period, but we got through it. Barely held on to the house.

Over the subsequent years, there's only been one where I made close to what I was making back in those salad days of the '90's, but that's just fine. I'm also not on an airplane 20 days out of every month. I wouldn't go back to those days for twice the money. What I have now is so much more valuable: Freedom.

Maybe it's having gone through that, or maybe it's just age, but 53 year old me has way smaller tastes than 21 year old me would have ever imagined. My truck is 14 years old. My bike is 27 years old. I don't have any debt other than the mortgage on the house, which is getting there. (You learn the hard way that debt kills you when you take a haircut like that.)

Anyway, like I said, I'm lucky. I was able to get off the treadmill, because in my case the treadmill stopped underneath me and threw me off.

Just some ramblings...