Thank you for the replies!

I’ve read over everything a few times and I wish I was able to be more glass half full than what I am feeling now.

I am trying to forgive myself, to be more precise, I am talking to myself about moving on, but like a sadomasochist I am continuing to punish myself because of time wasted and because of where I am in life right now. I might get professional help for this because I am stuck in one or more of the grieving stages. I don’t want to be, but I am because of the total number of problems I am dealing with at the same time, interviewing for new job, healthy living (weight loss through diet and exercise), personal development through leaning about Stoicism and Buddhism, trying to meet a woman for a relationship. All these “projects” are causing great anxiety and stress. I am honestly trying hard now. All day, from 7 am until 7 pm, I look for work\interview, exercise, study, walk, and try to do the best I can. And I still feel like crap. I feel like I should be doing more and more, and that it should be done 24/7. That’s obviously not realistic and I am not a spring chicken any more. I am 43 and while I do feel young, I get tired and need to time to relax and regain my psychological, emotional, and physical strength. I meditate and it helps a lot, but the anxiety and stress levels are through the rood and I don’t have any outlets to unwind or get some help. Family is not helpful.

I am trying to be patient, accepting, and loving of myself. I realize how important it is to love myself and be fair (from learning about Buddhism), but this alter-ego inside of me continues to punish me for effing up. It’s not about the money, it’s not about comparing my life to others, it’s not about pleasing my parents or anyone else. I just feel like I effed up badly and wasted so much time that catching up now is a monumental task and I am not sure if I am up to the task. I am not giving up, but I haven’t had any good or positive news in a very long time. Some say that no news or no bad news is good news, and I agree 100%, but I am just so tired of it all that I would do anything for something good, fun, exiting to happen. There has to be a balance in life otherwise what’s the point? I am obsessed with road biking and hiking, but it’s not enough. I just feel overwhelmed and out of control. I’ve cut out toxic people from my life. My family is being kept at a distance. Friends are there, but they are busy with their own lives, their own families. I am not complaining because things can much much worse and in this crazy time so many people are suffering and I try to send out love into the universe, but I am running on empty.

Anyway, thank you !

PS. I like the idea of grieving not about the wasted past, but the imagined future that never came. The only problem with that is that I didn’t plan for the future back then. It’s like that movie inception, I am going deeper and deeper into analyzing this. I am punishing myself for the future that didn’t come because of the past which I didn’t plan and execute to have that future which I should have been thinking about. I am not dumb, but I am far from being smart. West Wing (TV Show) had this scene where a man is having a drink at the bar and talks to Toby and Josh (who work at the White House), and he is trying to get his daughter into a fancy University (Notre Dame I think), and he doesn’t know how he is going to pay for it. He says “I like it that it’s hard, a man should be able to provide for his family” or something like that. And then he says, “I don’t want it to be easy, but I wish it was a little bit less hard, just a little bit”. That’s all I want, just a little bit less insanity, just a little bit more luck. I had cancer and survived. I filed for Bankruptcy, which delayed my going back to working, I had so many awful things happen over the last few years, that I feel empty. I am trying hard, but I feel empty.