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Moving Faster Towards a Life I No Longer Want
I have been thinking about what it means to be moving faster towards a life I no longer want.
I came across a question recently that has stayed with me.
The question was about AI, but that is not really where my mind went.
What stayed with me was the deeper question underneath it.
If I became much better at creating the life I am currently creating, would I actually want it?
That feels like an important midlife question.
Because when we feel stuck, it is easy to assume the answer is to move faster.
Do more.
Try harder.
Become more disciplined.
Be more productive.
Get clearer.
Take more action.
Catch up.
And sometimes, yes, action matters.
But I am starting to see that speed is not always the answer.
Sometimes the more important question is:
Am I moving towards a life I actually want?
When the problem is not effort
I think many of us have spent years becoming good at holding life together.
We learn how to cope.
How to manage.
How to keep going.
How to meet expectations.
How to stay responsible.
How to do what needs to be done.
And from the outside, that can look like progress.
The job.
The home.
The roles.
The routines.
The commitments.
The things we said yes to because they made sense at the time.
But there can come a point in midlife where we start to wonder whether the life we are maintaining is still the life we consciously choose.
That is a different kind of stuck.
Not the kind where nothing is happening.
The kind where a lot is happening, but something still feels off.
Moving faster towards a life I no longer want
This is the part that feels uncomfortable.
What if I became more productive, more organised, more focused, and more consistent — but only became better at maintaining a life I have quietly outgrown?
What if I solved the execution problem, but avoided the direction problem?
That is where the question lands for me.
Because sometimes we are not failing.
Sometimes we are successfully repeating a pattern that no longer fits.
We may be moving.
We may be achieving.
We may be doing all the things we think we are supposed to do.
But if we have not stopped to ask whether the direction still feels true, we may simply be moving faster towards a life I no longer want.
The pull of borrowed direction
I can also see how easy it is to be pulled towards someone else’s version of success.
A pathway that looks certain.
A promise that sounds compelling.
A method that worked for someone else.
A life that appears impressive from the outside.
And when we are unsure, that can feel reassuring.
It can feel easier to follow a ready-made direction than to sit with the discomfort of not yet knowing our own.
But the problem is that borrowed direction can still require a lot of effort.
We can work hard at it.
Invest in it.
Try to make it fit.
Blame ourselves when it does not.
When maybe the better question is not:
“Why can’t I follow through?”
Maybe it is:
“Was this ever really my path?”
Before getting faster
I am starting to think there is a pause that matters before we try to move faster.
A pause before more effort.
Before more productivity.
Before more pressure.
Before another plan, another method, another promise, another version of who we think we should become.
A pause to ask:
What am I actually building?
What am I maintaining?
What am I moving towards?
And do I still want it?
That kind of pause can feel inconvenient.
Especially when part of us wants certainty and momentum.
But maybe it is better to pause honestly than to accelerate automatically
What I am taking from this
I do not think the answer is to stop moving altogether.
I am not interested in staying stuck.
But I am interested in making sure I am not mistaking movement for direction.
Because there is a difference between being busy and being aligned.
There is a difference between being productive and being honest.
There is a difference between creating more of the same life and creating a life that actually fits.
Maybe part of creating a new life in midlife is not just learning how to take action.
Maybe it is learning to ask better questions before we do.
Not:
“How do I get there faster?”
But:
“Is this where I still want to go?”
That feels like the question for me right now.
Because I do not want to become more efficient at living a life I have already outgrown.
I want to become more honest about the life I am actually choosing.
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