Greetings!

I'm not sure if it is what you should have done, Serena . . . really, only you can determine that.  For all of us, our lives are made up of a series of choices on the road we travel - with many forks in the road.  Unfortunately, we generally can only go down one path at a time . . . so we make the best decision at that time.  And sometimes we wonder what life might have been like if we would have taken a different road or turn.  There are choices that I've made and I sometimes wonder . . . "If I would have done something different, I'd be doing . . . now".  But, in those cases, I will never know.  We make our choices and decisions with the best information we have at the time and with the resources we have at the time.  It does not mean that we might not get the opportunity to do something later in life that we might have had to passby at an earlier time.  Sometimes we are bound by commitments/debt/family . . . but you never know when you might get to do something you didn't do before.  Who knows what awaits you, Serena?

Hope, peace, joy, love . . .

..and you might have been really struggling like most musicians - especially in this economy!...cms

Hi Serena

I was a banker for 41 years, and most of the musicians I knew had another full time job to pay the bills.  The few that did make it big spent a lot of time away from home and often had problems with their relationships, and /or alcohol and drugs. Since I retired I have started up a small band and play at seniors residences and nursing homes and occasionally at old time dances. I am really enjoying my music and I am not depending on it to pay the bills. I don't regret doing my career first and now my music.

What worked for me is not necessarily the best thing for you. Only you can decide that.

Hey Serena,

 Yes similar things have happened to me. I can name several points in my life where I have made a major choice to go down one path rather then another. I find for me that looking back and contemplating the 'what ifs' usually occurs when I'm feeling unsettled with my life in the present. To me it's a signal that I need to do some soul searching about whats really bothering me in my life now.  We all make choices for different reasons which in my view were valid at the time...if they weren't we wouldn't have made that particular choice. We can't go back for a redo.   I don't think it's necessarily a mid-life crisis, it sounds to me like your're experiencing some life contemplation and that can happen at anytime and for  many  different reasons.  My advice, don't try  to label it  has being 'something' or even worry about labeling it as something like a mid-life crisis, that makes it sound like some sort of condition.    It's really just you wondering about your life, right now.

    What I find helps me in this sort of looking back is to try to place myself at that time and revisit the reasons why I made that choice in the first place and try not to judge them too harshly but to actually honor them , that was me back then good or bad. I can't change or control that.  I try to get to the root reasons of those choices.  In doing that I can take a look at myself now and contemplate what I might have learned since then, or perhaps have changed. My reasons for that choice then just might not seem to be so valid anymore, but that's okay, that's life. I've experienced a lot since then so to figure out that I've changed or that how I would value those reasons now has changed shouldn't be a surprise.   I can't control what happened in my past but I can control what I do next. Tomorrow is always a new day.  If I'm contemplating something that does give me a pang of some regret I can't change that. I just have to accept it, but what I can do is figure out why the feeling of regret crops up now and work at making sure that tomorrow I don't repeat the same sort of thing.  I even make promises to myself sometimes, 'I will never let an opportunity like that pass me by without some serious contemplation'.  'I won't do that again'.  I'm regreting or wondering about that because now I'm feeling that this aspect is important so perhaps I should look at how I can bring that into my life now'

   I also ask myself, so what exactly is missing now that this thinking is coming up so powerfully or causing me pain.  What is it trying to tell me?  Only I can really answer that question as there might be a deeper reason then what it appears to be on the surface.

There is always that. 

But I wonder if I had not made a few different decisions even though they were small ones if I might not be at a different place with respect to my music?  For example I could have taken a teaching job nearer to a city so I could have played in an Orchestra and then made a small performing group?  Things like that and then you never know where that would have gone.

Or parhaps spent my summers taking music classes to get my Masters?  I mean there is no end to what could have been if you put yourself in the right places and hiding out in a small town is never in the right place.