"Between Attachment and Purpose – The Search of a 47-Year-Old Man"

Carl Jung is said to have claimed that life only truly begins at 40 – and that everything before that is merely research. The question of self-discovery after a certain age can arise quickly for men – at least, it has for me. After a long period of reflection about what I want to do with my life at 47, I find it to be a very, very difficult question – tied to many depressive and frustrating moments and thoughts.

After many years of self-employment and a severe burnout, complete with intense panic attacks, I’ve come to a decision: maybe I need to understand that I don’t have to be an “entrepreneur” – a word I never really liked, anyway. Maybe it’s time to look for a purpose? By “purpose,” I mean doing something that is connected to the well-being of others – for example, I’ve been thinking about retraining to become a special needs teacher or working as a classroom assistant, supporting children with difficulties or autism.You don’t earn much doing that – yes, I know.

But can I still afford my current lifestyle… traveling, watches, eating whatever I want? No.But here’s the thing: Do I even want to afford that anymore?Didn’t I want to change all that? And this is exactly where I keep encountering the same inner conflict – the doubt that holds me back. I’ve thought about it a lot – and of course, I’ve read it a thousand times in all my philosophical books – that this doubt arises from habit, deeply intertwined with fear and, as all my Buddhist texts and teachings say – attachment. It’s a clever and almost self-destructive game that the mind plays with us: out of the mix of fear, doubt, and attachment, a kind of subconscious alliance forms – one that keeps offering “going back to what you know” as the safest option.

That struggle against habit, I believe, is what drains my energy – what gives rise to these waves of depression and self-doubt that whisper, “You’re too old at 47 to build something new.” I keep getting thrown off course. And it’s not as if these patterns unfold visibly in front of me – they seem to operate quietly, somewhere deep beneath the surface. This quiet, almost invisible mechanism – the retreat into what’s familiar, fueled by fear and self-doubt – behaves like an internal algorithm I never wrote but which still governs my life. And so I ask myself: Who am I, if I am no longer the person who always must achieve, must become, must perform? What remains when I let go of all that internal noise? Maybe this is the beginning – not of some dramatic new chapter with fireworks and fanfare, but of a quiet surrender. A shift inward. A new kind of task that has less to do with prestige and more to do with meaning. I don’t yet know where this path will lead. But I sense it’s time to walk it – step by step, with less fear of giving things up and more courage to be honest with myself. In the next part, I’ll share how I ended up falling so deeply in the first place – and why I now believe that this crash was necessary. Because sometimes, it seems, real life only begins where the old one finally ends. To be continued.By Human Afschari