If...

Midlife crisis. Probably.

Time is ticking, I am aging, body is weakening and failing.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about what I have accomplished and what I have failed to accomplish.

Positive way to put that is what I have yet to accomplish, but my depressive state of mind dwells on the negative. For good reason too, because many of what I have failed to accomplish are not something I can do by myself.

That sense of helplessness. Very depressing.

Provide for the family, so wifey can take care of the children full time. That I did, but on a frugal lifestyle.

It's a sad fact that my salary increment is just not catching up with the cost of living. There are months when we could save some, and months when we used up the whole paycheque and more, so on average we save none to very little from what I earned every month.

The real saving is from bonus. Too bad it doesn't happen frequently.

We didn't change our frugal lifestyle much, we couldn't afford to. We seldom eat out, it's only after the promotion a few years back that we finally allowed ourselves a meal out every weekend as an off day for wifey.

We are comfortable with the sparing lifestyle, at least I am, and we are not wanting. But naturally I would like my family to have a better lifestyle, a bit more freedom in getting things they want instead of the prudent, stringent expenditures now.

So in this I failed.

I was wondering, if I didn't sign on the PhD research, and just got out of academia and threw myself straight into industry and started working right after I got my master degree, how would my life be now?

After all, I got my job based on my master degree, though the skills acquired during the research had been instrumental in doing my job in those few beginning years. I supposed the few years I gained if I started work right after I got my master degree would have strengthened my financial position significantly now.

And I would have been a much different person if I didn't go through those postgraduate years. I would have been more like my undergraduate self: nicer, less evil, less cynical, less sarcastic, less bitter, more sociable, and without depression.

Some experiences change us forever, we are never the same after.

If I didn't go through those postgraduate years and started working earlier, perhaps I would be living in my own house by now, a dream that I failed to accomplish.

And perhaps, just perhaps, I would have a daughter. Something that I will probably die regretting.