What does "peaking" in life look like after high school and uni?

[Indian Race Troll (IRT)]

Edit: Removing the envy thread since that would be unhealthy discussion.

We hear the saying that some people "peaked in high school" where they were popular, good looking, and admired.

Some people "peaked in college" as they were the rich and popular party animals with decent grades but also got to have the "college experience".

We have a great image of what peaking in life at those phases looks like but what exactly does peaking in life as you get older look like? What guy in his 20s or 30s is the envy of society compared to the guy in college?

I hear sometimes it is the guy with a wife and kids but I think family life is overrated, so who is it?

 

[Mr.Rob]

Depends on your value system.

Peaking by the average American's value system is making six figures plus in income, collecting a bunch of material shit you can't actually afford to impress people that don't actually care about you, marrying a hot wife/successful husband, and not being fat all by age 35. Then again some American's consider their peak to be in college and having an epic (or not so epic) college experience and then they think its over.

Personally I've always thought the "college experience" is overrated. Its a bunch of kids without direction in life and no real life experiences (on average) drinking cheap beer and exploring their sexuality for the first time. Definitely fun and worth exploring, but I got most of that out of my system in high school and I really never felt I needed to do a redux.

Nonetheless every red blooded male in America is jealous of the powerful/successful 30's age male bachelor with his choice of the hottest 20 year old women.

-Rob

 

[Hue]

Peaking by the average American's value system is making six figures plus in income, collecting a bunch of material shit you can't actually afford to impress people that don't actually care about you, marrying a hot wife/successful husband, and not being fat all by age 35. Then again some American's consider their peak to be in college and having an epic (or not so epic) college experience and then they think its over.

Yea it's relative success to your social surroundings / constructs - the expectations of those people, and ultimately your own idea of success.

This description sounds nice on the surface, but as has been talked about many a time on here, that's all it is sometimes... surface. Those things can be great but without a person actually feeling successful in their own expectations, those things are even more meaningless. They're idols without depth - and that's not where happiness comes from.

In addition to this I think acknowledging "I've peaked" or "that person has peaked" is just a really negative mentality, because the only direction to go is down. It can be an unnecessarily forced limitation. That said there can only be a certain degree of success that one can attain within those constructs - a ceiling. Drake, for example, has essentially peaked his success as a pop/rap superstar. It would be really hard for him to do any better in terms of the music industry's understanding of success.

I think the move is to always take on new projects / areas of growth - and if still fulfilling maintain past success as much as you feel appropriate. You see a lot of rappers for instance extend into clothing, acting, and maybe try to use their power as a person capable of inspiring / reaching out to other people for political changes.. and then occasionally jump on a feature or have some smaller performances on tours / music festivals.

To bring it down to a more tangible level, what's stopping the super successful guy in his mid 30's from opening up a (new) business, or traveling to some other part of the world and building up his career / lifestyle there? People usually get less excited about their lives after "peaking" because they decide to themselves the good times are over - or maybe they've just lost the drive to rev up their motivation to grow to further heights again.

There are levels and ceiliings of these constructs, but why not attempt to stretch one's reach as far as it can go?


Take it from a guy that's been told he peaked in high-school. I'm just getting started (;

 

[Parkour]

I’m in my late 30s and I can objectively say I haven’t peaked yet. I have better abs, more income, better friendships and a better network. More importantly I have better competencies in everything from business to finances to social skills. I’ve travelled more ambitiously in the last year and I have much bigger plans going into 2018. What I don’t have, marriage and children, is very attainable if I want it. I hope I never peak any time in the foreseeable future. If age starts to take away, I hope that my other areas will continue to grow and improve.


The extrinsic stuff associated with peaking is a benchmark but it’s all relative. Peaking generally means that you’ve reached your top social status but really means you’ve reached your top level of combined value from all of your strengths. How you reach it and what it looks like is entirely different for each person because many people with long success records have mini peaks all along the way. If someone was popular in high school and is just kind of a sad shell of his former self than he may have peaked. I’ve seen this type when going back to a reunion and a guy hasn’t really evolved since high school. For many people, even if they get a little washed up, there is usually still a chance for a second or third act if they want it bad enough.