When I was your age. My mantra was a quote by Oscar Wilde - The world belongs to the discontented. (Ron, I looked it up after I wrote it. I originally wrote from memory "Life belons....
) Drats to all you literate people!!
And now 20 plus years later another quote summarizes my life's experience from the choices I made.
He that is discontented in one place will seldom be content in another.
Aesop
Its a virtue to work hard towards you goals. But to be happy and content you need to eventually, if not sooner, appreciate where you are at. Chasing the bright lights forever often ends with the cruelest word. Regret.
You posted, asking for advice, so here is my assesment. Valuing Barbie Doll Cougars, fancy watches, fancy cars and bling is a hard life. It can wear you out and leave you angry. I have wealthy friends who are in their 50s having affairs with 20 something year old girls. Driving Porsches. Multiple rolexs, beach houses. They are highly educated, exquisitely professional. I think they look like fools. They are both miserable and I haven't a clue why. Great kids, beautiful wives of their approximate age, highly respected professions, worth several million. One, who is 52, just had a break down and he is on all kinds of heavy hitting pyschotropic meds.
Brietling, it appears to me that you value the attention of others too much for your own good. You aren't a rock star. And speaking of rock stars, everyone's fantasy life, how many of them drift through their days in a drug induced haze of misery and too often, premature death.
Desire is the root of all sufferring. Confucius? And all you do is desire.
Hey, I am often completely wrong. But you asked for opinions. I have seen a lot of different things.
My happiest friend doesn't have much of the fancy flash. We were college roomates that began in 1981. His life does not appeal to me. But he is very happy with what he has, in a Norman Rockwell way. He slam dunks me in the challenge of living a good life. And openly laughs at some of the things me and my other friends do. And he was a full scholarship linebacker at my college, with tons of offers to play at some big time schools. Smart, attractive, funny, he could have been a playa. He is a better man than most to put it mildly.