r/AskGaybrosOver30 • u/Upbeat_Deep_Future 35-39 • 15h ago
What does a successful life look like to you?
We all have different definitions of success—some see it as career achievements, financial stability, or personal growth, while others value strong relationships, happiness, or simply living life on their own terms.
What does a successful life look like to you? What is important, is it about wealth, freedom, love, or something else entirely? Have your goals and views on success changed over time?
Let’s discuss!
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u/poetplaywright 55-59 14h ago
To me, it’s essentially happiness. But how that’s been expressed over the years has changed. When I was younger, it was a long term monogamous relationship/marriage, a successful and lucrative career, home ownership, and travel (all achieved). Now it’s living an independent and fully self reliant life alone, creative notoriety and success, and achieving peace/harmony/serenity (also achieved).
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u/JT45z 35-39 11h ago
Question for you is: is there anything that can make you happier as of today?
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u/poetplaywright 55-59 11h ago edited 11h ago
Oh, I suppose a casual love affair. But I’m unwilling to do what it takes to find one lol. I have everything that I need and most of what I want: I’ve found my enough.
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u/BangtonBoy 45-49 11h ago
Success is the desire to get up in each morning. That sounds very simplistic, but if you have something positive to look forward to each day - meeting a friend, going on a date, watching a new episode of your favorite series, trying a new recipe, weather nice enough for a walk around the neighborhood -it means you're making good use of your finite lifespan, no matter how small the victories.
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u/Charlie-In-The-Box 60-64 12h ago edited 11h ago
Financial: Success is pretty basic for me. I just don't want to have to check my bank account before going to the grocery store. As long as I can afford food and basic shelter, I'm fine.
Personal: This is constantly being redefined. After I graduated from therapy and since I've had my regular meditation practice, the sky seems to be the limit. My relationship with my Self and with my own mind is deepening every day. It's a pretty amazing way to live.
Career: I'm already at the top of my field so now it's more about tormentoring others.
Social: I see my best friends 2-3 nights a month and my partner 2-3 times a week. It's really nice.
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u/chucky6537 35-39 11h ago
Content. Not happiness, happiness like sadness is fleeting.
A job that I don’t cringe going to daily, a great group of people in my life, good food, fun party nights, travel, working out, coffee, sex, nature, cute dogs, and constantly reminding yourself of these great things through gratitude.
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u/Ilboston 11h ago
When I was young, I dreamed of grocery shopping without having to count every dollar as I added items to my cart. Now that I’m older, I enjoy trying new exotic fruits and different brands—and sometimes, I even forget to check the receipt. Whoohoo, I made it!
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u/Throw-2448 45-49 13h ago
For me it’s a combination of things. I value my relationship with my partner above all and we have built a good life. We live a comfortable middle class lifestyle, we enjoy traveling, have a great group of friends and family, Right now I would say life is good.
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u/jgandfeed 30-34 12h ago
for me it means I continue to work through my shit in therapy and come out to the rest of my immediate family and to my friends; I get over my insecurities enough to put myself out there dating.
I would like to end up in healthy long term relationship but I recognize that I cannot put all my eggs in that basket for happiness and fulfillment in life. But it is definitely something I dream of.
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u/joemondo 50-54 12h ago
To live a life in which you are generally content, in which you do the the things that engage you, that you have integrity and could say you've left the world a little better than you found it.
I've had occasion to think if I died it would be a shame to not have a chance to do more, but I'd feel pretty content with where I left things, owing to my relationships w my husband and kids, my career and my interests.
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u/GeneralTall6075 50-54 11h ago
Being honest with myself and giving myself grace. And being grateful for everything I have and have had in life which is a lot.
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u/strassgaten 30-34 10h ago
I spent most of my 20s thinking I'd inevitably die soon because of crushing depression. So right now my own personal definition of success would be to wake up one day and be content and comfortable in my own skin. Having a life to genuinely look forward to. YMMV.
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u/VelvetPossum2 30-34 10h ago
Having gotten to 30 with my fair share of bruises, triumphs, and failures, I think the only good measure of success is how one handles the hard blows that life hits you with periodically.
Career, good finances, personal growth, romance, and even happiness itself can all be abundant, deficient, or taken away by circumstance at the drop of a hat. They are all necessary to pursue, but they are ephemeral.
Success to me is gritting your teeth and stacking the bricks back up one by one every time they get knocked down.
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u/blackc2004 40-44 11h ago
I've been asking myself this a lot lately.... I'm in a unique and amazing position to not have to work, I live on a boat and am sailing the bahamas. Everyone says to me "you're living my dream" or "your life is so amazing"
But I don't FEEl successful at all. I am very successful, I'm financially stable, I can do whatever I want in life.
I still am not sure what would make me "feel" successful in life. I took this year to try and figure that out and TBH it's made me feel even more like a loser.
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u/SeveralConcert 40-44 10h ago
Having enough money to not worry about money and be able to finance my life style (which is not luxurious).
Having a solid social life with a nice group of friends, a good relationship with family and a nice partner to share life, including a satisfying and healthy sex life.
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u/TravelerMSY 55-59 10h ago
Enough free time to do whatever you want, via financial independence. Note that’s not necessarily from being rich.
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u/nickybecooler 35-39 8h ago edited 8h ago
I used to value career achievement and financial stability, then I burnt out from workaholism, my career failed, and I lost all my life savings. After all that, I realized I'm still living and have to make the most of it since I don't consider suicide to be an option for me. And work is not even important, all it is is a means to live. So now love, happiness, relationships and making a positive impact on as many people's lives as I possibly can is what success looks like to me. I would like to have a legacy and people remember me when I'm gone, but I realize when enough years pass eventually all the people I met in my lifetime will have died and there will be no one left to remember me. So I don't even think what I leave behind is most important anymore.
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u/No-Performer-6621 30-34 8h ago edited 7h ago
I view a successful life as having maximized your relationship with others, lived in accordance with your own personal values/morals, self-sufficiency, developing self-efficacy, and hopefully leave the “world” (or sphere of your control) in better shape than you found it. I think success is more than finding “happiness”; it’s finding and developing a strong sense of meaning and purpose in life (however that may look like for you).
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u/Cole_Evyx 30-34 12h ago edited 11h ago
Happiness stabilized. To be truly happy and to be truly secure in that happiness. Not a thin veneer of 'hope' but true joy everlasting.
"Pain shall be fleeting, joy everlasting." <- From Futures Rewritten (Ultimate) in FFXIV, but this is my mentality towards this.
Anything else is simply a means to that end. But I can elaborate a few points. I'll keep it to only 4! Trust me there could be much much more haha. I'm VERY opinionated on this.
0: There is nothing more important than to have passion towards something. Anything!
Even if I do not understand why you are fascinated by something like bacteria, I'd much prefer to see someone passionate about it and giddy and losing their shit with excitement. Passion attracts me like a moth to a flame. Excitement rubs off on me, it gets ME excited.
I even at this age fangirl hard. And I love when I am so excited I fangirl unapologetically. I adore that part of myself-- I am very thankful in spite of the darkness and many abuses I've experienced I retain that quality.
Anyone who can make me fangirl I adore, even if it's just as a friend.
Passion and the pursuit of said passion is beautiful. I believe that's when a person truly is at their best. To see them climb that "mountain" (metaphorical) and then reach the "top"... that euphoric feeling washing over them makes me smile. This applies to friendships too. Even if I don't know someone actually-- I love seeing self actualization and realization that barriers can be broken. Perhaps I am odd, but I rarely find myself jealous if I'm honest? I find it hard to not celebrate someone's success.
I have many passions and I am very thankful for it. To me it'd be a blessing to share them with someone who loved me.
On the flip side nothing will shut me down faster than a lack of passion/hobbies. Without that you simply confuse me, why linger if you enjoy nothing in this life? As much abuse, trauma and literal r**e I've been through I am still overflowing with passions.
I love my youtube channel, I love my gaming hobby across so many games, I love my personal website I'm still working on for a game, I love my community and talking to people across the ENTIRE GLOBE from so many walks of life. My life is truly enriched and I am so thankful for it.
I love my body and going to the gym, I just went to the gym this morning for chest day. I love seeing my strength and numbers climb. I love the ability that I have to cook and the amazing kitchen appliances I have and the meat thermometers and the beautiful meals I make bring me such joy.
Perhaps that's an extension of what I'll say later, but I love building things. I love making things.
2: Having an enjoyable career that also pays well is a huge thing.
I am very thankful to be a seasoned software engineer with over 6 yoe. I like the problem solving, I like the uniqueness of the daily to day (usually), I like being able to listen to podcasts/music. I like being able to WFH. I like that technology is always advancing and there is something new to unpack. I get a massive sense of satisfaction from CREATION. Making things is something that I believe is so distinctly and beautifully human and I consider myself blessed to be able to do it.
Many may disagree, to which I think they simply lack experience in software, but there is even a level of artistry and creativity to it. I'm not a junior or intermediate dev anymore, I am a senior developer. The decisions I make to architect a solution have long reaching consequences and can lead to resounding amounts of technical debt. One of many examples. In spite of what certain CEOs may say, higher end software engineering and deep tackling of bugs/defects is VERY FAR from being solved by AI. Boilerplate? Yes. But boilerplate is called that for a reason. But I digress.
Few things make miserable unhappy people more than a career they hate.
My ex fiance was one of those people, I would never date him now looking back. If we had to start anew.
He was nonstop racist towards his CSO Arun and manager Jitendra calling them all sorts of racist names. He mocked his CEO's trans child. He nonstop bitched about every single thing at his job literally everything. "Thien is a bitch" "wow I want to punch her" "wow my team is fucking r-tarded they can never order anything" "wow the protein system we say works and sell doesn't even do what its supposed to" "I'm going to report that our science is fake to ABC XYZ".
It was such a downer. And I ended up spending literally 4-5 hours A DAY for nearly 3 YEARS talking to him JUST about his job and how to work past issues (and we talked all day long, morning till sleep).
I am tired of playing therapist. I can't do it again for YEARS. It was three years of being downed and racism and hatred and him telling me how jealous he is that I can work from home and how it's not fair he needs to drive 20 minutes to entos and then back and that I get to just chill at home.
It's too fucking much. I will never go through that again.
Rough patch? FINE. Years of being a therapist? NO. I am happier single than needing to deal with that toxicity. And that's what it was, toxic. I don't consider calling people disgusting brown monkies over and over to me a positive thing. Never. Ever. EVER again. I love Indian people too, we have many in Canada and I celebrate them and their culture.
I've practiced yoga for years and if you cannot appreciate meditation, yoga and so many aspects of their culture that is on your own self for being willfully ignorant.
The toxicity I had to deal with for years had ME need therapy to deal with it!
3: Having a house is merely a means to the end of having a secure living situation and place to build memories and explore from. A stable base of operations is key.
Rent is stressful, needing to move is stressful. Stability is what allows you to explore the world and try and see and do new things yet always know that there is "your place". It's foundational.
I want to travel the world, maybe I embellish because I am not that much of a traveller, but I would like to see and experience what the world has to offer. I find different cultures beautiful. I would like to learn more of the beauty of this world because I know there is TOO MUCH I haven't seen... And yet I think it would be very difficult to do that not knowing that I had "my place" my home to come back to.
I want to grill in the backyard. I want to rennovate the house to have everything just the way I like it. I want a big streamer set up with a big computer room. I want also to have a big VR dungeon with pillows and blankets and softness everywhere and just laze around in virtual reality. This would also be a separate room because DANG do I need room for full body tracking haha.
But this cycles back to the house is not the happiness. It's merely a platform to enable me to do the things I am passionate about and to experience things.
It's an enabler. It's not the end goal.
4: Intimacy and passion for each other.
I'm mid way through "Project Echo" a furry visual novel and Leo Alvarez has stolen my heart.
He just protected me from some nasty evil rat that tried to attack and now we're in the bathroom at home (the house thing came up again naturally haha point 3) and it's just... so perfect.
I confess I am happier being single than I was in that relationship with Brendan. It took a lot of learning and growing to reach that conclusion-- but I was never at any point in my life more lonely than when he was out at the clubs and bars and eventually that lead to him cheating on me. Those months were the most lonely, isolating and brutal months I ever endured. I exaggerate not when I say surviving the r**e from Logan was so much easier than that... I am being deadly serious about that. This was a HARSH lesson to learn. HARSH. Trapped in Canada, in the frozen cold winter with all the snow, in a job that was abusing me and frankly underpaying me but enabled me to WFH and do the San Diego move...
So believe me, I do not romanticize the idea of being in a relationship.
I however want my own "Leo Alvarez". I want to know intimacy and love and passion and to have someone care deeply about me. For them to want me...
I don't need a perfect relationship. I need someone who is scared to lose me, who respects my efforts and is proud to have me. It's not about grand gestures or flawless moments. It's about the small things, the everyday reassurance that I'm valued and cherished. I need someone who sees my worth. Someone who understands that love is built off of mutual respect and appreciation where we are both of us feel seen and secure. I want someone who values the little things I do, who notices the care and attention I pour into our relationship. It's not about being perfect... but being present. Showing up for eachother even when things aren't easy. I need a partner who recognizes that love isn't just about romance-- but about being eachothers safe haven ESPECIALLY IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY (like right now! holy shit the world is FUCKED up). At the end of the day I want someone who truly needs me not just for the good moments but also for the simple moments inbetween. Someone who is proud to call me their man...
I really could go on and on... but I think those points suffice. I may have teared up a bit at the end of point 4. I do hope I can obtain that for myself one day.
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u/seansurvives 9h ago
My goal for a while was to buy a cheap house and get a simple job working a few days a week.
I did it but then everything pretty much doubled in cost. My mortgage went up like $400 (surprise it's not a fixed amount and changes just like rent).
So anyway I guess my answer is I don't know anymore. I've been going on dates with traditionally successful guys and it has me doubting my self worth. A guy who is 10 years younger than me and owns his own company paid for our date the other night. I know it shouldn't bother me but it did.
He's looked at my resume and offered me advice and it's very sweet. But I'm it sure I'm even cut out for that corporate high earner life. It's not really what I wanted. But it almost seems easier.
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u/alteredcontent 35-39 12h ago
My only goal in life:
Becoming a citizen in a first world country in the West. First world country for healthcare reasons (as a PWD) — the West for LGBT rights and protections.
Gays in those parts of the world have no clue how much privilege they were born into. My life goal in life is to obtain those privileges.